The Christmas Letter 2019 Version

The Christmas Letter, 2019

As usual, I am getting around to the Christmas letter too late, and hindsight is sure to be 2020 on this one

We did not have a great 2019. For one thing, Jim turned 80 and is completely convinced that malignant fate has it in for him. It is taking so much longer to do things than it used to and the floor is so inconveniently far away. He does have the usual multi cord pile of wood at the ready, with a little help from his daughter, but is muttering that we may need to think about a different heat source in future years as it is a [censored] amount of work to amass what is needed.

Note that the help listed is from ‘daughter’ not ‘daughters’. In November of 2018 Wendy left Canada in a swirl of high tension and took up her post as High Commissioner in Pakistan. So fraught was the entry at that time that she had to leave her animal family behind her. She left them here of course. It was not possible to ship them until January of 2019 and at that point a friend (Wendy has wonderful friends) escorted them to Islamabad. There they joined Her Excellency in the official residence

where there is a full time cook, several other staff, flowers in February and six guest bedrooms for Callie to shed fur in. A most impressive place and Wendy is making the most of it. If you Google, put in her name plus Pakistan to see some of what her job entails.

Islamabad (I had to learn all this) is in the north of Pakistan and is a newish city in which the halls of government and most of the embassies sit inside compounds in gated communities. The Canadian High Commission has its own walls and guards inside this area and so there is safe walking and biking. Wendy’s other escape is up into the hills north of the city where a lot of the diplomatic community hike on weekends and she is enjoying this enormously. Her dog’s arthritis prevents her from doing this strenuous stuff, so the dog stays home and goes for gentle walks among the flowers while her mistress gets lost in the rocks.

While we are on the subject of arthritis and gentle walks and all that, my occupation for most of 2019 has been having and recovering from knee surgery. A knee replacement in March was not fun and I have been clawing my way back ever since. Right knee, so I was stuck out here for six weeks unable to drive, doing not much except physio and ended up with a fervent desire never to be cut open again. Medication and aqua-therapy have been my salves and things are improving.

Meanwhile my sweet baby granddaughter turned sixteen and is the proud owner of a fine little red car, courtesy of her doting grandfather. She is doing fine in her Ecole Secondaire, has become a track athlete, working mostly at the sprint distances, is being paid to coach gymnastics and is now taller than her mother. She is also taller than I am and when I told her to quit growing, she told me to quit shrinking. (I did refer to arthritis, I think. My whole spine has become a spiral, sort of.)

Steve finished his stint as Dean in June and is now happily back in the lab as an emeritus prof, having ditched his suits and ties and all that, not to mention the travelling and wining and dining of prospective donors. He did have to haul out a suit for Seb’s wedding …

Tthis is a photo from the day, the groom standing centre with the long hair … and I think Katie prevented him from bundling the whole lot into a donation bin. Katie, as you can see, is not looking her (yikes) fifty-three years and is full steam in her lab, editing a professional journal and making a reputation for herself. They also renovated their kitchen this year, spending a month washing dishes they had to carry down two flights of stairs to the laundry room while the reno crept on. I would not have lasted, but this woman is an iron butterfly.

I can’t remember if I told you about my stint as an ESL teacher. A committee in Perth sponsored five Syrian families and I ended up last fall and winter  taking one of the younger men from two-word sentences to Grade 12 equivalent readiness. He is now planning to requalify as a computer repair person and I am quite proud of him. It kept me hopping. They are all lovely families and they keep having Canadian babies with great gusto.

It is starting to seem like a long drive to Ottawa. But we have friends and fun in Perth, a half hour drive for as long as that distance stays doable. Last Friday we went to a Christmas party put on by a PROBUS club to which Jim belongs. The entertainment was provided by an Elvis impersonator in white satin and blue sequins who came and held my hand while singing a ditty, causing my evil friend to laugh until she cried, I guess at the expression on my face. This group of Jim’s has a lot of dinners and excursions. The next planned is a Robbie Burns Dinner in January, for which I have acquired a Canadian tartan kilt. Perth was settled and is still overloaded with people of Scottish background and I feel the need to make a statement, in among the ladies in arisaids and their family tartan skirts. It is a long time since my last pleated plaid skirt.

The Perth area is also unredeemedly Conservative, a bit of a downer at election time. We had a fine Green Party candidate this last round and he went nowhere, in spite of the best efforts of some of my friends. And yeah, I voted Green. For what good it did. It was a messy election and I confess to not being too enthralled with any of our Parliamentarians’ credentials. Didn’t we used to have better quality people? Some of the time, anyway. Yes, I remember Dief.

I have just spent a horrible day Christmas shopping in Ottawa with nearest and at the moment not dearest. Why is shopping with a man such an exercise in mis-communication, hmm? You would think that after 57 (cripes) years, we would have it worked out. But, no. Oh well. Speaking of Christmas, we have been tasked with The Feast this year. For several years Katie has done it, but somehow the turkey is scheduled to come home to roast in Lanark on the 25^th. This is not so bad, however, as both daughters will, without doubt, end up in the kitchen doing the worst of the work. The joys of competent offspring.

Best and warmest wishes for a fine Yule and even finer New Year.