George gone

It strikes me that we got through a phenomenal amount of music making during the two-and-a-bit days when George was with us.

To his accompaniment, we sang Schubert's Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren as well as his Shepherd on the Rock (plus clarinet, of course), Beethoven's In questa tomba oscura (bass), half a dozen assorted Dichterliebe songs (for baritone or mezzo soprano, depending which of us was available), three arias in Italian (soprano) from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, a song composed by George's great uncle Frank Bishop, a song by his grandfather Robert Tullett, Hugo Wolf's Im Frühling (soprano), the Pamina-Papageno duet from Mozart's Zauberflöte, Vaughan Williams' duet that's a setting of Shakespeare's Fear no more the heat o' the sun, an earlier than the usual setting by Schubert of Goethe's Lied der Mignon: Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt, which George in fact taught me (his friend Anna knows it and we "Skyped her" in Chile to discover its D-number before trying it out). Then this morning just before the taxi arrived to take us to the airport, he and I gave a spirited rendering of Purcell's I attempt from love's sickness to fly.

Non vocal music was the Nils Gade Fantasistykker for piano og Klarinet eller Violin (that language is Danish!) which we tried both on the violin (forgetting to close the patio door so that today my neighbour mentioned hearing it)—the first two movements—and on the clarinet—all four! Chris and George also played the arrangement for piano and clarinet of the famous slow movement for the Borodin 2nd Quartet. When neither Chris nor I was available to sing or play with him, George also played us piano solos: a Bach prelude and some Chopin mazurkas.

Another juxtaposition worth noting was that while George was sending instant wireless messages to a girl in Beijing he was simultaneously speaking over the phone to his grandmother in Wales. We also had his sister and family on line so that our grandson in London could see how the chipmunk in our garden in Ottawa climbed onto George's knee and found its peanut. "He is stuffing it in his mouth!" said Alexander.

George here

He sets off again tomorrow, more's the pity, but I think we can call his short stay with us Quality Time. George has published his own blog post about the visit, so I'll just add a few details he didn't mention: the walk we did with Elva, Laurie and Carol was the Sugar Bush trail near the Gatineau Park visitors' centre at Chelsea and after that we lunched out of doors in the beautifully relandscaped garden, complete with "waterfall" and outdoor bar, that's part of Chelsea's Pub. At home we made music, almost as in the old days, although Emma was missing to make up the quartet, singing and playing the clarinet and violin to George's accompaniment on the piano—duets and trios, including Schubert's Hirt auf dem Felsen, this evening. The kittens were the ones I've mentioned before, the Flying Club's latest mascots.

Montreal

No, that is not a picture of Montreal, but a shocking picture of Hongsibao, China. The photographer, Benoit Aquin, won an award presented by Kofi Anan for his depiction of the dust bowl of China. We saw it in Montreal as part of an astonishing photography exhibition at the Galérie Pangée on the rue St Paul near the Vieux Port. Other places we walked past were the McGill University campus, Square Victoria, the Science Centre on the river bank where they show IMAX films and advertise "Science for Kids"—oh, that does annoy me. Why say that, as though science were for kids only?—and the archeology museum at Pointe à Callière where people were queuing up to get in, as they were outside the Cirque du Soleil tents. Chris and I carried on as far as the Clock Tower on the eponymous Quai de l'Horloge where we climbed the 192 steps to see the view from the top of the tower, above the clock faces.

We had driven to Montreal to meet our son George whose conference in New York finished on Friday. He took the Amtrak train, the ADIRONDACK, that left Penn Station, NY, at 8:30 and was supposed to pull into Montreal's Gare Centrale at 19:10, except that it was an hour and a half late due to problems with three of the passengers (not George and the Danish girls with whom he was sharing window seats) at the Canadian border. Therefore before driving back to Ottawa with George Chris and I had a long wait for him on the station concourse ... There could be worse places to wait; it is quite comfortable there.

In any case seeing George again was absolutely worth the wait!

Instant friends

One of my friends, new to Facebook, has just sent a message to another of my recent Facebook friends extolling the delights of this toy by telling her:

Dieses Facebook hat es in sich, ich bin auch neu. ... In Windeseile bist du Freund mit dem Rest der Welt!

Fast as the wind blows, you're friends with the rest of the world. I like that.

On smugness

Am I too happy, too proud? For happiness, contentment rather, see my recent blogposts. As for pride, that's mostly vicarious, when I hear my husband talking about his work, for instance, or when my children tell me they've given successful presentations, Emma at an OTM Network meeting in London this week and George at the 8th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves (Amaldi8) in New York. Even my 89 year old mum told me yesterday that she'd "got an A" in two pieces of coursework she'd done for a couple of tutors at the Lifelong Learning Centre at Cardiff University. She's proud of that herself!

From sheer curiosity I did a Google search just now for "dangers of happiness" and I see that somebody has written a book on the subject—a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald.

What's brought this on (apart from thinking that my blog is looking far too bland these days) was my rereading a novel by Iris Murdoch that's been on our shelves for years, Henry and Cato, that's an exploration of whether each of us needs to suffer (or forego happiness) for the sake of our spiritual welfare. Here's Henry towards at the end of the story:

I ought not to have married. Then perhaps I could have been a holy person after my fashion ... I've let myself be conned into love and happiness ... As a spiritual being I'm done for ... Now I shall never live simply and bereft as I ought to live. I have chosen a mediocre destiny. I have failed but I don't care ... I'm doomed to be a happy man, and I shall do my damnedest to make it last.

In Lily's and Yiwen's gardens

Diplomatic Hospitality held its three hour AGM today, only it wasn't as tedious as AGMs sometimes are, because we were out of doors, surrounded by birds, butterflies, flowers and trees, some of them bonsais grown by our Chinese-Canadian hostess, Lily. The huge head of a peony in a fishbowl decorated the table and Ülle, retiring President, gave everyone a carnation as a thank you for the help she'd had in running the group this year. Along with the flower, several of us were also presented with a Certificate of Recognition for the jobs we'd done. At the end of the meeting Ülle and I commandeered one of Lily's gazebos and showed the others photos we've taken this year. I'd compiled an old fashioned album and she gave a slide show on her husband's laptop.

Yesterday, too, I was in a Chinese-Canadian's garden, having a private tour of all of every plant Yiwen is growing at her place. She served me a supper of Vietnamese noodle soup while I was there, garnished with her home grown Thai basil.

Jaguars and smaller cats

Rockcliffe Flying Club was visited by a Concours d'Élégance of British cars, yesterday, mostly Jaguars, although the High Commissioner and his wife rolled up in a Bentley. Alan Graves our Jaguar Club friend was on the field at 7a.m., helping to set up the marquees, and was still there ten hours later. The kittens are always there; they live at the airport now. Their names are Cessna and Piper.