Year End Newsletter 2014

Happy 40th Anniversary

How can another year have gone by so quickly? 
 
As 2014 signs off, we extend year-end greetings from our home to yours. For those who have already sent us cards and greetings, thank you. It is a treat you hear from you and count you as friends.

 So, what happened this year?

*** [CLICK ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE] ***

The MAIN EVENT was that we reached our 40^th year married! Same wife, same husband! That’s a milestone of which we are proud. Onward to the next 40.
 

The Happy Couple 1974

We celebrated with a small group of close friends at a luncheon party at the lovely Les Fougeres, just across the river from downtown Ottawa in Chelsea, Quebec - transported by limousine also to nearby Champlain and Huron Lookouts where we marvelled at the beauty of the area in which we live.

Expansive view from the Gatineau Hills in Quebec

Jake & Sue have celebrated all
our big events

Your limo is waiting...



 

 

 

Les Fougeres Restaurant
Carrie, Graham, Yvette, Jake, Sue

As we all know, the world really has gone mad - or at a minimum the internet has brought all the madness instantly to us, and fostered the insanity in individuals and groups around the world who just want to do others harm. These kind of events were huge stories this year, feeding the world’s insatiable appetite for NO Peace on Earth, and NO Good Will to Men, (… and for the most part, it was men):

§  Depravity in Ukraine, Syria, and in a Pakistan school just the other day

§  A Malaysian jumbo jet missing, without a trace of its 300 passengers

§  The rise of ISIS, the Independent State of Iraq and Syria, which has targeted - with beheadings - anyone not of their fervent, radical beliefs

§  Massive racial riots in Ferguson, Missouri

 

§  An unarmed Honour Guard assassinated at Ottawa’s National War Memorial monument and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier  -  Yes, Ottawa!  Where the 3 year average for homicides is 7, in a city of a million.

How blessed we all are to be removed from these terrors, but how troubling that others have to live in their grip.

Then add to that list the specter of Ebola – foreshadowing an even more potent virus one day -  as well as the potentially devastating blow that will come to the N American economy with a $20 barrel of oil, as Russia continues to destabilize, again.   

So take this year-end opportunity to reflect, and to say thank you, again, for living another year in civilized comfort and relative security.  Most adverse events and stresses in our lives pale in comparison to what some others must endure.

Well, for Colleen and Don, 2014 was our 13^th and 8^th year of retirement, respectively, and we are grateful to say yet again that we continued to have the health, energy, resources and time to be able to travel and explore our world for new adventures, and to encounter like-minded new friends around the globe.  Life is indeed a Conveyer Belt moving not just our luggage but Us through airports and adventures of our choice – for now.  But like our banged up luggage, we too will all ultimately spin through some final revolutions on Life’s pick up carousel, and these adventures will then be but memories of our lives. So onward we charge!

 

 2014 opened with our annual winter migration to Palm Desert, California, an oasis of loveliness 2 hours inland from Los Angeles.

Our Marriott Desert Springs' view

 

 

 

 We have encamped for 3 to 6 weeks in each Jan-Feb since 2004, the year we first bought Marriott timeshares.

 

 Now, when you have accommodation in Palm Desert, visitors come - and that's wonderful.

LA friends Stuart & Barb

San Diego buddies Lynn & Steve

 

 

 

We enjoyed 5 weeks, but the weather was so exceptionally perfect - while the rest of the continent was in a savage winter  - that we tacked on another month when Colleen found a suddenly vacant condo rental in Rancho Mirage, a very short relocation. 

Our view at Desert Braemar

 



New friends Diane & Dave



 

 

 

 

 

World travellers Rhya & Bill from Victoria

 

The five adjacent Desert Cities (including Palm Springs)are beautiful spots to avoid the cold Eastern winter…




        but we did see a cloud one day…

 

Our black panther-like cat, Ebony, had lost significant weight during the previous Nov-Dec while we were in Europe.

