Spring settled in, slowly at first. Here’s a picture of a mid-April snowfall. We’re in Northern Ontario now, temporarily, where we are spending time with family and where I am working on a new writing project.
The landscape is beautiful and there are 330 lakes to explore here. Fewer than ten within comfortable walking distance, but that’s still nine more than I’m used to visiting regularly. (Toronto is on Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes in Canada, which schoolchildren memorize using HOMES, in which the O stands for Lake Ontario. Now the S is our closest Great Lake.) I learn something new everyday and, because most of the streets here have more than one name, I get lost frequently—so often the new thing that I learn is how to find my way back home again.
My concentration was wobbly so I started a lot of books and only imagined finishing them. In April, I reread most of Elizabeth von Arnim’s Enchanted April: an old favourite that felt familiar when little else did. It has a delightful ending, but I still haven’t finished rereading that part. I started to reread Lettice Cooper’s The New House, too, which I loved reading the last time we moved (waves to Helen), but it remains undone as well.
When it was time for #1954Club, I started to reread Robertson Davies’ Tempest-Tost, with an eye to continuing with the second volume of the series. It’s funny and filled with small-town hijinks, but am a long way from done, and the celebratory week for its 1954 follow-up, Leaven of Malice, is long past.
Ahead of time, I pulled Daphne du Maurier’s Hungry Hill off the shelf, with DDM ReadingWeek in mind, but I quickly began to muddle the talk of mining country in England with the first volume of Katharine Susannah Prichard’s trilogy about life in Australian mining country. So, I thought I would finish Prichard first and still have not finished that either, let alone returned to DDM for her special week.
In the meantime, while I was not reading any of those books, I got a visitor’s card for the library here; I borrowed children’s stories to read with young family members, French magazines, and a jigsaw puzzle. The weather warmed and my reading warmed too.
Ken Kimura’s 999 Frogs Wake Up (illustrated by Yasunari Murakami) was in my mind, when I crossed the field with the small waterway frequented by geese and ducks and heard the frogs singing as the temperatures rose. Along the broader shorelines, I thought about Roy Henry Vickers’ and Robert Budd’s Cloudwalker, and wondered how much longer it will take for me to find a moose here.
And I absolutely adored Marianne Dubuc’s Le chemin de la montagne about how we share pathways through forests and time, about connections we make along the way, and how important the small creatures and moments in ordinary days are, how they accumulate and help us to build a life and memories. It inspired me to sketch an exploring route nearby and, when it rained, when I could not go out and walk, I worked on the puzzle.
In the Dubuc story, there is talk of lemonade and, by this time, it had grown hot enough to make the first batch of the season. It was tart and cold and, sitting on the deck outside, a space not far off the size of our previous living space, the gardens were greening and a mass of plants, seemingly untended for a few years, began to emerge. At first it was all green, and then the phlox burst forth. A few lilies of the valley poked out their stems.
Then it got hotter and the two youngest girls (six and seven) picked dandelions and then helped to peel off their blossoms, so their mom and I could make dandelion jelly. And up here there are Mason jars to buy, whereas they had been backordered in the city since the pandemic first took hold. And, suddenly, it was warm enough to make lilac jelly too. And toast has not been the same since.
Up here, the population is 40% francophone, and spending time with little French readers does encourage my language skills. Reading Dubuc’s charming story, I learned that “abeilles bourdonnantes” means “buzzing bees” and even though my concentration remains fractured, the articles I stumble through in French remind me of the subjects that soon I’ll return to reading about in English books.
But, for now, I’m reading Mémé a la plage by Rhéa Dufresne (illustrated by Aurélie Grand). Because it is hot enough now to think of beaches. And I am not quite ready to resume my booklength reading in English about climate change and erosion and plastic pollution of waterways and declining salmon species. Spoiler alert: when Mémé’s reading is interrupted, she gets wise to the commotion and finds herself a quiet place to read (she doesn’t look as grumpy inside the book as she does on the cover).
In a few days, I’ll have more to say about reading for Indigenous History Month, and I’ll catch up with posts on the remaining Alistair MacLeod stories (saving the final two for next month, to mark his birthday) and Audre Lorde’s essays. And I’ll share some more photographs of the landscape and these surroundings: it’s a good reminder, when you take up temporary lodgings, that life is short and that making the most of every moment is the best way to lengthen our experience in the here and now.
