Feels like summer...

 Last weekend it was so hot it felt like summer! I stopped on one of my drives to capture the beauty of a field of mustard. Great colour.

We've been spending most of out time outdoors, planting and weeding. Richard and I each have two gardens so it's time consuming. But gardening after a winter of being shut-in is such a joy. 

 When I finally came inside to pick up my phone messages (at 4 p.m.), there was a lovely voice asking us over for an impromptu dinner. Yes! Sounds fun. I spent part of the night visiting with their two cats, sweet brothers who hung around at our feet.

It was fun, and delicious. Lucky us we got to drink wine and eat pasta pescatore outside and we pretended we were in Tuscany. It's been so dry, no rain for the past two weeks, so there were very few bugs. Just lightning bugs which I've never seen this early in the year. A taste of summer.

The Company of Crows

My friend Karen Molson hosted a book launch last weekend for her new novel The Company of Crows.

I was happy to get an autographed copy!

The party included amazing hors d'oeuvres...

...And cookies too! Karen asked me to make 100 crow cookies for the occasion.

 Under the watchful eye of these two crows, each cookie had been individually bagged and given to visitors as they left the event. Great day.

Bits 'n' pieces

 My little corner of the world used to be marked by a sign, very much like this one. But over the years it had weathered and because we are so minuscule, the county said they wouldn't replace the sign. Lucky for the few families that live here, a neighbour took it upon himself to coordinate the county, township and local building supplier (who donated the wood for the sign) and re-created the sign to mark our part of the world. I thought I looked rather Joan of Arkish in this pic...

 A few weeks back we headed into the big city of Ottawa to hear a friend from Israel speak at a hall in Little Italy. I've known Florence (the gal in stripes to my right) since kindergarten and hadn't seen her since high school. Good Lord. Suzanne (gal in red) and I have been friends since elementary school as well as sharing a major in university, but it's been ages. And Bev, (purple) and I hadn't seen each other since high school either, some 35 or more years!

I was invited to a potluck and I offered to bring a cake (natch). I decided to try a recipe I had seen online. Epic fail! The cake itself was yummy. But...the salted caramel frosting was hopeless. It broke partway through cooking and cooling and became crystallized. Having the consistency of plaster, I slapped it on and pressed it into the sides of the cake. And guess what? Not enough icing for the top. Chocolate ganache to the rescue. Topped with homemade caramel apples too. Best of all? It was someone's birthday, so candles were put on and Happy Birthday was sung. The gal came up to me afterwards and said it was the best cake she had ever had. I was touched!

Succulent cake

 My friends Ken and Yvette celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary on Sunday and they asked me to do the cake. Their theme was "Sun-kissed and windblown." Each table had driftwood she found from the Rouge River, filled with succulents.

 The cake slab was from a downed tree Yvette spotted one day on her way home from work. She rang the bell and told the lady why she wanted a piece of wood, and the lady gave it to her. Ken fashioned it to fit the cake.

A lovely couple who celebrated with friends a family. Congrats you two. Here's to many more years of happiness together.

Summer evenings...

Summer is so lovely. Long evenings, bees buzzing, butterflies flitting. 

Especially when one of your many gardens looks like this. Friends invited us for "foursies," as she calls it: drinks and nibbles at four p.m.

Before we hit the road, a quick photo on the new refurbished deck, built round an old tree in their yard.
I'm taking this memory with me into the heart of January when it's dark at 4 p.m. and -30C.

Visiting

 My friend from Toronto, Peter, came for a visit last weekend. First up? We made a cake together, honouring a English Lit. class we took at university many moons ago. We were big T.S. Eliot fans...

Then we headed over to Vankleek Hill to visit Beau's All Natural Brewing Co.

 Next up? Track down a good poutine!

 Richard was up for the search as well.

 Our search took us to Vert Forchette and we each tried a funky variety of poutine.

We also visited Natalie and her critters. The piggies are darn cute.