There had been insufficient December time on our return to get to the bottom of why, so we packed him up with us to California, while his “brother”, Zorro, stayed back in Ottawa with our wonderful caregiver and next door neighbour, Linda. 

Ebony loved the warmth and received caring and kind veterinary attention over the next 10 weeks. 

It was discovered that he had a malignant tumor on his duodenum, which was skillfully removed by a nearby vet surgeon in a resection operation that gave us back a happy-to-be-alive cat once again. 

 

 

 April and May were spent in Hilton Head, South Carolina, where we have a house.

 

 

It‘s summer in SC by then and the azaleas are bursting with color and everything is fragrant. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slightly drugged cats await their connection
 in Washington Dulles airport

 

We flew south this time, instead of driving, and both cats accompanied us. 

Of course, Ebony whispered to Zorro that flying was easy, having recently flown back from California. 

 

 

 

 

This sand makes beautiful castles (not exactly as illustrated)

Life is easy in HH, there are no crowds yet on the beaches or in the many excellent restaurants. 

 

Winning the race down the beach

 

 

 

 

 

 

When we are at the house, we always have endless repairs to make, and projects to research, as well as the on-going business of vacation rental requests to negotiate, but we do wonder each evening, ‘Where did that day go?’

Aiken, SC, friends Rich & Betty

 

We have a number of friends in HH now, and visitors, and for an island measuring just 5 miles by 12, there is much to savor including a 10 minute bike ride from our house to the beaches with hard packed sand where you can ride for miles, sometimes with a few dolphins in accompaniment just off shore.

 

Emeil & Elizabeth, HH amigos



 

Judi & Dave, pals from home

 

 

 

While there, suddenly and sadly,  at the end of April, Ebony died.  After doing so well, post-operatively, his body ceased making sufficient red blood cells, and he was gone from us.  We had rescued him from Ottawa streets on a very cold night years ago.   We miss his happy, warm presence; the hole he has left is huge.

Back home, we had a major tenant hassle during the summer at a rental townhouse we have owned for 30 years.   Legal proceedings are still on-going, but we took the vacancy opportunity to do a minor renovation of the property, with the aim to sell it, but the reno evolved into a major one once we saw how nice the “minor” upgrade looked.   In the end, we did not sell, but found a very agreeable tenant who we believe will protect our investment until the selling market improves.

New wall of mirrored cupboards

New ceramic floor

 

 

 

 

  

Doreen celebrates the big day

 

Don’s Mum turned 88 at the end of June, and in spite of having moved for years by wheelchair after her stroke, still lives in her own Toronto home due to the constant good care from Don’s sister, Jan.

They are Christmas-ing in Florida, as they do annually, with Don’s other sister, Pat.

Making waves on Christie Lake

June, July and August were not the Dream Summer months Ontarians deserved after the winters they suffered – better than the 2013 Rain Summer, but not sunny or warm enough many days.

So Cottage time was less enjoyable than usual.  The unusual amount of snow melt caused flooding in our boathouse and mainland docks, but the cottage was safely high above it all.

However, we did start late there due to the inconvenience of this flooding and the Ottawa responsibilities we had with the reno work.

The hardest part of our Meetings

The Giffin Gang of 10 - in now our 34th year, we reckon - did convene twice in the summer with most of our members - once for our annual canal boat trip and once in Kingston at Ed and Shirley’s lovely new home.  Always fun. 

 

One of many beautiful structures in Niagara-on-the-Lake

We motored off in September to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, for our regular tradition of attending the Shaw Festival  - a live repertory theatre experience situated in “The Prettiest Town in Ontario”, or so proclaim the street signs. 

This year, Colleen advertised for a house exchange and quickly found an amenable couple seeking a cottage getaway.  In exchange, we obtained the full use of a lovely 3 bedroom Bed & Breakfast house they operated, and …

 

Our exchange home

the house came with 4 cats! Purrfect for us! We had a happy 8 days of biking, theatre and fun in what turned out  to the best 8 day run of summer weather for our island cottage visitors.

