Wanderlust and Words

My sister in law gave me a cookbook for Christmas. A particularly challenging present as it’s called Las Vegetales en la Cocina Cubana – Vegetables in Cuban Cooking – and I don’t know the names of vegetables in Spanish. So I have been looking up words in my dictionary, and I can now tell you: Esta noche, voy a hacer un estofado de lentejas con col y maiz, un pimiento rojo, las tomates maduras, y algunas zanahorias. (Tonight, I’m going to make lentil stew with cabbage and corn, a red pepper, ripe tomatoes and some carrots.) My brother gave me the perfect music to accompany my Spanish lesson: A las cinco en el Astoria by La Oreja de Van Gogh . La Oreja de Van Gogh is a Latin Grammy-winning Spanish pop group. There is so much energy and happiness in their music; I want to dance when I hear their music.

I read over 140 books in 2008. Here are some that I really enjoyed and would highly recommend. Non-Fiction How Doctors Think, Jerome Groopman – A very interesting insight into how doctors think and how you can communicate more effectively with them. I found it helpful. Troublesome Young Men, Lynne Olson – Britain has always had strong ties with Germany, and the upper classes in particular really didn’t want to enter into a second world war. So the British government, headed by Chamberlain, tried very hard to appease Hitler and stay at peace. A group of young MPs saw things differently, and they brought Churchill to power and made sure that England did go to war with Germany. An interesting insight into British politics in the 30s and 40s. Farthing, Jo Walton – This book is a mystery, but it provides a disturbing picture of what life could have been like in Britain if the country had not gone to war. Travel The Scent Trail, Celia Lyttleton – The author designs her own perfume and th...

I’ve just finished reading The Day George Bush Stopped Drinking: Why abstinence matters to the religious right by Jessica Warner. What fascinates me is the North American belief that we can control our lives and our destiny and the rigid thinking that leads us to believe we know what is best for other people. The temperance movement in the United States started in the northeast and was tied into evangelical Christianity. If you followed all the rules and lived a 'pure' life, you could be saved. Purity started with abstaining from alcohol. But if alcohol was bad, then coffee and tea, which also stimulated the brain, weren’t acceptable either. Some groups outlawed meat and sugar (the origin of the Seventh Day Adventists). And sex was highly questionable and best avoided, even within marriage, except for procreation. And it wasn’t enough to restrain from partaking in these substances or activities yourself. You also had to protect other people, and the only way to do that was by ...

M.G. Vassanji and his parents and grandparents lived and worked in East Africa. He now lives in Canada but welcomed an opportunity to travel in India, the land of his ancestors. A Place Within: Rediscovering India talks about his sense of coming home but still observes the country as an outsider. He is neither Hindu nor Muslim, and he’s horrified by the religious violence that can erupt in India. But unlike North Americans, he’s at home in a poor, crowded country. He looks back at the country’s long, long history of being invaded again and again and the diverse mix of people and religions and cultures this has created in India. It’s a fascinating look at a very complex country. I also feel very much at home with his perspective. I was born in Africa of British parents. I have spent roughly half my life in Saskatoon, but the rest of my life has been spent wandering. I’ve lived in four Canadian provinces and spent 2 ½ years in France. Sometimes I envy people who have lived their whole li...

Winter has definitely arrived in Canada. It's -45 with wind chill in Saskatoon, and Vancouver and Victoria have had snow. But indoors, my amaryllis is in bloom. What a joyful sight.

I went shopping yesterday and bought some foam hand soap. I LOVE foam soap. It's just so much fun. It makes using public washrooms so enjoyable. There was this great washroom in Deep Cove, BC with strawberry-scented foam soap - awesome! Now I know that it is completely trivial and frivolous and materialistic and not environmentally correct to enjoy foam soap. On the other hand, life is short so it makes sense to enjoy every single moment. I bought vanilla chai-scented underarm deoderant too.

A three-day holiday is either too long or too short. I think I tried to cram in too many things, but it was fun nonetheless. I used to live in Winnipeg, and it was a bittersweet experience to realize that both the City and myself had changed and moved on. There were familiar sights alongside unfamiliar ones. And the memories kept surging back. I had my first proper apartment in Winnipeg, bought my first couch and bed. I led Brownies in Winnipeg and got a Master’s degree in Public Affairs. Winnipeg was once a major transportation hub for Western Canada, and the tall, old buildings in the Exchange District bear testimony to its past with columns, ornaments and panels witnessing to past grandeur. I was really looking forward to going to The Forks, Winnipeg’s market and crafts centre. I was hugely disappointed as it didn’t bear even the remotest resemblance to Granville Island. There was a large food court, some restaurants, and some stores selling trashy tourist junk. It’s a beautiful set...