We lunched at the Quirky Carrot and had a wee visit with Julia who dreams up all that delicious food.

 And a quick boo at the amazing St. Raphael's ruins...

We also stopped at Glengarry Fine Cheese so that Peter could take their award winning cheese back to Toronto!

 Sadly, all good things must come to an end...

 It was a great weekend full of and merriment...and we missed the snow by one day!

Come back again soon Peter. It was so much fun! I have to rest now. I'm exhausted!!

Bye Bye Hayley

 Our wonderful summer student, Hayley, is off to university next week so we celebrated her last day with cupcakes that I had made the night before.

 The gang at work was pretty happy to get CUPCAKES!

Ah...sweet sprinkles and a sweet girl. Best of luck to sweet Hayley 

in her life ahead of her. Very exciting times!

Blind Date, sort of...

 Natalie and I had been chatting online with fellow blogger Deb  for a few years now, I think, and we decided it was time to meet her. She loves cats as much as Nat and I do...in fact, Deb is a professional cat sitter! Here we are having tea in her home.

Then we hit the streets and Deb showed us the sights of Carleton Place. Here's Nat taking a photo of the mighty Mississippi River.

 We were so lucky to have a sunny albeit windy day.

 Our first really nice sunny day of spring so far.

 Deb took us to one of her favourite local haunts, a fish and chip joint.

Yum!

 We all enjoyed the healthy salad (with fabulous curried house dressing)...

... before eating the fabulous the fish and chips.

 Then we decided that we might as well check out Almonte too, just a few km down the road. The Mississippi is just crazy fast here!

 Did you know that basketball was invented by James Naismith who was from Almonte? 

His likeness sits in the centre of the town.

At a local bookstore, the children's section had a cat chair. I loved it!

 Nat took this pic of Deb and me at the mighty Mississippi.

A good time was had by all. It was like we had known each other all our lives. 

Can't wait to meet up again!

Peek-a-Boo Cat

 I love this photo of Bix and Greg.

But I also love this photo of Bix and Greg. Hard to choose, eh?

Goodbye Diane

My friend Diane Bedford died last week. I've known her since the early 2000s and for the last two years, was lucky enough to work with her at The Glengarry News. She was the proofreader at the paper.

I typed the classified ads and was always discouraged at all the typos I made. In order to egg me on, she bought a package of sparklers and put them in her desk drawer. She told me that when I finally got the ads typed perfectly, she'd give me a sparkler.

To my delight, it finally happened last summer. Diane came downstairs and said in a hushed tone, "I have to see you out back." I followed her to the parking lot and she turned around and said, "It's sparkler day!" I couldn't have been more delighted. I was only ever lucky enough to have that happen twice. I was more than lucky enough to consider Diane a friend. She will be missed.

My First Job

My first ever job was at Karn & Garber, Printers and Lithographer in downtown Toronto as a paste up artist. My first day on the job happened to be on International Women's Day, March 8,1983, 29 years ago.

In the early days, we'd use a huge camera to shoot stats and one day, on a Saturday, we made rubylith glasses and put the huge, horizontal camera on its smallest setting (10%, I think) and did a very long exposure so that David (who set the camera) could run in and be in the photo. We turned the copy board flat so it would shoot us. This was the result.

 Our art room was a lot of fun to work in...

...and play in too!

 We worked with a fantastic group of people...

...who got along fabulously well.

And since were were young, that meant lots of parties...

 And peace marches...

 Even then, I always seemed to have my camera with me.

 We ate together...

 ...and drank together; this photo from the company Christmas party in 1984.

 We had many fabulous parties where we'd do things like play typeface charades (bold? italic?)

But mostly we were good friends who enjoyed each other's company at work and outside of work too.

Twenty-five years later, we got together for a reunion in the exact place we all met, now a trendy restaurant in a trendy area of Toronto. And I'm happy to say, I consider all of them to still be my friends. Lucky me!