No time to write

I'm too busy singing, playing and keeping the three men fed and happy to write my blog posts! Today I went flying with Chris while George and Jonathan were out skiing with Christine, Julia and Ian; tomorrow with six other people the four of us will drive to a Lodge at Maniwaki for New Year's Eve. Chris, George, Jonathan and I will not come straight back home on New Year's Day, but intend to continue along the road via Mont Laurier to the Mont Tremblant area for another night away, and thence back towards Ottawa via the Omega Park and Montebello on Wednesday.

Last night we sang in six parts with Bill, Jennie and Christine and even had a go at the Geographical Fugue by Ernst Koch! We're having enormous fun.

Written at Tim Horton's

Two old gentlemen at the next table have come here to escape from their families after Christmas and to pass the time of day. They aren't in any hurry to leave. The place is decorated with pictures of coffee mugs sitting in drifts of snow, wrapped in scarves. We're waiting for our winter tyres to be fitted onto our car by the Frisby Tire Company. This is a job that would have been done weeks ago, had the queue not been so long, most drivers caught by surprise by the early onset of this winter.

Just made Apple Fritters now on the shelf! These people are good advertisers. Ho Ho Ho, Happy Holidays! is sprayed onto the window in mirror writing so that it can be read from outside; we have just learned that this would be considered highly insulting to Australian mothers, "ho" being a slang abbreviation for a woman of ill repute, down under. What a minefield language is. Hence the use of euphemisms, I suppose. The Ottawa Sun has a page of advertisements for the services of such women. "Extremely friendly" or "anxiously awaiting for you" (sic), they advertise themselves either as "temporary girlfriends" or "open-minded ... Egyptian Princesses" and such.

Where was I? I can't say we accomplished much yesterday but it was great relaxation—after a late breakfast, a short ride north to the Gatineau Park information centre at Chelsea where there's an old sugar shack by the car park, now used as a shelter for waxing one's skis or having one's Christmas Dinner on the picnic table within. Elva, whom we met here, said that she'd seen a family doing exactly that the day before.

Having walked the Sugar Bush Trail on clean, white snow, across the bridge by the beaver dam, now buried in a drift, I lit a log fire in the stove that heats the shack, George having a split a log for kindling with the axe provided (I averted my eyes as he was wielding it) and smoke began to pour from the chimney. Jonathan and George took many artistic photographs, providing an impressive slide show at the end of the day.

Lunch was chilli beef previously made by Laurie at his house on the hill, accompanied by cornbread freshly baked by Elva and me, after which Jonathan and I donned the two pairs of traditional snowshoes available, George volunteering to wade after us thigh deep and with great difficulty so that we could only do a few hundred metres of bush-whacking on the steep slope behind the house. All the same, "You are adventurous, Mrs Hobbs!" exclaimed Jonathan, and I took this as a compliment. I was following the deer tracks, but we made too much noise to spot any wildlife bar a small brown squirrel.

After an hour or so more music-making back at our house, supper was cassoulet—more beans!—for which Elva and Laurie had come to join us again. The most fun for the men was playing with the remote controlled toy helicopter that Jonathan has been inspired to give Chris as a present. It keeps crashing in the Christmas tree, but no harm done yet.

Chris, George and Jonathan having been playing Mozart's Kegelstatt Trio in the background as I have been typing this up. Wonderful.

Christmas Day

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Those are the words of the round we all sang at the beginning of Bill's and Jennie's party last Friday and they sprang to mind at midnight when the bells of the Notre Dame Basilica a kilometre away began to announce Christmas Day; like a small child, I was too excited to go to sleep.

Now it's Boxing Day, and we're just getting up for our family conference call over the international telecommunications network. We postponed it till now because of George's late arrival in Ottawa... actually landing a quarter of an hour early, but we still didn't have our meal until after six. The airport was surprisingly crowded, but we saw the Vancouver 'plane pulling into its gate and spotted George and Jonathan as they came down the escalator into the baggage hall with its tall Christmas tree and wall of water.

Back at the house we had a merry evening with music galore, before, during and after our very informal Christmas Dinner, the young men playing the rented violin and 'cello, George also on the piano, Chris playing his clarinet and singing, me singing and on the piano: solos, duets, trios and quartets. One of the pieces I've found is a six part round. We need two more musicians to do that one properly. Any volunteers, please get in touch!

On Christmas Eve

No shortage of juxtapositions today!

After a slow and lazy start, and a chat to my sister and my mother in Wales by 'phone, we picked up Faith's parcel waiting for us at the post office, then drove down dry roads to the Flying Club where we waged an almighty battle against our wing-covers. Had we not left the covers off our aeroplane for the last few days because of the torrential rain we've had, when the temperature dropped last night, the wet material would have frozen, the resulting ice sticking to the wings so that we'd never have got them off again. Today, we were in a position to fit them, dry, onto dry wings, but the wind gusting to 25 knots made it impossible for us to hold onto them and tie them down, so wildly did they billow. In the end Kathy Fox most kindly offered to be a third person in our ground crew; then we could just about do it.

