Inspired by my fellow-blogger, Natalie, who has been posting about her childhood secret spy diary (I love it) - I present a wonderful treasure from my childhood - my Autograph book. This is not the kind of autograph book that was used to collect signatures from famous people. Rather, it was used to collect very silly sayings from friends and family. When I was very, very young (back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth), this was a fad. Every one of my friends had an autograph book and we all wrote stuff in each others' books. And I still have my book from 50 years ago, somehow preserved through numerous life changes, marriage, children, moves, separation, deaths. It is a little the worse for wear, but miraculously intact nonetheless.
The book is about 4 in. by 5 1/2 in. When it is opened, you find little gems like this one, written by my sister Marilyn - "If you someday plan to kiss him, Be sure not to miss him."
We would take our books to school so we could write in each others' books at recess. I actually managed to get my teacher, Mrs. Read (what a great name for a teacher), to write in my book. Her entry is very school-teacher-ish - "May your life always be as humourous as the sayings in this book." She was my favourite teacher in grade school, and I was teacher's pet that year.
Some of the poems are silly in a typical childhood way - "When you get married and get a divorce (spelled "divorse" here), Come to my stable and marry my horse."
This poem was written by one of the rare boys in my book - "Roes (he meant roses) are red, violets are blue, it easy to hide from a dope like you." Our insults were just silly fun when we were kids. I suspect childhood is not so innocent now.
Some of them are very strange, like this one - "When you get married and have a husband and he ask for a drink, take (him) by the coler (collar) and throw him in the sink." Wise words to prepare us for adulthood.
Some of the innocence is amazing to look back on. This one says "High on the Mountains, green grows the grass, Down came a billy goat sliding on his over coat." I can just imagine us all giggling because we knew what word rhymed with "grass".
There are dozens of entries in my book. This is on the last page and two friends were vying for the coveted honour of being last to write in the book. The first entry says - "By hook or by crook, I be the last in your book (I hope)." The second was written by a different friend at a later date and says - "By pen or by quill I'll be darned if you will." It all seems so quaint now, compared to kids today with their iPads and cell phones. But what a treasure nevertheless!
When I got home to my place in the country this weekend, I found a fresh blanket of snow everywhere. It wasn't deep but it covered all of my yard, including my garden. This copper sculpture at the far side of the garden was made by Peter as a grave marker for our cat, Titi, when she died. I like the way it stands out against the blue-white snow.
The group of people I work with had a Christmas party today at a wonderful place called Les Brasseur du Temps in Gatineau, Quebec. The Brasseur du Temps is a micro-brewery, a restaurant, and there is also a museum that shows the history of beer-making in the region. The building is historic - built in 1910 - but has recently been completely remodeled.
On entering the building, one sees this life-size cardboard (or wood, probably) greeter, showing you the specials on a chalkboard.
My group's party was downstairs in a special function room. To get there, we descended a long winding ramp that leads to the museum area, with lots of interesting plaques and paintings on the walls.
This is one of the decorations along this corridor. I love these old views of an earlier time.
Another part of the museum area has glass display cases with brewing materials of various kinds.
People stopped to read the plaques and view the display cases as they walked through the museum area.
However, we were there to party. So we got to the function room and ordered up pitchers of the Brasseur's beer.
The back of the Brasseur looks out on the Ruisseau de la Brasserie (Brewery Creek). The function room had an outdoor patio area which was shut down for the winter. But I thought the view was wonderful. There were even ducks swimming on the creek.
Back at the party, we were trying the Brasseur's many types of beer (they brew 8 to 12 different beers). I was sharing a pitcher of "Et la lumière fut!" with several other people. We also ordered this wonderful plate of natchos. Yum!
In addition to food and drink and conversation, we played a goofy game. Here is the prize I won, held by a colleague of mine. Isn't it silly?
The party ended and I walked back up through the museum corridor on my way to the exit. I had to stop and look at the displays again. In particular, I liked three displays dedicated to different beer companies. This is the Carling display.
This is the Dow display (never heard of them, but lots of great stuff in the display window).
And here is the Molson display.
Beer and hockey! How Canadian can you get!
