Soggy Sunday

 

Most of our leaves are down – fall for certain. And today is chill, dark and rainy. With almost all the colour gone, the yard and field look dreary. Only the rock garden shows blocks of rust and red, the seed heads of the sedum flowers mostly. Deer and turkeys are wandering through at intervals and I missed, through sleeping in, a fine turkey battle yesterday morning, I am informed, when two groups of large and territorial males met while heading for the feeding rock. I did hear, though, a few faint swearwords in turkey-speak from the woods later on.

I could add a few choice swearwords in me-speak, were I so inclined. And I guess I am. My least favourite time of year is now here. And all the ills the flesh is heir to, not to mention the bones, seem to have descended on the family. JG is creaking and his head won’t swivel, he says. My back is swearing at me, let me do something so simple as make the bed. We have a serious, serious illness in the extended family. Luckily the next two generations down seem to be holding up. So far, anyway. What with the weather, a real mood changer for me, can tragic drama be far away?

Enter ten turkeys, gobbling.

JG lured me into reading Conrad Black’s column in the Post yesterday. I am still annoyed. In his usual bombastic manner, Black animadverts on how he has to uphold Canadian politics when among his, no doubt superior, British acquaintance. I feel like sending him a quick message begging him not to admit to being Canadian at all. If we could disown the man, I would be very pleased. Even if he is, for once, right about something, that something being the fact that the flags should be back up for November 11^th. I suspect Trudeau junior has got himself mired into this awkward apology with the flags and has no idea how to get out of it. It can’t snow soon enough for him to take a walk in it.*

Not that I can see a good choice of leader coming along behind him. Too many lightweights. Too many inexperienced ministers; I guess to get the sex and region mix right, they had to make other compromises. And booting Garneau was Just Plain Dumb.

Yeah, it’s almost November and I am just as dank and cranky as the weather and the turkeys. Also, I was convinced we stopped Daylight Savings Time this weekend and we don’t. Next Saturday. Duh.

I have just ordered a winter coat, sight unseen, on line. My friend and I had planned a trip into the city to the bright lights and coats for sale, but she got nailed with medical appointments and it is my busy week of the month anyway and we had to cancel. Sniff. At least we can now go to a coffee shop and, mirable dictu, sit down, take off our masks and gossip happily over our steaming cups. Thank you, Health Unit! Now, about those booster shots? Hello, provincial government, are you there? I think I hear the turkeys. Squabbling.

*American Friends. About the walk in the snow. 

The rock garden. From the deck.

The white thing? Not an attenuated ghost. JG's weather station - bolted into the rock. Why the colour values turned out so different in these photos is beyond me. The Nikon with a mind of its own, I guess. The real colour is closer to the first photo than to the second.