I don’t know who was more excited, me or the children, when Michael Manyeagles visited the Ashern Early Years School to share with us a bit about his craft and to give us the opportunity to try it out for ourselves. I must admit to having been eagerly awaiting his visit for a while because I just love the beautiful soapstone pieces that I have seen in various craft fairs and local markets (the Forks for example) and was interested…
Sitting out on the front porch, on a little wooden bench like in the movies, under the evening sunshine, listening to the birds chirping as I read and write is quite different from how I was spending my evenings this time last year. At best it would have been on some terrace in front of an overcrowded, over-priced café with the sound of traffic, and the rumble of the metro beneath my feet. If there’s one thing about the rural…
I had never heard of a Bonspiel until this week and as a linguist I couldn’t help but wonder if it might have a particular meaning; perhaps from the French ‘bon’ meaning good and German ‘Spiel’ meaning game. In any case the curling tournament held this week between the local schools was a good game. As I have mentioned before, Winter sports are big in Canada so curling is pretty popular around these parts, for people of all ages. Ashern’s…
On my Erasmus year in Cergy on the outskirts of Paris, from about mid October until at least the end of March, the words “Que frio hace” usually preceded by “Joder” were uttered constantly by my Spanish friends (meaning more or less “Shit it‘s cold!”). I know from experience that Spain can reach temperatures below zero and it’s not just rain in Spain that falls mainly on the plains. Snow is certainly not unheard of, but nevertheless the Spanish are…
Coming from the U.K. pretty much the only time we eat a roast turkey with all the trimmings is on Christmas Day. We don’t have Thanksgiving so, not being Canadian, I hadn’t anticipated doing anything special. A newfound friend invited us to spend the afternoon in the company of her family and friends whicch certainly made the holiday weekend a little more lively than dinner for two. It was a lovely way to spend my first Thanksgiving in Canada and…
There’s nothing like a rush of exercise-induced endorphins to lift the spirits. Actually in reality the day seemed to drag on much longer than usual and I was worn-out before I even started the fitness ‘class’ this evening but it seemed only fair that I should do some form of exercise today after watching the kids do 10+ laps of the field for Terry Fox and practically (in some cases literally) fall over each other just for a sip of…
At last we have internet and can re-connect with the world outside of Ashern! So most of Thursday and Friday was spent reading emails, writing emails, and basically regaining my ‘social network’ online. I tried to explain to Kàrim (in French) that we have dial-up. At first it was misunderstood/ lost in translation due to the incredulous nature of my statement. Finally his response was along the lines of “You mean the type that makes all that noise that we…
I cannot express my disbelief upon hearing the tales of execution this week. All I can say is I am glad I’m not an animal living in these parts. Hunters show no mercy towards any creature no matter how great or small! You only have to glance along the highway to realise that the locals do not think twice about mowing down the wildlife. You could pick up a rather large variety of road-kill, ranging from raccoons to deer! On…
At last we have a postal address. My first ever P.O. Box address! Of course no-one has the address yet so it’s not that exciting because there won’t be any mail. Since we bought postcards in Winnipeg last weekend and have now sent them it would be interesting to see how long it takes for them to reach their destinations. Even sending and receiving mail in Ontario could be temperamental; sometimes taking days and at other times weeks. However with…
Thanks to a tip from our local informant we left Ashern, armed with a map enabling us to locate a shopping mall, cinema complex, food superstore, football stadium and other signs of life. As in the previous week, we arrived at around 2pm and headed straight for the food-court. The mall is quite large but it didn’t take us too long to find it and settle on Greek for lunch. The Greek take-away place didn’t have much of a queue…