I’ve been attending the Big Fat Ass Dance Class this autumn – and it’s been the highlight of my week. Aileen, who leads the class, says there is one simple goal – to have fun. And we do. We move to music, play games, laugh, and get a good workout. There are 28 of us in the Friday morning class, ranging in age from our early 20s to our 60s. We start out with the Name Game – using our bodies to introduce ourselves and to express how we’re feeling at that particular moment in time – so people act out being sleepy or frazzled or happy. We go on to move our bodies in a wide variety of ways. We throw an imaginary ball, imitate each other’s movements, form a blob and move together like a flock of birds. It is so unusual for us in modern society to use our bodies to express ourselves. I love just moving freely – raising my hands in the air, swaying with the music, using my body to express happiness or grief. I was particularly moved when Aileen talked about our lower abdomen as the second ch...

My mother accused me of being a boozer. I don't think so, but I do enjoy a glass of wine with dinner - it's so civilized. So I cannot resist sharing a few quotes about wine. Music, poetry, and wine - plus a little gooey French cheese - what more could one ask? I am currently reading I'll Drink To That: Beaujolais and the French Peasant Who Made It the World's Most Popular Wine by Rudolph Chelminski. Near the beginning of the book, Chelminski offers a short history of wine and its health-giving qualities. He mentions Dr. Guyot (1807-72) who wrote a massive study on the French wine industry. He recommends that a family of four (mother, father, and two children) drink at least 1500 liters of wine a year - that averages out to almost 1.5 US quarts per day per individual, children included. He goes on to quote a twentieth century maxim: "vegetables make merde , meat makes meat, wine makes blood." And a few quotes from http://www.wrathofgrapes.com/winequot.html : ...

Finally, some photos from Shaftesbury - heritage apples and flowers from the Abbey gardens and then a view from top of the hill down to the neatly-hedged fields that are so quintessentially English. There is also a photo of fuschia, which were blooming everywhere in August.

Just two images of British architecture. First, a pub sign in Salisbury. And secondly, barley twist columns decorating a former merchant's house in King's Lynn.

Janet and Richard's house is near the village of Fosdyke, near Spalding, Lincolnshire. The house is one of 4 almshouses that were built in 1615. There is a jewel of a garden that is very British - lavender bushes border the path, and roses and clematis frame the windows. Beyond the garden there are fields of wheat and large expanses of sky. The houses were enlarged and doubled in size in the 1980s but maintain the heritage appearance.

I spent 2 weeks in Lincolnshire and was surprised by how flat it was. But the scenery grows on you, and I really enjoyed my walks on the sea walls. Here is the River Welland at low tide on a foggy morning. Then there's a photo of cabbages - fields of flowers in the spring might be more attractive, but the cabbage leaves with their intricate tracery are also beautiful. And then there's a fine herd of Highland cattle.

The Verity clan had a family outing to Burghley Park's Garden of Surprises on my last weekend in England. Burghley Park is near Stamford , a lovely old stone town. The grounds of Burghley Park are large and inviting with tall trees, a lake and a stream - and an amazing variety of sculptures in unexpected places - globes fishing in the lake, masks on cliff tops, and human figures running along the bough of a tree. There is also a water garden for the children with water fountains and streams in all sorts of creative combinations.

I have been asked to post more of my photos from my recent trip to England. So here we are. Family and Friends John Bound's wife went to university with my father. They were wonderful hosts to all of the McKinlays over the years. John has recently made a number of trips to Canada so we've had an opportunity to return his hospitality. Sheila and Peter Walker were in Africa with Mum and Dad, and Sheila went with Mum to Dar es Salaam to wait for me to be born. When I visited this summer, she pulled out letters she'd written to her mother at that time. There were wonderful descriptions of the wedding dinner they hosted when Allison and Brad got married as well as serving as a reminder that baby Penny cried every afternoon from 3 to 4. Frances and Emma are Janet and Richard's daughters and my second cousins. Adam is the most recent addition to the Verity clan and much loved by the whole family. Janet is my cousin. She and her husband Richard have known me for years...

