nature – Page 4 – OldPlaidCamper

Small moments…

… of joy. An unexpected gift (thank you, Mrs. PC!) arrived in the post the other day, “A Thousand Feasts” by Nigel Slater. As the cover blurb describes it, this is a memoir of sorts, and, if the first few chapters are any indication, an utter delight.

I really enjoy reading Slater even if he can (sometimes) come across as slightly fussy. I prefer to think he is simply being particular. I would say that, as I’m certainly particular about particular issues. But never fussy, oh no…

Can we all agree that strong, black coffee should be just that, and if a warmed croissant isn’t served with an offering of apricot jam on the side (ok, or strawberry at a pinch) then it probably isn’t (another) sign of end times? No need to fuss. Although, if we are going to hell in a hand basket at ever increasing speeds, surely apricot jam isn’t too much to ask? Anyway, I’m not fussy, oh no…

Small cups for a small moment, and just right! Not that I’m fussy…

Back to small moments of joy. I often recall a favourite breakfast we shared with friends on the road many years ago. We’d taken the overnight boat to France, and (some of us, no names) had probably explored the outer limits of how many pints a person should consume in a ferry bar on a choppy cross-channel trip.

Designated drivers aside, we were feeling a little worse for wear as we rolled up to a small railway station cafe somewhere in Picardy. It was just as you might imagine – wicker cafe chairs, red check cloth covered tables, and a dapper waiter. The waiter was poised in every sense, happy to take our breakfast order, and never mind our mangled French.

Rural QC, not rural France, but just as one might hope?

Petit déjeuner? All the essentials – strong dark roast coffee, chewy country bread with a firm crust, and warm flaky croissants. Oh those croissants! I get warm and flaky just thinking about them. (And yup, for the children, they were served with apricot or strawberry jam on the side!) How I enjoyed that restorative spring sunshine breakfast – nothing fancy, and a perfect meal!

Right, enough with the reminiscing, I’ve got to go make a cup of strong coffee and get back to reading “A Thousand Feasts” – both are recommended! I’ll finish by saying this is a splendid book if you enjoy wonderfully descriptive writing on people, places and cuisine. It’s often amusing, very observant and it celebrates the joy found, home or away, in small moments. For me, that’s most welcome in these broadly troubling times!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Prairie in miniature

As winter retreats and spring gains something of a foothold, Scout and I have been searching for that first blade of green grass in the backyard, a sign of warmer and sunnier days ahead. We know those days are coming, but they are elusive, like that first green blade…

Look closely and you’ll find… brown grass!

The thaw and recent rains all point to things greening up soon enough. With glass half full, looking out at our miniature prairie (as well as trawling through photos the past couple of weeks to search out some prairie car treasures mentioned last week) reminded me that these dun colours have a certain attraction:

*“You bet they do – look at me! – in the right light, dun is golden!”*

A friend of ours back in Alberta (originally from Australia) used to describe the early spring prairie colour as “that f#*king brown grass” – I think she didn’t love it? – but we always enjoyed her forthright commentary, and, when rolling through Alberta and Saskatchewan we’ll call out to the grasslands (windows up) “why, here’s some more f*#king brown grass!” always meaning it affectionately.

Back in not always so sunny Quebec, we have had one or two hours of spring sunshine, occasion enough to dust off a chair brought up from the basement and spend a moment or two basking.

Scout wasn’t complaining, although as I write this on Wednesday morning she isn’t too impressed with the sleety rain falling right now…

Rest assured, if we spot a blade of green grass in the backyard we’ll let you know – now isn’t that something for us all to look forward to?!

I like it, even if there isn’t a patch of green to be seen!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

*“Prairie miniature in gold – gold, I tell ya!”*

At the movies

Last Sunday afternoon was cold and grey, so we opted to stay in and watch a movie, finally catching up with Spielberg’s loosely semi-autobiographical family drama The Fabelmans. What a treat it turned out to be!

If you like a Spielberg movie – and I definitely do – then you’d probably enjoy this movie. His trademarks are all there. Child actors with acting ability? Check! A sense of wonder? Check! Threats to everyday life, seen and unseen? Check! A carefully constructed sense of time and place? Check! Subtle and not so subtle emotional manipulation? Of course – this is Spielberg – check!