That’s what’s been happening over here, with me. Now, how about you?
[…] the past month we’ve had visits to libraries in Canada and Catalonia – thanks to Marcie and Margaret for sharing about […]
So glad to see you around here again. Thanks for sharing the pictures and the picture books! As a fan of picture books it warmed my heart. I’ve never heard of nor tasted lilac jelly and am very curious. And now I want toast!
Toast is my all-time-favourite comfort food. It’s been that way since childhood. 🙂 Still having trouble working in my online visiting…I have a lot of catching up to do, for time lost because I was ill during and following the transition to living elsewhere temporarily, with work, and deadlines have been preoccupying me, but gradually I’m rediscovering my feet once more! Looking forward to seeing what you’ve been reading too!
You’re back! And I didn’t even know it, because I never check my blog notices. I love this concise update on your life, which sounds exciting and adventurous to me. Moving! Family! Lakes! Town streets to get lost on! Jelly! A new library! New walks! New writing project!! 🙂
I’m still behind on other blogs, too, but that will come along shortly. It does feel like quite an adventure. It’s still a challenge to remember where things are in the kitchen, or which direction to turn at the end of the driveway, to get to a particular place. But I just visited a second library the other day, with my trusty visitor’s card, so now it’s starting to feel more like home. Heheh
Lovely to see where you’ve been spending time lately. You’re entitled to some low-key book dabbling and other activities like puzzling and preserving after last year’s full-on nature! I had never heard of lilac jelly and I’m intrigued. I’ve tasted other floral flavours like rose, lavender and violet. I’m so looking forward to foraging season and all the goodies we’ll make again this year from plums, apples and blackberries. We don’t have our own trees and bushes anymore, so I’ll be hoping to find fruit in the hedgerows, or offered up by neighbours.
And now that I have a visitor’s card at the library here, I should be able to participate in your library event, and possibly even with a reasonable (i.e. normal Heheh) number of books (I wasn’t borrowing much in Toronto, in the months prior, not being sure how possible it would be to manage duedates back in the city.) I know you’d love the puzzle selection up here. My next selection is bird-related! Your neighbours will undoubtedly be happy to share some of the spoils. I don’t think there are m/any stone fruit trees up here, and sourcing food locally has certainly proven to be a challenge, so the homemade jams are a nice contrast to that struggle.
Welcome back! I was wondering how you were doing, so it’s good to catch up with everything. It sounds like a very peaceful place to be!
Thank you. I’m just starting to feel as though I’m regaining my balance. In your latest newsletter, all three of the writing opportunities interest me, but I know that I won’t quite be prepared to submit anything for the end of June. But hopefully next month will be a little more settled.
Lovely post and thank you for sharing your daily life with us.
It sounds beautiful there and it seems like you’ll have the opportunity to improve your French!
Enjoy all those little precious things of life and your reading will come back strong.
PS : If I read your state of mind right, I’d recommend The Book of Yaak by Rick Bass and Indian Creek by Pete Fromm.
Thanks, Emma! Yes, while I’ve been browsing the shelves of French books, I have often thought of you. It’s amazing, having, for example, street signs in both languages for a change. (There are a few signs in Toronto in Indigenous languages, but very few, and no French to my knowledge.) Hopefully I can take advantage of this cultural opportunity while we’re here!
The library system in the north is terribly underfunded. I can see the books you’ve suggested in the Toronto system, but not even any of other books by either of those authors up here. Ironic: more time to read, fewer library books to borrow! I’ve marked them in my Toronto library account, however!
I hope you’ll find French books to read!
I know the feeling about the signs. My shock when I arrived in Montreal was being in an American city with everything written in French! 🙂
That’s a shame about the libraries. Don’t you have a system like they have in the US where you can borrow from the Toronto library anyway?
Lovely to see you back and adapting to the pace of daily life in that beautiful place. The reading will click back into place when you are ready. Meanwhile, enjoy exploring a new library system, new books, and spending time with family.
Thanks, Julé. I think you would find the landscape lovely here. Very like yours and, simultaneously, very NOT. It will probably begin to feel like a routine just in time for all of it to be disrupted once more!