I have been thoroughly enjoying David Attenborough's 2005 television series about insects . There is so much diversity and complexity on such a small scale. And they have found some ingenious ways to not only survive but to thrive. There is a blue, European butterfly that lays its eggs on the gentian flower. The eggs hatch and form larvae that smell and sound like ant larvae. So the ants haul the larvae off to their underground nest where they feed them and care for them. But that isn't the end of the story. There is a wasp that is able to detect which ant nests contain butterfly larvae. They crawl down the tunnel to the nest and release a pheromone that overwhelms the ants so that they start attacking each other. While the ants are preoccupied, the wasp injects the butterfly larvae with its eggs. The wasp leaves, and the ants continue to care for the larvae as they develop into chrysalis. Eventually the chrysalis splits open. And sometimes it is a butterfly that emerges, crawl...

Betrayed – by my Body This has been a long winter A “things often went wrong” winter A “you must be strong” winter One I’d care not to repeat (Connie Kaldor, Love is a Truck) My body betrayed me this past winter. I was angry and frustrated – but most of all I was scared. I came home tired from holidays with a pain in my leg that limited my walking, stopped me from doing tai chi, and left me looking at flights of stairs with trepidation and fear. And I was so, so, so tired. My blood pressure soared, and my head ached unbearably day and night. I worked hard to get better. I took time off work, and my family delivered groceries and ran errands for me. The doctor told me I was anemic, and I became an iron fanatic – I knew the iron content of every food I ate. I knew stress was part of my problem so I quit my job and found another one. I found out I had arthritis in my back; physiotherapy helped. I took extra holidays over Christmas and got lots of rest. I was back at work; I was only mod...

I am not particularly fond of churches full of gold and glitter such as those in Prague. I much prefer the simple majesty of tall stone pillars, curving arches, and the imaginative stone carving found in France and England. Some of the carvings, such as these from Amiens Cathedral , the tallest Gothic church and largest cathedral in France, tell a story. Others have a more humorous slant, such as this one of a man being bitten by a dog, from the exterior of Salisbury Cathedral . Others depict the Green Man from primitive religion or devils. Here is one from the exterior of St. Mary's Church in Beverley, Yorkshire. Inside this church is a carving of a pilgrim rabbit, thought to be the inspiration for the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland as well as a lovely painted carving of a group of musicians donated by the Northern Guild of Musicians when the church had to be rebuilt in 1520. Sometimes all that is left of a church or religious building are the ruins. There is something hau...

If you are travelling in Europe, there are two restaurant chains that I would highly recommend. Pizza Express is a British chain of Italian pizza restaurants. Much more upscale than Pizza Hut, they serve fresh, tasty food in pleasant surroundings and have lots of vegetarian options. I also enjoyed my Italian beer - Peroni Nastro Azzuro . My favourite place for breakfast in Lille was Le Pain Quotidien in Place Rihour. A Belgian chain, begun in the 1980s, the restaurant prides itself on high-quality organic bread. My breakfast consisted of apple or pear juice, a small pot of yogurt, a basket of wholewheat bread, and a variety of jams, including chocolate spreads. All the food was organic and delicious. They also offered a wide range of loose teas and delicious patisseries for afternoon tea. They serve a variety of open-face sandwiches for lunch or dinner. The chain has now spread to 10 countries worldwide but is still centred in Belgium and northern France. If you like good bread and ...

Salisbury I have been visiting Salisbury, England for a number of years. One of my favourite walks is across the Water Meadows that stretch from Salisbury to Harnham. In the early 1600s, the local farmers created a series of irrigation ditches so that they could flood the meadows depositing silt and preventing frost so that the grass grew more quickly in the spring and the soil was richer, hence more crops and larger flocks of sheep. It is still a peaceful place to walk, and there is a lovely view of Salisbury Cathedral made famous by John Constable . The meadows are also home to a wide variety of birds and animals. I was fortunate enough to see a water vole nibbling on some greenery in the middle of the stream. Ratty, in the Wind in the Willows , was actually a water vole. At the far end of the water meadows is the Harnham Mill . It was a paper mill from 1550 onwards, although it is now a hotel and a pleasant place to have a beer and a sandwich. The earliest parts of the building d...