I was intending to write another blog post about how to humidify one's basement by (a) leaving one's wing covers to dry all over the floor, and (b) having the melt water flood the carpeted area at the bottom of the stairs where George is about to sleep, but I never got round to it, so you'll just have to imagine. Here's a picture of Chris trying in vain to prevent the flood in our basement.

It was Kathy's birthday today and she managed to treat herself to a celebratory flight before the wind picked up too much and the blizzard (sorry, "light flurries") began. We sympathised with her bad luck in being born on December 24th when people are too preoccupied with Christmas preparations to party with her, but she says that as the years go by this seems to matter less and less. We felt more sorry for the African gentleman who'd come to service the coffee machine and who slipped and fell on the ice in the car park as we were leaving, banging the back of his head so badly that blood flowed and he was knocked unconscious, his boxes flying all over the place. Had he fallen a moment later we'd have driven off and been none the wiser, but luckily we saw the accident in the rear view mirror and were able to leap out of the car and hurry over to help. Chris immediately dialled 911 (it's not 999 here) for the ambulance that took a long while to arrive because of the unusual address. Meanwhile the gentleman on the ground had come round and was all for getting up and driving away, but we insisted he stay where he was, lying on his side. We used Chris' pullover as a pillow for him, before the flying club staff came to help with a real pillow and a blanket. Then we witnessed a little more drama as the ambulance men had to work hard to persuade the man to go with them. He had no health card, it transpired, perhaps because he is a recent immigrant, probably very alarmed at the thought of having to pay for all this medical intervention. His English wasn't too good, so I'd tried to reassure him in French, but hadn't thought to ask where he came from. I did establish that he lived alone at home so there was apparently nobody who cared that he'd fallen over. I hope he is all right; we are still thinking of him.

Late for lunch, we ate some soup at Piccolo Grande on MacKay Street, now run by a very nice Indian lady from Kenya who always recognises us when we stop there, and read the papers to calm ourselves down. On the way home we bought a floor mat to mitigate muddy wet footprints round our kitchen door and some of Chris' favourite Ambrosia apples from the healthfood shop, Nature's Buzz.

As we were doing all this, George and his friend Jonathan (three hours behind us) were coming through customs and immigration at Vancouver airport after their long, long flight from Sydney, and checking into their hotel, so when we came in, we had a conversation with them over the Skype link. Simultaneously, on the other virtual line, we were watching Emma and Peter with little Alexander in London, who was toddling round his other grandparents' house! What would we do without the Internet? When those calls were done, I clicked on the BBC website to hear the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College, Cambridge. Chris ventured out into the snow again, to go running at the gym.

This evening I've contrived to dry the basement carpet, catch up with my washing and make some mini trifles for tomorrow, that entailed peeling a pomegranate and removing the lovely seeds. We practised four Schubert songs and a movement from a clarinet sonata by Vanhal. And I have sent some more e-messages to my friends and relations.

Playing and singing

Isn't this a wonderful sight? This is a corner of the violin shop from which we have hired a 'cello and a violin in anticipation of George's and Jonathan's arrival on Christmas Day.

A habit we've acquired here is to join the party at Jennie's and Bill's house to sing carols once a year, and that's what we did last night. We took my viola and Chris' clarinet along. This morning Chris sent Elva an email describing how we had

ended up at about a quarter past midnight getting lost (even with Ali in the car) trying to drive a Paris-based, Klezmer clarinet player back to the place where he was staying. He had spent the last part of the party teaching me Klezmer scales and wondering why I couldn't "just let go and let the music happen".

Other instruments at the party were the piano, a violin, a flute, a recorder and Bill's guitar. And our voices of course; the South American participants (from Columbia and Mexico)—preferred to sing in Spanish:

Belén, campanas de Belén,
que los ángeles tocan
¿qué nuevas nos traéis?

There was a French Canadian couple too; Marc Antoine demonstrating the correct pronunciation of Il est né, le Divin Enfant! Jouez hautbois... that we all repeated in chorus (sounding the Z). We sing in four parts, some of the carols very well known, some of them less familiar unless you have done a little pub caroling from time to time. A local folklorist called Shelley Posen has compiled an anthology of "old and little-known Christmas Carols", such as A Song for a Time that dates back to the days in Old England when everybody knew his place:

A song for a time when the sweet bells chime
Calling rich and poor to pray
On that joyful morn when Christ was born
On that holy Christmas day.

The squire came forth from his rich old hall
And the peasants by two and by three.
The woodman let his hatchet fall
And the shepherd left his tree.

Hindered by berms

We had a major snow storm on Sunday, which has made it difficult to get about. Bus riders for example have to clamber over berms of snow to get from their bus stop into the bus, as this news report says. "Berm", is a word I have only learned very recently but I know it now, having lost a battle with one early yesterday morning, when attempting to drive Chris to work. The car felt so out of control as we approached the heaped up snow blocking the end of our street that at the third attempt I gave up and we swapped seats; a more masculine style of driving was required to cross this barrier into King Edward Avenue before the lights changed.

If you want to go sledging though, or sledding, as they say here, the berm is a good thing, a safety feature. At Green Creek, for example, at the Orleans end of the Rockcliffe Parkway, there is a:

Very large natural city-wide hill, multi-level slope, straight run, wide open run offs, parking provided, lighting, no obstructions, well bermed away from the Creek. Placement of hay sacks on the berming at the base of the hill.