Lovely post and so great to see you back – thanks for sharing these glimpses of your current life! I really do want to get to Robertson Davies sooner rather than later – but other books keep getting in the way! 😀
I’ve been missing all of you and look forward to more fully resuming online life, so that I can see what you’ve all been reading meanwhile! Save Davies for when you’re looking for something smart yet old-fashioned feeling: it’d be a nice foil for much of your European reading and books in translation (which you know I also love).
Gorgeous pictures! Love those beautiful lilacs. I had no idea you could make lilac jelly?
I’m heading to Muskoka for two-three weeks in July with my family and am SO EXCITED to swim in those waters again – I find them so healing!
I imagined that it would take a lot of lilac branches to make the jelly but those in the measuring cup (#fancy) were the ones we didn’t need and we still had enough to double the batch.
Georgian Bay is one of my favourite places, so I can see why you’d be looking forward to that. What a long trip to take though, from where you’re at now!
Yes indeed – we will definitely be flying! Driving across Canada with two young kids is unfortunately just no possible for us right now haha
This is such a lovely post, I haven’t heard of LIlac jelly and must look it up since we have lilac in the garden. I love the way you’ve popped in and out of books, it’s just like that sometimes isn’t it but as Liz says (above) books are here forever!
Thanks, Jane. The lilac jelly was much more enjoyable to work with than the dandelion, but I’m sure they would both be much easier to undertake on a second run! It has felt very meander-y but I am conscious of how much more unlucky we could have been, so I am content to regain routine slowly.
Hello! Book challenges come and go, books are here forever and here for you when you need them. I’ve loved this glimpse into your life at the moment – thank you!
Thanks, Liz. Up here, I have access to a different library system, so it occurred to me that I would be able to request Queenie at some point (but later this year, maybe late fall or early winter, because it would take time to arrive and I am feeling dreadfully behind with everything just now, even very short books remaining untouched and unfinished).
Do you mean Haley’s Queen for an autumn readalong? I’d be up for that. But no rush. Have fun exploring the library system!
That’s what I was thinking. But I have a feeling it would be more like winter-break for me. Everything is taking longer than expected up here.
That is so cool you can borrow jigsaw puzzles from the library! and you got a fun one too! Yay for flower jellies! Also, I love the mug with the black cat and flowers. Looking forward to hearing more about your new writing project 🙂
Isn’t it wonderful? They have children’s puzzles (beginning at 24 pieces) all the way to 2000-piece puzzles. Browsing them for a few moments to select another (despite ongoing COVID cases, the libraries are fully opened here, so I generally only pick up my books while wearing my mask and then leave promptly) is a joy. There were also some notes inside the first puzzle, from previous puzzle doers. 🙂
Lovely to see a new post form you as I’ve been wondering if everything was okay…
Revisiting the Elizabeth von Arnim seems like the ideal way to spend part of your April, especially given your other personal commitments…and the Ontario landscape looks stunning, many thanks for sharing such a beautiful pic!
It has been a terrific relief to return to something-like-routine, at long last. If the worst of the summer humidity and heat holds off just a little, I think I’ll be back to books and words in very little time now. Thank you: I am considering posting more landscape photos to the website I maintain under my name for work (which is more about my writing whereas I think of this one being all about reading): it’s very picturesque.
Such a lovely post! My partner has a new found interest in making jams and jellies so I think I may mention lilac jelly to him. It sounds scrumptious.
Thank you! And I included a link below for Karen and there are links there, too, for other floral spreads. It’s our new favourite spread, a lovely smell but gentle flavour (in the way that Jasmine tea smells more flowery than it tastes).
I felt chilled just seeing that photo of the lake. Winters in Ontario can be brutal I believe, and they last such a long time.
My curiosity was awakened by your mention of lilac jelly never having heard of that before.
Winter is my favourite season, and typically the snowfalls here are much heftier and the season lengthier: I’m looking forward to it. And I was probably the only person happy to see snow on that April day! Heheh
Here’s a recipe that might work for you if you prefer less sweet jams/jellies. We didn’t add berries or anything for colour because it was a trial and I didn’t want to introduce anything unusual but, in hindsight, the colour (from berries) would have been a nice touch, because these blossoms produced a very pale yellow spread.