Spielberg has created a quiet marvel, a nostalgic movie on movies combined with a coming of age story about a young boy confronting internal family dramas, external societal prejudices, and all the regular pressures of growing up in a fast changing world. The story isn’t over the top adventurous in the manner of the Indiana Jones films, or harrowing like Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List, or as scary/heart-stopping as Jaws or Jurassic Park, but it has moments of (small scale) peril, as well as many moments of warmth and humour – that distinctive and special Spielberg sensibility!

Yes, there are slightly cloying and schmaltzy moments, and one or two eye-catching/eccentric cameo turns, but it all adds up to a very satisfying experience. The best elements (for me) were the ones where the young boy is figuring out how to be a moviemaker, and the sheer delight he has in making his images work, figuring how to tell a story, and yes, discovering the power he has in moving an audience. Long and leisurely, I’d say watch The Fabelmans if you get the chance – highly recommended, and a feel good winner, rainy afternoon or not!

On top of what I’ve written above, I particularly enjoyed the period detail cars used in The Fabelmans – they weren’t especially flashy, mostly station wagons and other regular vehicles, but I loved them seeing them. Goodness, do I love old cars! And that makes for a good excuse to dot a few old car photos throughout this piece! Rust buckets or shining restorations, I just can’t resist.

Yes, we all know only too well how polluting cars have been, and yes, one day in the not too distant future they’ll likely all be electric and that’s very good – but will they be as thrillingly stylish as earlier eras? Fossil fuels bad, but (many, not all) old fossil fuelled cars had great design. I mean, c’mon, and with apologies, (and commiserations to current owners) but Teslas aren’t too much fun to look at, are they? Not even (or especially) when hawked from the White House lawn. Those cyber truck thingies? Yikes…

Anyway, I’ll drive off now, happy to have shared a movie recommendation, and happy to hear back from you if you’ve seen The Fabelmans and choose to share a comment – is it a winner? Do you have a favourite Spielberg movie? (Hard to pick, not that it really matters – I love ET, Jaws, Duel and Bridge of Spies, parts of Close Encounters are amazing… the Indiana Jones movies are, mostly, so very entertaining, and I really, really enjoyed The Fabelmans – yup, hard to pick!)

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Yeah, it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, but it’s definitely stylish!

“It’s Spring?! Hmm…”

Scout here. He’s not looking, so I’ll type this real quick. Yeah, of course I know his username and password (*OldGitindenial25 and Scoutisthebest if you’re wondering, but don’t share these top secret details on Signal or anything, ok?) Now, let’s get this done before he’s back from the fridge.

I won’t say we’re in deep midwinter ‘cos I can read a calendar as well as the next dog, but don’t tell me it’s spring:

I’ve been pacing the deck, listening to the birds, searching for a dry patch to warm my bones – and also for a gap in the fence to make my escape. No luck there. Spring you say? That’s for the birds…

So I’m indoors more often than not, stuck with the old fella, and who wants that? He might not be ranting on here, but trust me, he’s ranting. Wake me up when warmer days get here.

When it isn’t snowing it seems to be raining – yeah, ok, slightly warmer, but who thinks a walk in freezing rain is fun? Do I look like I had fun?

That’s enough from me. Maybe I’ll post again, some other time when he’s distracted by the fridge? Perhaps after we’ve had a few sunny days out and about? On those future sunny day plans, I should say yeah, he can whinge too much, and don’t we all know he’s an old git in denial about his real age, but on the plus side he did get me that new dog bunkhouse on wheels:

Scout signing off. Shh. Tell no one. I was never here, right?

Nope, not doing anything, just waiting for you, old fella. Hehehe…

Pondering

Pondering ponds. I’ve been dipping a toe or two in Walden Pond the past couple of weeks, if only on the page, and mostly as respite from the spite and stupidity on display in certain quarters. Away from ponds for a moment (I won’t rant, honest), but does stupidity and incompetence even begin to cover it? Unbelievably useless at almost every level… No, no rant, but as I’m here, how can this level of incoherence and destruction also be so predictable and boring? The “very best people” appear to be so very dimwitted and dull. Dear oh dear. Anyway, ponds.

I like how Thoreau is so thorough in his pond descriptions, be they of the ice structure, surface water, volume, depth (ha!), water creatures, or the variety of reflective qualities he found in the many ponds he was acquainted with. I’ve sat staring out over the page and at our current “springter” (thanks, PW), with my thoughts casting back to lakes we’ve visited, and recalling specifically our trip to Lake Témiscaming last summer.

