A variety of animals

It was a good weekend altogether. Not only did we share it with a whole bunch of friends, we also shared it with some children and some animals. (I'd rather not count the roadkill, although I must admit that the dead porcupine we passed on Sunday made an impressive sight.)

Saturday, several of us drove to Bourget to visit Bob, Tracey and young Jonas, who showed one of his visitors some fishing in their pond. Small fish and large, noisy frogs, mostly, but a walleye had been spotted there, which Tracey hopes to cook one of these days. They've been pestered by an enormous beaver too whom the neighbour had seen to with a shot gun. There's little sentimentality about animals in the countryside; it's a them-or-us war, more often than not. Anyhow, while I walked around the pond I admired the monarch butterflies and the spiders among the flowers. Another visitor was the dog, Sasha, a golden brown softie.

Sunday saw us on horseback, as described in my last post, and on the way home Chris told Carol about the Edwin Muir poem, The Horses, which he and I first read at an impressionable age. I still think it's a great poem.

We also met the cats at Nicolas' / Isabelle's house and at the ranch that morning, and a large woolly poodle at the roadside stables. On the way home, we drove past a field full of llamas, while talking about how good it was for children like the two little boys we'd met to grow up in such surroundings, having unconfined adventures. How many city kids get the chance to play like that?

Having crossed the Ottawa River into Ontario on board the Thurso ferry, we were home in time for me to snatch a siesta before setting out again to meet a third lot of friendly people: Nicola, Maha and their daughter Lulu, in New Edinburgh. What a pleasant evening! As we came down the steps into their back garden we were greeted by a magnificent spread of Mediterranean dishes on the patio table (Maha comes from Syria) to which we tried to do justice as darkness fell and the stars, lamp, torch and candles came out (Chris questioning Maha about the Abasid Caliphate in which he's recently been taking an interest), while a family of raccoons rooted and snuffled in the flower beds behind us and the three cats of the household stretched themselves decoratively on the steps, among the flower pots. Indoors we also met the pet turtle.