No. Seriously. Vote Green.

The Weather Channel these days is like one of those old "Increase Your Word Power" vocabulary-builder bits in Readers Digest. This week's words are derecho, haboob and wedge tornado.

And, just after a derecho tore apart neighbourhoods north of Toronto, in eastern Ontario and Quebec, the polls show that another Ford majority government is a foregone conclusion.

Also foregone will be more of the destruction only the Weather Channel seems to pay attention to, and what to do about Doug Ford doesn't have a clue. 

So. Seriously. Vote Green.

Remembering Kenneth R. Clarke

May 27 2022. By the place where Ken's ashes were laid to rest. From left to right: Maria (who's 102 years old), Helen, Susan, Bruce, Rick, Bernie (in front), Jeff (in back), Annikka. 

These are the few words I spoke at the service in Ken's memory: 

Ken was, for me, the last of the people I knew in my life as parents, aunts, uncles and in-laws. All those people, mostly born in the late 1920s and early 30s, were the grownups when I was a kid. So the loss of the last one is kind of staggering. A whole generation, that taught me, took care of me, gave me advice good and bad, is all gone now.

Ken was my father-in-law for more than 40 years, so I learned some things about him.  He was a compassionate, caring man. He grew up in hardship and that made him thoughtful about the suffering of others. He loved his family. He worked hard.

Ken didn’t say a lot, but he was always there. When his beloved Marna was in her last illness, Ken would visit her in the hospital every day. He'd sit on the side of her bed and wish with all his heart that she would get better.

His devotion was his signal characteristic, his signal strength. And the strength he gave to everyone around him. 

Ken didn’t say much …. Because when you’re a rock, you don’t need to.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Vote Green!

Karen

Vote Green

The other guys don't even have a chance. Dianne and the
Green Party's youngest campaigner, Joey.

For my very last campaign blast, I captained a sizeable crew of volunteers as they knocked on doors for Dianne Saxe in the neighbourhood around Summerhill Station. Low density and built about 120 years ago, Summerhill's not as tony as Rosedale, at least not yet. The people there showed the highest level of support for Dianne I've seen anywhere.

That might be because Mike Shriener, the Green Party leader, "won" the debate on Monday. Or it could be because of all the hard work Dianne has put into her campaign. People said none of the other parties had knocked on their doors. It appeared only Dianne's campaign had delivered signs in the area.

It might be that people are starting to get it as they firm up their opinions. The election is only a couple of weeks away. 

Or it might not, because Ford's still going to pull the old trick of winning a majority of numbers of seats in the legislature with less than 40% of the vote.

Sheesh.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Victoria Day weekend!

Karen

Kinsale, Shodja, me, Jim (who was once my boss at
the Ministry of the Environment - it was fun telling him what to do), Dianne, 
Adam, Joey, Terri (Joey's mom), James.

Past, Present, Future

 

In the summer of 2021, a big ol' tree in the Allan Gardens blew over in a wind storm. Not long after that, it was cut down, and the stump mulched flat. About a week ago, fast-growing fungus gathered on the site in memory of the tree.

In the spring of 2020, when no one could go anywhere, gas was cheaper than it had been in twelve years. Now, in the late spring of 2022, when it's OK to go back outside again, the price of gas is higher than it's ever been.

It was April 1 last time I was out campaigning for Dianne Saxe, Green Party Candidate for University/Rosedale. By the end of that shift, I felt chilled to the bone. At the end of my shift yesterday, I felt like I'd been microwaved. 

We were deep in the heart of Rosedale on Friday, my campaigning colleagues Evelyn and James and I. Dianne was elsewhere so I did more talking to strangers than I normally do. Even in Toronto's toniest neighbourhood, there are people who want to talk about Dianne and the Green Party.

And even when they don't, I sometimes hear mini-biographies like the one from the man who told me he had already voted and knew all about the democratic process because he'd been a crown counsel at Queen's Park for forty years ... 

Or the guy who works at George Brown College who's having a hell of a time as they reopen and plus it was a bad day so I should forgive him if he seemed a little impatient ...

Many of the people I talked to said they were grateful to me, a rumpled, warm-looking stranger on their doorstep, for doing my bit to keep the heart of democracy beating. 

Support for Dianne seems to be about the same proportion in Rosedale as elsewhere, as if concern for the future of the planet cuts across ethnicity, age and economic status. 

As in, about 5% of people are concerned about it and the rest, I guess, are not.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Ireland - One Last Look

Whenever we turned to descend a hill on the Wicklow Way, Kevin our guide would say "we'll never see that again." He meant that another part of the walk was behind us. 

"Never's a strong word," I said after the third time he'd said so. "You don't know that we won't be back." 

Ever flexible and accommodating, Kevin promised to stop saying never, at least to me.

St. Stephen's Green, Dublin.

Readers of this blog have enjoyed the photos I've shared. So here's some more, just in case Kevin's right and we don't come this way again.

Trinity College Library - The Long Room.

Ireland has a phenomenal National Gallery - with a Vermeer (!!) and everything - but the most remarkable piece I saw was this exquisite miniature ... made of wax. Imagine the skill and artistry involved in this ... it is just amazing. You can read
more about the artist, Catherine Andras, here.

There are copies of this document in every town in Ireland (see below), but this is one of the originals. Lovingly preserved at the National Print Museum, you can tell this is an original copy of Ireland's 1916 Declaration of Sovereignty because it has a seam running horizontally along the middle. The press they used was too small to print the whole poster. The other indications of its authenticity are a couple of the e's are in a smaller font (they ran out of right-sized e's) and one e is upside down.

The Declaration in Roundwood.

The Declaration is so recognizable, fragments
are all that's needed. Memorial Garden in Dublin.