Goodness, how that vast body of water entertained us. When we weren’t paddling or hiking, we must have spent hours sitting by the water, on rainy days and dry days. To borrow/paraphrase from Thoreau, what a delight to be enthralled by ripples and furrows caused by water nymphs or fish, and isn’t it something to marvel at how, on a calm day, the see through mirror surface reveals the heavens above and below?

Yup, hours spent watching the water-skimming insects and ducks make their way, sometimes disturbed by the occasional canoe near the shore, or by one or two motor launches farther out. Tranquil scenes, enjoyed at the time and now many months later, and well suited to encourage calm – I’m happy for that in these strange times…

As springter gives way to spring proper, we’re planning to head out and enjoy some more quiet pondering time by the water. Without wishing days away, now the snow pack is beginning to disappear, perhaps there’s a little countdown to that first camping trip?!

Anyway, stay sane everyone, and let’s plan for the best while enduring some of the worst. We can get by, by dreaming of and enjoying outdoor life. Life in the woods! Or mountains! Or coastlines, parks, gardens and the like! Thank goodness for what remains of our wild and natural spaces – enjoy and protect them!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Vernal

If we’re looking ahead with a sense of optimism, then in terms of light and dark we’ve tipped towards the former having passed the vernal equinox in the northern hemisphere. Spring has arrived!

Well, sort of… Scout and I enjoyed a lazy hour with that all important second cup of coffee on a sunny deck yesterday morning. Birds were singing, we could hear the tapping of a busy woodpecker in the nearby woods, a fly or two buzzed past, and there was the steady drip, trickle and gurgle of snowmelt from roof tops down drainpipes and along pathways. So, it is spring then – why only sort of, OPC?

*Could that woodpecker keep it down? Some of us are drowsy…*

The deck may be clear (for now) but the grassy parts of our back yard are yet to reveal themselves, and the medium range forecast suggests another bout or three of snow. Still, until those last blasts of northern winter arrive, we’ll take a sunny almost spring morning each time we’re treated to one! Vernal if not yet verdant, with our glass, oops, too early, I mean coffee cup half full and all that. Onwards!

Oh spring, you tease us with this glimpse of grass (all three blades!)

Let’s keep this short but happy enough, like a first false spring before the real thing. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

This and that (ce n’est pas la fin du monde…)

Let’s hope so! ACI mentioned that I hadn’t been on much of a rant recently. She’s right, and I don’t know about you, but I really do (I mean, who doesn’t?) enjoy the occasional state-of-the-world-today rant. The thing is, given the current global situation, if I started, I might never stop and just repeat myself on a boring doom loop. You know, like delivering an interminably tedious monologue to Congress…

So instead, let’s keep it light with a bit of this and a bit of that as we head towards spring. Those clocks spring forward this weekend, and that’s a pleasant switch, from dark days to somewhat lighter, isn’t it?

I was chatting with my brother on the phone the other day, covering this and that, and he was sceptical about the amount of snow I was shovelling, so I sent him this from Sunday morning:

Next door mountain – you can see where an attempt on the summit failed

I didn’t mention the use of snow moving machinery – if he thinks it was all my own work, well I don’t want to correct him… Maybe we’ll try for the summit again another day, using oxygen tanks and a snow dog to haul us up?

“That mountain? Forget it! In other news, did I just hear a can of hoppy IPA popping open?”

That Scout – what is she like? We’re easily distracted around here. Where were we? Snow? Springing forward? We’ve kept most of the snow off the back deck, often wondering if it was going to be me or the deck collapsing first. Scout says me. She is hopeful she’ll be sunning herself outside very soon, what with the clock change. I’ve just seen the two week forecast, and I haven’t the heart to tell her…

“Let me know how your mountain trip turns out when you get back. I’ll be out here waiting…”

So, no rant, not from me, and instead, plenty of other stuff to be getting on with or looking forward to! In fact, let’s finish on a very positive, even hoppy, note:

Hoppier news? Glass half full? I sure hope so…

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Small changes

After our desert wanderings last week, it’s back to our more usual everyday northern style for this one. No lemons and lots of snow. This means that we were able to get into the woods and plod along – gracefully, of course – on our snowshoes through the deep snow. Splendid!

