Shingles Sharpshooter

I have to write a tribute to my fearless, tenacious, persistent and persevering husband.  He tackles all the outside chores - usually willingly, and usually very professionally.  He has constructed, repaired and maintained all kinds of jobs - from laying underground sprinkler systems, digging garden beds and walkways, adding light fixtures, decks, pergolas and patios.  He is the only one who gets the pool chemicals just right.  Usually without grumbling, he digs the holes for new plants and follows directions on pruning. 

I, on the other hand, have been called the supervisor/foreman, or when he is really irritable - the dratted architect - I'm the ideas person and he is the doer.  I play the goffer to the handyman - fetch this, bring that, hold it, pass it kind of role.  But I am the queen of clean-up.

This time round he has surpassed even himself - we now have a brand new cedar gazebo that we can utilize for at least 3 seasons of the year.  It's big enough to house an outdoor lounge suite so that we are sitting comfortably in the shade, protected from the sun and rain.  Again due to his talents, we have electricity wired in so that we have light to read by in the evenings, an electric mosquito zapper for early spring and a heater for fall.

Altogether a great job accomplished.  The most hair-raising of all though,  - watching him stand on the roof shooting nails into shingles.  At least he jerry-rigged a safety harness - he never needed it, but one has to wonder.... would it have worked??

Thank you very much for another check on the honeydo list.  You are one in a million! 

Celtic Thunder

When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, sure 'tis like a morn in spring.

In the lilt of Irish laughter you can hear the angels sing

For the first time in a long time, we took ourselves off to a Friday night concert.  Celtic Thunder - a great male band from Ireland who sing mostly Irish ballads and folk songs with a smattering of jazz and rock.  My favourite song: Walk 500 Miles - I could get up and dance in the aisles - but won't because that would embarrass my husband.

The most notable side of the evening - the audience - which was probably 20 years older than us, on average.  Looking around us there was the blue hair brigade, the retirement home busloads and the granny visit family outing groups.  We made very slow progress from the front foyer, inching forward behind the canes and walkers.  Just wish I could have taken a photo of the walkers and wheelchairs banked up against the wall looking so much like a parking lot.

On the other hand, watching the old folk making painstakingly slow progress down three stairs to their respective seats, holding on for deal life to railings and loved ones, made me think that my own time was coming soon and I had better watch out.

Yes, we should do this again - had a great evening of Irish music, clapping along to the beat and swaying in our seats.

Turning a New Leaf

It has rolled around once again - the autumn season of 2011, or more appropriately here in Ontario: the fall.  I watch the changing of the guard from green to all the hues of yellow, orange, amber, red and brown, as trees clothe themselves in the colours of the new season.  As they shrug off la mode outre and don the new, it makes me aware of possibilities. 

That crisp fall air smells like apples, pumpkin pie, and rain-splashed gardens.  It is a portent of events to come.  It means winter snow and Christmas are not far away and serves as a warning to get your house in order for year end.  Birds ready themselves in a flurry of activity, swirling overhead in great flocks practicing for their run to hotter climes.  Paris fashion models strut their stuff with the new lines of the new season.  Farmers markets are stocked with colourful, fat, fresh off the farm produce. 

The autumn wind whips up waves in Burlington Bay, spraying cold drops in the hair and faces of unsuspecting passersby on the boardwalk.  In great gusts, it does its best to denude the trees of their foliage as quickly as possible.  It too is a portent for change.

Fall is, appropriately, the start of a new school year for students all across North America.  Schoolchildren and their teachers have the opportunity for the renewed verve and energy that comes with new books, sharp pencils and new clothes.   I am glad to be part of that phalanx.

The cycle of the seasons reminds me that autumn does not necessarily represent the end in absolute finality, but really a beginning - a chance for renewal and rebirth, and a chance to change. It reminds me to be flexible and to be hopeful.

All of us can turn to a new page, like turning a new leaf - we can unfold potential and possibilities.