As I approach the end of my stay in England, I'm coming to some very broad generalizations about the differences between countries and cultures. Language and Culture We hear so often that the world is shrinking and that societies and cultures are becoming homogenous. And yet I'm struck by the differences between Britons and North Americans. As I occasionally struggle to understand their accents and to use the correct words (aubergine not eggplant, petrol not gas, toilet not washroom), I'm not even sure we speak the same language. 'Mamma Mia' is a hit movie in England as well as Canada, and Coca Cola is available worldwide, but there are so many distinctions. North Americans have a sporty casual dress style. Clothes are somewhat tailored, and we wear a lot of synthetic fabrics. English women favour cotton and linen and softer, more feminine clothes. British comedy is clever and self deprecating. It relies on verbal jokes rather than slapstick. It's intelligent hu...

I have been going for long walks on the sea walls over the fens. The sea walls are not stone walls like in Vancouver but rather large earthen banks. The medieval sea wall is lined with hawthorn bushes in many sections bearing a rich crop of red berries. There are also tall elderberry trees. The new sea wall is more open as you are walking beside the River Welland. The Welland is not a wide river and it is tidal so it appears even smaller at low tide. Both walls curve at times and sometimes dip down to the level of the fields, but there are long straight stretches disecting the fields of wheat, kale, potatoes, and cabbages. The land feels timeless with few signs of human habitation. I went out on a grey, blustery day which suited the landscape perfectly. As I got closer to the mouth of the river, the salt marshes spread out below me. Sturdy blue-green grassses blended with soft green grasses while there were whole banks of tall grasses with dark purplish-brown seed heads bending and dan...

It is hard to believe that Lincolnshire is even flatter than the Canadian prairies, and yet it isn't surprising. Over the years, more and more land has been reclaimed from the sea so it is flat and fertile with ditches rather than hedges separating the fields. I am staying in a very small village called Fosdyke which literally means 'ditch-ditch'. Many of the villages were initially founded on islands in the middle of the rivers. Just beyond the almshouses you can see two sea walls. The closest one is the medieval sea wall that was built centuries ago to hold back the tides and floods. Beside the River Welland is the more recently-constructed sea wall. The sea has been pushed back year after year to reclaim more land. The house is one of a series of almshouses that were originally built in 1615 with a generous bequest from a local when he died. There is a jewel of a garden surrounding the house that is so very British. Lavender bushes border the path, and roses and clematis...

From France I moved to Salisbury and Thomas Hardy country. To me, this area is truly the heart of England's 'green and pleasant land'. The country lanes are narrow and wind their way through green leafy glades and fields surrounded by hedges. The roads are so narrow that cars had to back up and make way for the bus to pass, and some of the lanes are so deep that the hedges and banks of the road were over the roof of the bus as the roads have slowly sunk over time. The small villages each have a church tower or spire; the gardens are walled and full of flowers; and many of the houses are very old. It is a very pretty, civilized part of the world. The people are more civilized too as they are used to living at very close quarters. Housing is very close together so that even though there is a very large population, there are still green woods and fields with pastures full of sheep and cows. There is a very strong sense of history as well - Salisbury Cathedral is 750 years old ...

Lille is in northern France, right on the Belgian border so it is a fascinating mix of French and Flemish architecture - black slate rooves with mansard windows and curving Dutch roof facades. It is so good to be back in France after a 30-year absence. I delight in the musical French voices and the day-to-day courtesy. You say 'Bonjour' as you enter a store or restaurant and 'Good day. Enjoy your afternoon/evening' when you leave. The French are reputed to be snooty and unhelpful, but I thought they were wonderful. They were helpful in showing me what wines were available with screw caps (No, I don't travel with a corkscrew) or in giving me minute quantities of all sorts of lovely chocolates. Life seems more leisurely as well. Sidewalk cafes abound and are busy all day long with people stopping for a beer or a coffee or a glass of wine with friends and family. Stores aren't open 24 hours a day. They actually shut on Sundays and sometimes over the lunch hour. It...

Northern Saskatchewan is full of lakes, each with their own personality. My sister and I chose to spend a couple of days at Anglin Lake, a lake that neither of us had ever visited before. We rented a cottage from Land of the Loon Resort and were pleased to discover that it had a shady deck facing the lake. I spent many happy hours reading and admiring the view. The most pleasant surprise was discovering that there were lots of loons on the lake. Loons are normally a very reclusive bird, and they stay away from people. But Anglin Lake was peaceful enough that the birds were comfortable living close to shore and sharing their habitat with humans. We went on a tour of the lake in a Gimli boat and were so excited to see a mother loon carrying her two babies on her back and a loon with a minnow in its mouth passed in front of our boat. There were lots of beaver lodges as well, including one in the river channel joining Jacobsen Bay to another section of the lake. In fact, Anglin Lake is n...