The Irish countryside is also instantly recognizable. There's nothing else quite like it.

Extraordinary Medieval engineering:
the round tower in the Monastic City at Glendalough.
The graveyard came after the Monastic City was abandoned.

Latter day engineering: the hobnail trail on the Wicklow Way
provided a solid surface with a good grip.

Stand out greenery: larch trees by Glendalough.

Like lichen-covered stacks of Mentos: The Giant's Causeway.

Back in Dublin, the Irish love of language on display.

Sartorial Elegance

I absent-mindedly packed my hat the morning we left Roundwood and discovered my mistake only after the luggage van had made off with our bag. I asked Kevin if he had a spare in his Mary-Poppins-grade knapsack. He said he did, but it was not, he added, the epitome of "sartorial elegance."

I told him that was not going to be a problem for me, but the phrase struck Keira as funny. 

So here you have it, sartorial elegance on the Wicklow Way, photo by Keira:

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Woman Writing a Letter with her Maid,
J. Vermeer

 

The Last Day

Along with seeing the famous, popular, iconic parts of the cities we visit, we always like to walk around in the more every-day parts, where the tourists don't go, just to get a feel for the place.

That's what we did today.

With the vague objective of finding the house where a friend of ours was born, we headed out in the general direction to see what there was to see.

We saw some Dublin-y streets...

Statues of the heroes of 1916...

Memorial gardens remembering 1916 ...

Transportation infrastructure ...

Transportation infrastructure...

Odd ducks on the Royal Canal... (not quite mallards...)

Memorial plaques to the heroes of 1913-23...

Clever graffiti (though it's hard to see - it says The Devil Has Asthma)

Dublin is the only city I've been (so far) where I've needed a map and a compass to figure out my path. 

Also noted in passing: street signs are tucked into out-of-the-way hard-to-see spots on the sides of buildings. Five out of every six public clocks show the wrong time. House numbers are optional. Unless you're looking for a glass of Guinness, helpful signage is rare.

As for COVID-19, Brendan Behan was the only person in Dublin we found wearing a mask.

In the end, we proved our skills as out-of-towners. We found the house our friend was born in.

The plaque, apparently, was out for repairs.

We fly out tomorrow morning. We've had a great holiday. 

Thanks for reading!

Karen

A Long Day

Crammed with 50 strangers on a humungous bus is not my favourite way to travel, but it'll do in a pinch. If it's the only way to get you where you want to go.

Which, today, was the Giant's Causeway.

But some other attractions got thrown in, and that made it a long day.

This is how the day started: grey skies, thick mist and rain. 

It hadn't cleared by the time we got to Belfast.

So the visit to Dunluce Castle (famous from Game of Thrones,
 though you couldn't prove it by me) was a bit of a bust. 

By the time we got to the causeway (and the thrill of my life),
 the day was less misty, but still grey.

And then the clouds cleared away.

So when we drove further down the coast we could see Scotland, 20 miles in the distance.

Then the day took a strange turn. The blurb on the website made me think we'd get an historical tour of The Troubles in Belfast. My mistake was thinking The Troubles were history.

A former member of a Republican militia took us through the fresh, gaping wounds, starting from 1916, that are Ireland's struggle for freedom from the English. He showed us the wall posters that honour the heroes, the security gates that close off the neighbourhoods and the "peace walls" built fifty feet high to prevent the firebombing of people's homes. 

This is the Catholic side of the wall.

Then he took us to the protestant side and asked us to sign our names.

Thanks for reading.

Karen

The Wicklow Way - Trees, Bogs and Water

We're taking a day off today. 

We walked fifty three miles over the past six days and I took about 600 photographs of mostly of trees, bogs and water, if you don't count the pictures of sheep.

Trees

Where they weren't part of a plantation, and doomed to be felled by their forty-fifth birthday, trees grew to a great height and age, and were so covered in moss, lichen, vines and holly that you could hardly see the tree.

Stands of beech trees flourished around Glendalough.

And there were signs of a tremendous urge to survive, like these silver birch, knocked over some time ago, but now growing upright.

Or this brand new pine tree, growing out of a stump.

Bogs

Where the weren't any trees on the Wicklow Way, there were blanket bogs, started around 7,000 years ago by humans clearing trees from the mountain tops. Clearing trees made things just right for soil acidification, the creation of "iron pan" which prevented drainage, and the accumulation, millimetre by millimetre, of peat. Early humans realized to their dismay that you couldn't grow anything in a peat bog. Then humans learned you could burn the peat. And so began another round of cutting.

But you can see why they call it "blanket" bog.

What are you looking at? Hybrid deer peeking just over the rise on the bog.

Bogs as far as the eye can see.

Bogs all around.

Bogs on Tribadden mountain.

Walkways have been built to protect the bog with a wish to regenerate the parts lost to human trodding.

Water

Ireland, like everywhere else, is seeing changes in weather patterns. For example, we were outside for six days at the end of April and didn't see a drop of rain. So, Kevin our guide explained, every waterfall we saw was a pale shadow of its normal self, shrunken by the lack of rainfall. They still seemed pretty cool. As did other bodies of water.

The whitest people in the world enjoying the lake by Glendalough.

Lynne and Keira at Glendalough.

An unidentified stream by the road, near Curtlestown.

Mine run-off above Glendalough.

Just at the left side of the photo, a white zig zag of a waterfall. Also apparent, allegedly, are some deer, or perhaps sheep or maybe even some cows, according to Kevin.

The Guinness lake.

The Poulanass waterfall.

The Avonmore River by Oldbridge - stocked with brown trout and waiting for your fishing hook.

Thanks for reading!

Tomorrow we're going to Belfast and the Giant's Causeway!

Karen