Going to fetch the tree

All photos for this post were taken by Carol Hinde.

The current weather report for Ottawa, measurements taken at 2p.m., reads as follows: temperature -12˚C, heavy snow, feels like -23˚C, wind: E 39km/h, wind gusts: 59km/h, relative Humidity: 92%, pressure: 99.74 kPa, visibility: 0.2 km, ceiling: 200 ft. So the drift of snow now pressing up against our kitchen door is up to my thighs and my flower pots and garden bench have long since disappeared. Leaning against our front door is the freshly cut Christmas tree that we went to fetch yesterday from Bob's and Tracy's property just outside the village of Bourget, in Prescott and Russell county.

Before I describe the fetching of it, you ought to click on the link to Monty Python's Lumberjack Song to put you in the right frame of mind.

John, Chris and I met three of the Buchan family at the Dynasty restaurant yesterday, setting off in convoy along Highway 17 down the Ottawa River, through Orleans and Cumberland. Chris having regretted the loss of one of his mittens as we shovelled more snow off and around the aeroplane before our brunch, our first stop had to be the Rockland branch of Marks Work Wearhouse to stock up on insulated mittens. Then we took Highway 8 south across the flat, white country fields through the lively little community of Clarence Creek and beyond. "Come back soon!" said the road signs, as we left the villages behind.

Our destination was down Schnupp Road, where the Schnupps live (Bob's German neighbours). Carol made sure we had her car in sight as she turned off this road down the long, snowy driveway towards Bob's house, the tall fir trees all around us, some of which must be felled, Christmas or no Christmas, or they would get too crowded. (We couldn't help wondering how this used to work before human beings settled here; would wandering herds of moose have to knock some over?) Above all, the trees threatening to grow into the power lines must be lopped before they cause power cuts.

Once we'd stopped the two cars in front of the house, the first instinct of all six of us was to hurry straight inside where it was warm. The house had a beautiful, light and spacious interior under a three storey high cathedral ceiling and the largest side of the house consisted entirely of windows to show the view. Deer frequently pass by and last week a flock of wild turkeys landed in the field. There's a pond that can be swept for skating, but the last time they did this three people came in with broken bones. Anyway, Tracy had made preparations to make any visitors feel welcome the moment they stepped in, with a fire in the grate, not one but two large Christmas trees lavishly decorated, greenery over the mantelpiece and red bows on the banisters, wine and cheese laid out in readiness on the tables. In the corner stood a large dinosaur skeleton made of wood which unfortunately fell in half when Kathryn examined it, but nobody seemed to mind. Their little boy of four was away visiting his grandmother.

Though some of us weren't in much hurry to choose our tree, it was felt that we should venture out before sunset in case it got too dark to see what we were looking for, so no sooner had we managed to struggle out of all our outdoor things we had to start putting them on again. It was advisable to put snowshoes on as well.

Don and Bob, truly rugged lumberjacks, brought their power saws along (Bob's was a very noisy chain saw). You're not a proper Canadian if you don't possess one of these.

The trees under consideration were not directly on the driveway, so in order to examine them we had to plunge into the deeper snow before beginning the lumberjack work. Kathryn held the Buchans' tree steady as her father sawed, but trees are heavy things. As we yelled "Timber!" down she went under its weight.

"I'd like my tree to be no bigger than me," I suggested, but as there were no suitable trees my size, a bigger one it had to be, and "we can cut off the top part for you." The same applied to John's choice. As the others were working on that, I salvaged some trimmed-off branches for decorative purposes.

Now the downed trees had to be carried or dragged back to our cars and trimmed quite a bit more before all three of them could be crammed into the back of Carol's Volvo. We emptied that car of all its removable contents, flattened the seats, decided to take an extra passenger in our smaller car, put bags round the trunks so that the Volvo's front seat passenger wouldn't get knocked out, put the smallest tree into a large plastic bag—How many pilots does it take to bag a fir tree? (the answer is four)—so that it could be slid on top of the other two trees, but they still wouldn't fit. "Only another foot and a half sticking out at the back!" someone said. "Push!" The experts pushed, the onlookers stamping our feet in a vain attempt to keep the blood flowing, but it was no good, the largest tree had to be trimmed again, Don's smaller saw the tool for this, not the chain saw which might have wrecked the car, and the deed was done to a great cheer.

Quickly, we repaired to the wonderful warmth of indoors for a celebratory glass of wine. Not only were we served refreshments; as we said goodbye, Tracy gave us a gift-wrapped decorations to hang on our trees at home, and a warm invitation to "come back soon" —which we well might.

After pushing again to rescue our car from the wall of snow that Chris had reversed into, wheels spinning, we climbed back in and drove home a different way, via Carlsbad Springs, Russell Road dark and mysterious under the lowering stratus clouds, unlit except for the Christmas lights in people's gardens and round their windows and doorways. We passed a pub called Jacques' Trap, which if you say it aloud, sounds like something none too appetising. We might take George and Jonathan for a meal there when they come.