Remembrance Day

When I see a veteran laying a wreath, when I watch them stand back and salute the cenotaph, I wonder...what do they think about?

It's an emotional day, a day to reflect on war and on peace, on the difference between fighting for the sake of it and fighting for your country, and for contemplating the sometimes blurry lines between right and wrong.

 During my years in the Canadian Navy, I paraded every Remembrance Day and think it's important for all Canadians to remember. The first year I took my now-strapping 11 year old son to a parade he was six months old and he cried the entire time...at the bitter wind that blew that day, at the sound of the bagpipes, at being cooped up for what to him must have seemed a very long time. A few years later as a first year Beaver Scout, he came with me to the Legion and handed out thank you letters to Veterans.

All three of my children are in Scouts and have not missed a Remembrance parade in years. Full uniform, bright and shiny, carry the flag into the church for the service and then parade with the firefighters, cadets, airforce, pipeband and armed forces in our small town ceremony. This year, Anna got to read In Flanders Fields at the service, and did a fabulous job with such a difficult poem. She and another Cub were also the two chosen to lay the wreath at the Cenotaph this year.

And as I watched her stand back and salute alongside a veteran, I wondered...what did she think about?

Bouncing Around the Internet

I hate finding new, awesome, informative, fascinating web sites.

No really.

Hate it because it makes me think there is not enough time in the day. Because I don't have enough memory to store all the fantastic snippets of knowledge I find. The internet is bad enough with all those great blogs (which I struggle to read regularly and comment on, but I love you, I really do!) and I have stacks of books piled up that I want to get to, and so having a constant feed of new material is dizzying.

I want to have an eidetic memory. I want to slow down time to savour articles instead of rushing through them. I thirst for new knowledge, but don't know what the heck to do with it once I have it. Even the fashionable cocktail party where such remarks would seem pithy and intelligent is, sadly, a thing largely of my past (more of that in another post).

But I have to, I must, introduce you to some of my favourite web sites. They shadow me on Facebook (or rather I shadow them) so just when I think it's safe, I get a sniff of a great story and bam, I'm gone. I'm like a kitten chasing a beam of light, bouncing from one idea to the next.

Medievalists.net - Facebook page and web site. This site might be off beat for some of you but, fixated as I am on medieval history, it's just my cuppa tea. Of course the tea always goes cold while I'm reading...

Arts and Letters Daily Oh my, so many cool stories to link from. This site scours the internet for noteworthy news, book reviews, critiques and columns to pique your interest: What happened to irony? askes one; Bram Stoker's notebook, declares another; Know your Wine, a third beckons. Marx and Prostitutes, Feminism on the Internet, PG Wodehouse, Questioning moral progress...all matters philosophical, literary,scientific, aesthethical, cultural...a modern modern major general, in fact.

Book Riot How do I love thee? Let me count the ways... Reading Pathways (or how to read Dickens, Austen, Atwood...ongoing series); Critical Linking, Reading for the Apocalypse (I mean, who can resist, really?) and loads of great questions on Facebook that make me think.

There's so much more I could say about these sites, but--oh look, is that a light? (Kitten bounces off to look at cool new thing glimmering on the horizon).

Music, Animals and Attitude: Grace

In this short 3-part series, I looked at some of the characteristics of my children through the lenses of Music (Erik) and Animals (Anna).

Part 3 today is about my absolutely adorable Grace. The 8-year old who, when touring the RCMP facility with the Cubs was pegged by the older officer, obviously well versed in character profiling. He took one look at her and said. "You're trouble, aren't you? But you're cute, and you get away with it, don't you?"

Now I'm not one for labelling the kids. They are what they are and have infinite opportunity for growth and maturity, for development and change.

But my dad snapped this picture last weekend on a walk through our fields. And I have to say, it's a pretty accurate representation of the spirited, bright, independent being that is my youngest.

Let's take a closer look...

Music, Animals and Attitude: Anna

Our farm animals are, well, a bit on the wild side. When Andrew needs to round them up, he uses a combination of stealth and trickery, with a healthy dose of sheer luck. We deliberately picked hardy stock, the kind that fend largely for themselves.

Enter Anna. Who has an infinite amount of patience, not heard of among anyone else in the family.

Anna the sheep whisperer

She can spend hours hanging out with the animals. Waiting for them not to fear her, waiting for them to get close, waiting to become friends with them.

Anna and Freedom the Llama

Music, Animals and Attitude: Erik

The school our children go to has a band. Starting in grade 4, the students get to pick an instrument...clarinet, flute, drum.

Anna, as soon as she hit Grade 4, knew she wanted to play the saxophone. Grace, only now in grade 3, already has a trumpet. But Erik...well, he can be obstinate, and he didn't want to just play any instrument that the school taught. Erik wanted to play a trombone. Never mind that their music teacher was only teaching treble clef instruments. Never mind that he has never before showed any musical inclination. Never mind that no-one in our family plays a trombone.

True to form, he's figuring it all by himself. One note at a time.

November the Fifth

Yesterday was November the Fifth, which in Canada doesn't mean much but in England is a day for fireworks, potatoes cooked in embers so that they are burnt on the outside and inedible inside, and of course the extrememly medieval practice of committing the effigy of a man to the flames of a bonfire. Burning Guy Fawkes-who was really just the fall guy for the mastermind of the gun powder plot, Robert Catesby - may have fallen out of favour in our more politically correct times (when I tried explaining what to me was a fun childhood tradition to my children, I found myself reeling from my own explanations), but Guy himself, largely due to the graphic novel and movie V for Vendetta, has made something of a comeback as the face of protest.

As interesting as this all is (and in the wake of the current Occupy protests, there are some interesting parallels) it's not what this blog is about today.

This weekend, my parents visited, and since it was such a glorious day on Saturday I had the bright idea to have a November 5th bonfire. Dad bought some fireworks, the kids and Andrew dragged wood, and I sat around sipping wine. The usual division of labour on the farm. It was a cold enough night once the sun went down, we had a brief interlude of rounding up sheep (never a dull moment), and then we settled in around the fire and managed to make it through to dark when the fireworks lit up the night.

We did not burn a guy. But we did cook potatoes in the embers to go with dinner. And they were excellent.

One

One visit from Grandparents
One late night, and one night playing board games
One full day
One long walk
One bonfire
One fireworks night
One great weekend