Intermission

Time management is not my forté on sunny days that tempt me out of the house, so this blog is getting out of date.

I've just come in from seeing an enchanting documentary about Chagall projected onto a screen at the Alliance Française and he's not the only artist I ought to mention in conjunction with my last post about Klee. I see many parallels between Chagall and Klee and maybe most artists have this otherworldly quality. Last week I joined a guided tour round the new Van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery and while I was there also took the opportunity to look at the Gallery's other much talked about exhibit, The Clock, created by Christian Marclay. As I'd been warned, this is compulsive viewing and prevents you from whatever else you're supposed to be doing. Yes, it is about time(!)––I'll post further details anon.

Elva gardening at the Flying Club

Since my return from abroad I've been compiling and editing a new edition of Crosswinds for the Flying Club. I took photos of / joined in with the annual spring clean at the Club, doing four hours of gardening there (Carol and Elva did five). A last minute submission from a club member that held up the completion of the newsletter had to be inserted because it made such a gripping read: the story of "Another Long Flight" (a couple of years ago he flew alone to the Yukon and back in a small 'plane and wrote about that too)––this time it is a journey through cancer that he describes. I'm glad to say it has a happy ending

The surgical team told me that mine was the best outcome they had yet seen for a Whipple [a surgical procedure taking 8 hours]―not one of the best, the best.

and the article begins and ends with the man's sheer joy at being able to fly solo again. It's not been published yet but the draft version has already moved one of my fellow editors to tears. I'll post a link once it comes on line.

Obviously a lot depends on the patient's own attitude where cancer is concerned, but Ottawa seems a good place to be if you're suffering from this disease. Last weekend Chris and I had another encounter with a local cancer survivor, a friend who said that his surgery had taken as many as 13 hours and that twelve doctors had worked as a team to treat him before and after––the treatment's not over yet but he too seems very optimistic and marvels that he hasn't had to fork out any money for it. At Carol's instigation nine of us drove to his house to help deal with an extra twist of fate, so to speak: a tornado has just felled several trees on the property and his wife, strong as she is, my goodness, can't clear up the damage single handed. So there we all were in the hot sun lumberjacking, Don with the power saw, the rest of us clipping and dragging branches to a large bonfire by the pond (for which a permit had been granted by the authorities). It was sweaty work, but I can't say we didn't enjoy it. We did. I also got to drive a small tractor, "rather alarmingly," according to some.