Remembrance Day

In Flanders Fields (1915)

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

- John McRae

In Flanders Fields first appeared in Punch magazine on 8 December 1915. John McRae, a Canadian doctor, was brought up in Guelph, Ontario. He served in the Canadian contingent in the South African Boer War in 1900 and he volunteered to serve with the Canadian forces in France in 1914. He saw extensive service in dressing stations and hospitals in France and Flanders. Exhausted by his work and the stresses of war, Lt Colonel McRae died of pneumonia and meningitis on 28 January 1918, aged 45. He is buried at Wimereux Cemetery near Boulogne.

Aftermath (1920)

Have you forgotten yet?...

For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,

Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:

And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow

Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,

Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.

But the past is just the same -- and War's a bloody game...

Have you forgotten yet?...

Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz --

The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?

Do you remember the rats; and the stench

Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench --

And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?

Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack --

And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then

As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?

Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back

With dying eyes and lolling heads -- those ashen-grey

Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?...

Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.

- Siegfried Sassoon

Off to Montreal

I've been getting packed and ready this evening as I'm away to Quebec tomorrow, for a joint-birthday weekend with Jana (it's her birthday on Friday). Should be much fun.

I'm leaving after work tomorrow and we're planning to spend the evening curled up with the new Duran Duran Live From London DVD, and a bouteille or two. Friday night J. wants to hit this wine bar, and Saturday we've got posh dins booked at a swank resto called Club Chasse et Pêche (i.e. The Huntin' n' Fishin' Club). Sunday we'll probably head for the Musée des Beaux-Arts, as they have an exhibition of paintings from Provence at the moment - quite looking forward to a little wistful reminiscing about last year's holiday.

I shall doubtless report back on my return!

Happy Birfday to Meeee

Yep, I'm 33 today. Not sure how in the hell that happened. ;-) Especially as the last birthday I remember being excited about (in a "Wow, I'm XX years old today! Kewl!" way) was my 24th.

Like every working stiff, I'm in the office today, but at least it's a beautiful day outside. Opened some cards and presents at breakfast this morning and have been sent some nice e-mail messages. It's all good. :-)

I discovered that some cool things happened on this day in history. For instance, the Louvre opened as a museum on this day in 1793. Also, Sarah Bernhardt made her debut on the New York stage this day in 1880. Furthermore, this is the 82nd anniversary of Hitler's launching of the Beer Hall Putsch - which is most definitely not a cool event, but it has one of the silliest names ever. So it's good for a birthday snicker.

**ADDENDUM, 9.00 PM**
Just in from dinner at the bistro in the Hydrostone Market. Quite a nice little restaurant - would definitely go back. I had crab cakes and veal and two glasses of red wine and coffee with a big lump of chocolatey goodness (properly called Dark and White Chocolate Cheesecake, I believe) to finish ... mmmmmm! *pats grotesquely-distended stomach contentedly*

My birthday present from A. turned out to be a Griffin iTrip - yay! For those not in the know, the iTrip is a little FM transmitter gizmo that allows you to use your iPod in a car and broadcast through the car stereo. As he ordered it from Apple, he also took the opportunity to finally get us an AirPort card and base station (double yay!), which he's been tinkering with all evening. Not only will this allow us to broadcast music in various places through the house via the computer in the basement, but it will also facilitate the setup of a wireless Internet network. So soon, I'll be able to set up one of our laptops upstairs for my own use - which should cut down on battling with A. for keyboard time on the main computer. Good stuff all around.

Busy Weekend

Quite a bit of activity this weekend. I've just come in from having brunch with a group of friends, one of whom is in town from Newfoundland at the moment. We went to the Victory Arms down at the Lord Nelson, and it was Eggs Benedict and mimosas all round. :-)

Friday night, I decided I needed to get a jump on my Christmas shopping and so dragged A. to the big Christmas craft and antique show over at the Forum. The stuff on offer was about eighty percent twee rubbish, as usual, but actually we did find quite a few presents for people on our collective lists. The 'antique' stalls were mostly old tat from the Fifties onwards, but I did get a bit of a bargain on a cache of lovely vintage costume jewellery. Also (because one must always buy presents for oneself at these things) I found a pile of old postcards. I winkled out the oldest ones (a half-dozen dated from 1910 to 1921), which I got for $2.50 apiece. Some of them are quite sweet, and I'll try to scan and post a few later. I've got a little collection of old postcards now, which I really must figure out how to display nicely.

Then last night, A. and I went to a play at the Neptune. We actually have season tickets this year, and this was our second show. The play was Frozen by Bryony Lavery; it was very dark (the main character was a pedophile serial killer), but very well-written and acted. Not a fun thing to watch by any means, but very worthy. I'm quite looking forward to the rest of the plays this season. Neptune always does a very good job of mixing well-known plays with the not so well-known, comedies and dramas, and a few brand-new and/or local things as well. For a small city like Halifax, it really is a remarkably good little theatre.

Bonfire Night

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot.
For I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot.









This is Bonfire Night (Guy Fawkes) in the UK - though I imagine there will probably be a few fires even around the Maritimes tonight. When I lived in Brighton, I went once to the bonfire celebrations in the nearby county town of Lewes, which are probably the most famous in England. It was something I will never forget - the press of the crowds, the noise, the darkness, and all that fire. Very primeval.