This antique Molson Christmas card was in a corner of the display case. A fitting end to my post about my office Christmas party.
Some of my posts lately have been about seeking light since it is the darkest time of the year, or about trees that are now bare of leaves and dusted with snow. So here I am combining the two themes and looking at lights in trees. The National Capital Commission has been decorating downtown Ottawa with lights everywhere. I really liked the lights in this tree because they seem to be swirling around.
Okay - I know this is not lights in trees, but I was walking on Parliament Hill and had to take a picture of the snowflake lights being projected on the Parliament Buildings.
They look even better close up. this is the west side of the Parliament Buildings...
....and this is the east side. Aren't these snowflakes fun?
Back to lights in trees! I saw these trees as I was walking along Queen Street. They would have been invisible without the lights but they look so special and festive, like Cinderellas transformed and ready to go to the ball.
This tree was really quite breathtaking. There were several trees decorated like it in the park near the War Monument. Lovely!
Only 14 more days until the shortest day of the year, and then the days start to get longer and we move towards the time of year when it doesn't feel so dark. Yay!
This was the view from the balcony of my apartment in the city recently. I looked down at the street and thought how glad I was that I didn't have to drive on the snow covered roads.
But I loved the way it transformed the bare tree branches and turned them into an abstract mesh of black and grey and white lines. It would be great to be able to capture this in a drawing or painting.
Later, when I was walking to the bridge that crosses the Ottawa River, I saw these amazing trees with patches of snow on their branches, looking very sculptural against a grey background. Amazing!
We had a grey drizzly day in Ottawa-Hull today, but it was still relatively warm (about 8 degrees C). One of my colleagues suggested we go for a walk at lunchtime. Oddly enough, I had recently read an article about how sitting too much is killing us (I sit in front of a computer 7.5 hours a day) so I thought, what a great idea! We decided to walk on a path along the river. To get to the river, we had to follow another path that crosses through some industrial land.
There are lots of pipes and other industrial structures along this path. The pipes are for some sort of gases, and they were constantly making "psshhhing" noises. Very 19th-century industrial revolution feeling! There were lots of other people on the path, some walking, some bicycling, some running, like this man, in just shorts and a light jacket. Amazing for December 5th.
Walking under the bridge, I was impressed by all the graffiti. Most of it was just random letters and blobs and blurs, but this piece of graffiti was quite distinct. I wondered, what is "RASEK"? A name? An acronym? A secret code?
As we got close to the river, we saw this sculpture along the pathway. Alas, I didn't get the name of the sculptor or the title of the work. But I thought it was rather interesting.
So I had to go around back and stick my hands through the slots. My colleague, Mark, decided that he should take a picture of me.
Then he came in closer and took another shot. I look like someone trying to escape.
Finally, we got to the path along the river. It was quite pretty in the drizzly mist. You can see the Parliament buildings looming up across the river further down.
The river and the rocks and the scenery were softened by the greyness. Across the river, you can just make out the Supreme Court building - looking like a white castle just to the left of centre of the picture.
The walk back was much prettier than the walk through the industrial pipes and stuff.
Then we had to go back to work. Sigh!
This past weekend was the first weekend in December, but it sure didn't feel like it. The weather was relatively warm for this time of year, for which I was extremely grateful because it allowed me to spend some time in my unheated studio. All the leaves have fallen off the trees so my view of the world outside was wide open. Lovely for looking, thinking and scribbling.
My friend Barb Glenn gave me this beautiful set of chalk pastels last year. They were given to her by someone who couldn't use them and she wanted to pass them on to someone who liked to work in pastel, so she thought of me. I was thrilled to pieces to get this set. The colours are marvelous. (A million thank-yous, Barb).
As part of my recent efforts to just scribble a lot and loosen up, I began to lay down some colours and played with all the beautiful blues and greens and pinks. I love soft pastel because one can get such dramatic results and build up areas very quickly.
Chalk pastel is great fun for still life drawing as well. I have been buying a lot of pears and apples lately, mostly so I can draw them.
This is a sketch I began several months ago and never finished. I wanted to get back into it today but ran out of time - it gets dark so early these days. Oh well! Maybe we will have a mild winter and I will be given the gift of more time to work in my studio.
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