New Year's Eve at Milnes

    As the world goes to Hell, its nice that at least traditions with friends continue.

    For years on New Year’s Eve, a group of friends have been gathering at Milnes to enjoy each others company, eat, and then bravely face the new year.  The tradition continued last night, although without Trevor and Norma who were sadly laid up and homebound with illness.  Those that could make it ate a wonderful meal that Lyuba prepared, (desserts by Joan), had lots of laughs, and having eaten way too much, fought to stay awake until midnight.

    The evening began chaotically for Joan and I, we were driving through a snowstorm, halfway to Milnes, when we realized we had forgotten a couple of items.  We turned around, and on our way home we were stopped by the RCMP roadblock checking for drunk drivers.  Once through that, we retrieved what we had forgotten (and in the process disturbed the pets at home, who thought we had returned for the night).  

    Anyway, forgotten items in hand, we got back into the car and drove again through the snowstorm, were stopped again by the RCMP roadblock, but this time we actually made it to Milnes although 20 minutes late.

    Below Dave Milne, who is originally from England, lights his traditional Christmas pudding.

I paint everyday, check out my works at:  www.davidmarchant.ca

The End of the Year

    This is not a very exciting photo to usher the year out, but like many people around the world, I don’t know that 2016 deserves much, I will be happy to see it go.  I wish I could be more optimistic about the upcoming year, but things have been set up in 2016 to make 2017 even scarier.  

    Oh well, at the moment a fresh snow is falling and making things look cleaner and more pristine and I guess I will just appreciate the present and be satisfied with it.

Check out my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Enough Pillows for you Lucifer?

    Cats really know how to relax.  Here is Lucifer laying on Joan’s heat pad and leaning against three pillows.  Yesterday Joan showed me some internet photos of dogs stretched out and sleeping in all kinds of uncomfortable positions,  cats do seem to be a bit smarter when it comes to comfort.

You can see my paintings at:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Those Blue Mountains

    During those times when I have been at the seashore, I got great pleasure out of just being able to look out at that large expanse of blue and its ever changing appearance due to the light.  I get the same pleasure out of the mountains that run along both sides of the Robson Valley.  

    I am always impressed at just how blue our mountains can appear.  I always think back to 1968 when I  bought the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo album and first heard the song “In the Blue Canadian Rockies”.  I can assure you after living beside them all these years, the Canadian Rockies often are literally blue.

You can view my paintings at:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Windy

    I confess sometimes when we are out on one of our walks, I am thinking, “We must be crazy to be out on a day like this.”  That was the feeling I got yesterday when we were out being buffeted back and forth by the gusts of roaring wind.  It was fairly brutal.  Luckily it is only really bad going one way, when we turned around to walk back it was almost tolerable.  

    Even Skye was happy to be out of the wind.  She jumped right into the car instead of partaking in her usual sniffing around the parking area.

    Below is a photo of the windblown snow sweeping across the highway.

Check out my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Northern Pygmy Owl

    It was cold yesterday afternoon (-19C,-2F) but we always make ourselves go for a walk, so we drove down to Horseshoe Lake Road.  When I got out of the car I spotted a little ball of fluff sitting on the very top of one of the willow trees.  I didn’t know what kind of bird it was, but I somehow felt it was some kind of predator, who seemed to be waiting for a victim to fly by.  

    It was so high in the tree that I couldn’t really identify it.  I took the photo and this morning when I downloaded it into the computer, I could see more detail.  I got out my bird book and was able to identify by its marking that it was a Northern Pygmy Owl.  They are very small owls, only 7” (18cm) in length.  I was a bit surprised that it didn’t fly off when we were walking around below it, and that did remind me of owl behavior.

    I was sorry that I couldn’t get its face in the shot, because they are cute little guys.

Take a look at my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca

Merry Christmas

    Joan and I had a happy Christmas morning.  Santa brought her the fancy bread knife she wanted and he brought me the harmonicas that I was hoping for, and of course, our friend Di, gave us way too many curious gifts, including special reading socks for me (I didn’t realize socks were becoming so specialized) and for Joan a book of Hygge (Swedish ways to live well) and and for the both of us: Elton John-style Christmas glasses.  All of the gifts she sent were beautifully wrapped and labelled with her famous riddles and clues about each gift.

    Joan didn’t have a very good Christmas Eve Day yesterday.  Normally we have a small group of close friends over for fancy snacks, but this year because one of the group was still weak from getting out of the hospital, and probably couldn’t come over, Joan organized that we all get together briefly at their house.  She spent most of the day yesterday making a trifle for the occasion and then she felt a cold coming on and didn’t want to spread it, so ended up not even going to the party to help eat the trifle.

    Below is a photo of the two of us wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.

Check out my paintings:  www.davidmarchant.ca