With daylight hours lengthening, and occasional almost warmth when the sun reveals itself, we’re seeing some of the small changes that add up to the approaching new season. Realistically, it is distant yet, but we sort of fooled ourselves that spring is (almost) in the air! Yes, the snow was deep, and yes, we were on snowshoes, but we could see change coming in the hints of new buds, birdsong above, and in the slight thaw after a period of deep freeze.

Yes, it all points to the same eventual outcome even if it sometimes seems like it’ll never arrive. Our northern winter will end, in snowmelt, and we’ll begin to enjoy the pleasant anticipation (no matter how much I love a proper winter) of bright green days ahead. No, not yet, not yet, and not until we’ve finished playing in the snow, but spring is coming!

Until it does, we’ll continue on skis and snowshoes, and I’ll complain about (but secretly enjoy) shovelling snow, so we can reward ourselves with an almost well earned dark beer or two at the end of the day – they go so well with the season! (Don’t worry, pale ales, I’ll get back to you soon enough. Another small change…)

I think that is a cheery enough note to end on this week. Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

“Spring is just around the next bend? Nope! But maybe the one after?”

Snow days, desert blues – and lemons?

We’ve enjoyed – or endured, if the novelty of shovelling snow has worn off – three pretty big winter storms the past couple of weeks. Two of them arrived only three or four days apart, and the (welcome, from me) accumulation was quite something. The pile of snow, post dig out, on one neighbour’s lawn is twice my height. I feel like scaling it and planting a flag!

The blizzard conditions did slow us down with regard to heading into the woods. I checked today (Wednesday) on the trailhead, and the city snow plows have created a high barrier across the access point between two houses. Blocked and probably not great for Scout at the moment due to the depth of powdery snow on the other side. It would be way, way over her head. I think she’d like to have a go, wallow in it for a few minutes, but she’s not going to get too far until some snow shoe tracks pack it down, create a trail. Who could do that for her…

So we’ve been a bit more indoors than we’re used to, finding some different diversions to pass the time pleasantly enough. For me, that’s extra music and kitchen time. Yup, the desert blues and lemons mentioned in the title above.

For the desert blues, can I heartily recommend two albums? The first, “Heritage” by Songhoy Blues, is a delightful set. A slight departure from their first three noisier albums, the tracks here are still pretty lively, but the sound is more traditional, mostly unplugged and absolutely wonderful if you enjoy their Malian style.

Snow fun… “Can I take a break, head indoors, and listen to some music?”

The second album I’ve played over and over the past week or two is “Imarhan” by Imarhan, an Algerian band I’d not heard before until I went down the desert blues rabbit hole. If you like Tinariwen or Songhoy Blues, then you’d probably like this album. I’ll certainly be listening to their other albums in the next little while. Desert songs for snowy days? Why not?!

Listening to these albums reminded me of the time we were technically homeless a couple of decades back (we were waiting for a house purchase to complete) camping our way from SW France down into southern Spain. It was early spring and almost always sunny, with the sparkling Mediterranean on our left as we drifted from coastal town to coastal town happily enough, listening to music broadcast from North African stations on the radio. We’d stop at little markets and grocery stores to pick up essentials like coffee, beer and churros, as well as amazing oranges and lemons. That time was among the first of our ongoing series of midlife crises, and then, as now, we certainly enjoyed it. Does life have to give you lemons? No, but if it does…

Lemons are not the only fruit (if JW needs a sequel title)

Lemons! We’ve almost got there! The most enjoyable new recipe I tried this week has to be this lemon desert, oops, I mean dessert, by Rachel Roddy. Like a sharp OldPlaidCamper, the result is zesty, tart and sweet, and really rather more than enough. If you find yourself snowed in and you’ve more lemons than you know what to do with, then this might be the way to go?

Looking sharp outside the MNBAQ yesterday more on that another time

Dessert (yup, again, hehehe) blues on lemon flavoured snow days – too much of a good thing? Not for us! Although, as I’ve eaten more lemon dessert than is medically recommended, I guess I should leave it here this week and head outside, try and dig our way into the backyard and burn off a few calories.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Part 2

Where’s Part 1? That was last week (I just didn’t call it Part 1…)

So, to continue with the self indulgent and congratulatory tone sparked by my amazement this blog has lasted ten years, here are a few more photographs that prompt happy (for me) memories. I seem to have chosen quite a few warm and sunny ones this week, probably in response to how snowy it has been here – our snowiest QC week yet – hooray!