Enjoy Northern Ontario! Should be lovely. Though I hope the black flies don’t carry you off at this season. We like to go up around Killarney & haven’t been yet this year, but it sounds like you’re well north of that.
Happy reading & looking forward to hearing about the new writing project.
We are north yet of Killarney, but I bet you have a better track record there with moose-sightings! 🙂
Maybe when you’re next up here, the current COVID situation will afford an opportunity for a get-together!
Covid does seem to be allowing get-togethers again, and it would be fun. But if your closest lake is S, and you’re 40% French speaking, you’re probably well past Killarney… We’ll probably make our first trip up end of June or early July.
We do see moose pretty often…
I think the moose are all hanging out down there! We’ve been told that it’s unusual we’ve not seen any yet, but we’ve also only started to locate post boxes, so perhaps we’ve been looking in all the wrong places for moose too! hahaha Email when you’re getting closer date-wise, if you’re feeling social!
Northern Ontario sounds like a much more inviting natural setting 🙂
Here in NH I’m getting out more, such as thinning the wild raspberries (brambles) and bittersweet, an endless chore, and clearing the paths in my natural garden. Though painfully slow at my age, I sleep better at night.
You mention the spring frog singing, a kin to what we call peepers here. I was happy to hear their chorus last month in the natural garden pond, but sadly less that a decade ago.
In the evenings I nod off reading a few more pages of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. I started it as a diversion from my usual eco-lit reading, and am finding it full of subtleties regarding humankind’s misnomer of Homo sapiens 😉
Take care and be well,
Lee
It is and it isn’t. It’s also mining country and, because it’s (relatively) rural, climate change isn’t necessarily viewed as a pressing issue (there are, for instance, more birds, whereas their absence in the city is more noticeable). Good rest overnight is essential to keep those woodworking and gardening projects underway! Yes, the peepers did not sing for long, tragically. One of the aspects of Mitchell’s writing that I admire and adore is how he connects every book to some other (or a few other) of his books; this, to my way of thinking, more than any single book, proves his commitment to viewing situations with natural complexity, the interconnected truth of existence, and the whole question of our braided fates. He’s got some things figured out for sure! Thanks for your update and I’ll keep in touch too! Be well and keep on.
Lovely post, thank you for sharing.
Thanks, Madame Bibi!
Beautiful post! Your mention of dandelions made me think of Ray Bradbury’s beautiful book ‘Dandelion Wine’. Have a wonderful summer
I’ve been wanting to read that one of his books for ages. Maybe I will put in an ILL request. It seems like a great summer read (but good at any time of year too).
BIP, it feels wonderful to read your update. In your post, I see a lot of walks, getting lost and finding your way back, memorable landscapes, reading with young readers and in another language, and I hope you would spot a moose soon. All the walks and the snow you mentioned reminded me of a personal essay — The Way She Closed The Door — Miriam Toews wrote for the New Yorker. I look forward to knowing more about the Indigenous History Month.
As I type this comment, I am looking at my bookshelf, like a dog who has been served a bowl of bland food, and waiting for a book to call my name. *cocks her head and listens keenly
I’m hoping to see a moose soon, too. They are holding out on me! Heheh
Oh, that essay is just perfect. Including the link for anyone else who’s curious. I especially love how the piece itself belies the finality in the final sentence.
And…what happened? You cannot leave that story unfinished… *grins
1. Keep on feeling better. 2. Subject to 1, keep on with KSP’s Goldfield’s trilogy, July will be with us soon enough! 3. If I were to walk to 10 lakes it would take me 1,000 km, and 8 or them would be salt pans. In fact, I am imaging a geometric puzzle, in which you arrange 10 circles (lakes) and go from one to another – if they were all 1 km in diameter and nearly touching, then I think you the least distance you could walk and touch 10 would be 5 km.
1. Thank you. I think I’ve turned the corner, at last. 2. You know it! 3. You’re quite right. I think walking has been a significant factor in my health improving. When I next take photos there, I will capture some panoramic shots, which will reveal that some of the lakes are small. But they are still obviously lakes, not simply overgrown ponds. (Though not Great either.)