  

 

 

After that 8 days, when Fall was truly upon us, we closed and winterized the cottage, and flew again for 4 weeks at Hilton Head - 2 of which were at our house, and another 2 at a big beach condo using our Marriott timeshare weeks, since the house had been long ago committed to a rental.

 

Hilton Head companions Ed & Eileen

HH friend Janet

And the beach weeks had no work involved – yeah!

 

 In fact, on several occasions, we visited the very pleasant couple renting our house – who ended up buying a home 2 blocks away, emailing us to say, “… we won’t be renting from you anymore – we’ll be neighbors!”

George & Margaret from Vancouver

With increasingly inclement weather back home in Ottawa, we took the opportunity to fly directly from South Carolina to Palm Desert again, when 3 weeks of last minute timeshare availability arose.  We knew Vancouver friends George and Margaret would be there then, so we surprised them by joining in.

Our entire Desert experience began in 2003 by George and Margaret inviting us to join them in Palm Desert, after we’d met on an Alaskan cruise the previous year.

 

On the trails above Palm Desert

While California’s ongoing drought is scary, and new means of distributing water will need to be built, the certainty of nearly perfect desert weather there from October until April is a strong lure, along with the beauty of the mountain valley in which it is positioned.

Many mornings in early winter, the mountain tops are dusted with snow cap as we are having breakfast in our shorts many feet below. And with so many hiking trails, Joshua Tree State Park right out of a John Wayne movie,  the whole mid century interest in Palm Springs, wonderful stores and restaurants, endless golf courses adding to the open space and beauty - while using an outrageous amount of the diminishing water supply - there is something here for everyone.  This coming year we are buying bikes since there are lots of places for pedalling.

 

Zoom. Another year gone and an oddity for us to have had no international travel including no cruises – the first time in 12 years.  Yet we had a wonderful year, and were gone most of the time. We had earlier planned on making Israel our focus for Fall 2014, but with the heightened tensions there and so much hatred raging worldwide, we kept our horizons set within a safety zone of pleasure.

We like to close each newsletter with a Christmas reflection.  You may have heard about the famous WW1 Christmas Truce of 1914 - it was even in Queen Elizabeth's Message this year.  On Dec 25 - 100 years ago – a group of German soldiers started singing Silent Night in their trenches.  British and French soldiers and other Germans picked up the initiative and for a few hours they stopped shooting at one another and crossed into no-man's-land to shake hands and exchange small tokens.  The war was very young and the true slaughter had not yet begun, but for a few moments, there was Peace on Earth.

Sainsbury, the large UK grocer, has memorialized the incident in its 2014 Christmas season greetings, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM.

Silent Night sung here was first performed on Christmas Eve 1818  - just short of 200 years ago - at St Nicholas parish church in Oberndorf, near Salzburg in Austria.  The young priest, Father Joseph Mohr, gave the lyrics he had written to Franz Gruber, a schoolmaster and organist in a nearby village, and asked him to compose a melody for the Christmas Eve church service. 

Here’s a beautiful version of it.  Turn out the lights, sit back and listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAH0qm6OWKk.  Happy Birthday, Jesus. “For yonder lies a new and Glorious morn.”

 
We close with our wishes for a genuinely Merry Christmas and Happy and Healthy 2015 - and for our Jewish friends, Happy Hannukah. 

Fondly,

Colleen and Don

 

 

A furry friend, on our deck at home, exhausted
 after eating too many hand-fed organic grapes

Ottawa skyline from the Quebec
side of the river

In Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario
 NY State in background



Zorro playing Can you see me yet?

Twins Carrie and Colleen

The long driveway in Hilton Head

Let the celebration begin!

Zorro in the freezing cold on the still running1983 Oldsmobile

Miles of beaches

  

Hilton Head at dusk

 

 

Hilton Head's Skull Creek

Heading for another 40years