Different circumstances

(Written on Feb. 4th, photos added today)

This morning Chris is overseas on a business trip to England, and I'm not writing this at my desk at home but at my friend's kitchen table in Kanata. She is suffering the effects of chemotherapy so just wants to sit quiet on the settee while I'm here; later I'll make some lunch for her in the hope that she'll feel like eating something. In the meantime, the kitchen renovator is doing some replumbing for me. He arrived before 7:30 as I was moving the car out of the garage and promptly set to work unloading his tools and asking me where things were. I'm not used to all this lively action before breakfast, but I daresay I'll get used to it. I made him a flask of coffee, handed him a key to the house and left him to his own devices.

I shall be going out tomorrow morning, as well. There's a snowshoeing session at the German Ambassador's residence: I'm the designated photographer. On the last two Fridays we visted the American and Barbadian residences. The Americans served us coffee, with stars and stripes on the cups and serviettes, and we could help ourselves from boxes of chocolates. Both hostesses commented on how much they enjoyed the atmosphere. Mrs Greaves from Barbados said, “You brought some life into this house!” We also brought a great many bags full of boots, woolly hats and mittens, and the plates of home made sandwiches tend to leave a trail of crumbs, but that doesn't seem to matter. The hostess gifts being presented this season are packs of greetings cards made by me. Each pack is tied together with ribbons. Apparently my cards are sent all over the world; people tell me I ought to credit myself by signing them. I've left them anonymous until now.

This is a picture I took in the grounds of the U.S. residence, the snow-shoers (left to right) representing Canada (Darlene is the leader of our group this year), Kazakhstan, the United States (the lady in the middle is the Ambassador's wife), the E.U./Belgium and Estonia/Canada (Ülle was last year's leader of our group).