Of course, the other thing I won't forget is the strident anti-Catholic theme of most of the traditional bonfire processions. In Lewes, I was astonished to see a huge banner strung up above the High Street which read 'No Popery'. Then there are the other, politically incorrect, verses of the Bonfire Prayer above, which include:

A penny loaf to feed the Pope
A farthing o'cheese to choke him
A pint of beer to rinse it down
A faggot of sticks to burn him.

Burn him in a tub of tar
Burn him like a blazing star
Burn his body from his head
Then we'll say old Pope is dead!

Not that the Catholic Church needs me coming to its defence, mind. I'm just pointing it out, as a bizarre historical anachronism.

Autumn Leaves

Wow. What a difference twelve days makes at this time of year. On 22 October, I posted this pic of the maple tree on our front lawn:

And this was the scene this morning:


A. will doubtless have lots of fun with his new leaf blowing/sucking/mulching machine this weekend, I think!

Such a beautiful morning here, so I took a few pics outside before going to work and posted them over at Flickr.

Kate, Dear Kate...How I Have Missed You

I've always adored Kate Bush. Her new album Aerial (her first for 12 years) is out next week. But most of it can be streamed at the moment from nme.com, so I've been listening to it today. It's a delight. Much of it is just Kate playing piano and the sound of her beautiful, dreamy, ethereal voice.

There's a few rather wacky touches, as are to be expected from Kate. 'Prelude', the first track on the second CD of Aerial, features what sounds like a child's voiceover and the coo of mourning doves (the speakers on my office computer aren't the greatest, so it's hard to be sure). Actually, there seems to be rather a lot of birdsong. But for sheer weirdness, however, nothing could ever beat the Bulgarian choristers she had singing backup on most of The Sensual World. Aerial is considerably less odd, but no less enjoyable.

BOO!

What a great Halloween night this is - dry, calm and very mild. Usually, Halloween night in Nova Scotia can be relied upon to be cold and rainy, which is always the pits. I remember so many years when I was a kid, working to come up with a really good costume, then having it wrecked because it was freezing out and my mother insisted that I wear my snowsuit underneath. Oh, the indignity.

I raced home after work today (watching all the kiddies going door-to-door en route), lit the jack o'lantern and put it out on the deck...but thus far tonight, there have been no trick-or-treaters. *sigh* Not surprising - we didn't have any last year either. Since our street is a cul-de-sac, with only a handful of houses, I guess the local kids can't be bothered with us. And apparently, most kids get driven around by overprotective or lazy parents these days.

It was different when I was a kid. Granted, I grew up in a small village, where there weren't that many neighbours, and they lived far apart. But maybe because there were relatively few houses, we made sure not to miss any at Halloween.

The other great thing about trick-or-treating in the country is the quality of one's haul of treats. When my brother and I were very young, and living in Toronto, anything we brought home that wasn't wrapped was chucked out. But having then moved to a rural community in Cape Breton, it became OK to eat all the good home-made stuff, like toffee apples and fudge, because we knew all our neighbours and could tell our parents who had given us what.

Eh...it's just not the same these days, I tell ye....
*consoles self with unclaimed stash of Doritos and mini Crispy Crunch bars*

Recent Reading

This morning, I finished The Time Traveller's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (loaned to me by Jana). It was not at all what I was expecting. I thought it would be a historical novel, but it was entirely contemporary. Wasn't sure that it would hold my interest, but it was really awfully good, and quite a touching love story. Not the kind of thing I usually read, but I liked it a lot.

On my iPod at the moment is another audiobook, The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. I haven't read any pure fantasy like this in quite a while. It's OK, but like so many novels of its type, the story is heavily Tolkienesque; there's definitely a finite number of ways the standard sword'n'sorcery saga can be told. Still, it's fairly frothy, so in that sense it's not a bad thing to be listening to while commuting. And unsurprisingly, it's enormous - presented on a whopping twenty-nine CDs - whoooo!

Not sure what I'll start reading next - though I'm kind of tempted by Nick Bantock's Morning Star Trilogy (which I recently bought). Hmmm...

Adventures in Home Decorating (con't)

The second floor of our house is a half-storey; it consists only of two bedrooms and a large landing at the top of the stairs. The landing is a quirky, eccentric space, and it's one of the things I liked most about the house from the first time I viewed it.

I have envisioned the space as a little reading area. I went as far as buying a nice armchair and small endtable for it, but other than that, nothing much has been done so far. But yesterday, I bought a rug (as the landing is the only place in the house where the original wood floors have not been refinished). I saw this rug a month or so ago, and instantly knew it was the one I wanted - and so I snagged it yesterday when it went on sale. This is it (still somewhat rumpled from the packaging). I really like the circles, and the different shades of blue:


It's weird how a single item can inspire a whole space. As soon as I saw this rug, I suddenly knew how I wanted the landing to look: pale yellow walls, blond wood shelves for books, the armchair (which is beige), and roman blinds and an interesting lamp in shades of blue, echoing the rug.

Now that I can see it, I want it to look that way NOW. ;-) But I think I'll have to wait another month or two before there's time for things like painting.