Montreal

The blessing of Olive.

The ceremony was in the Montreal backyard of Sarah and Mathieu ( I am using a french keyboard so cannot use any possessives - I am unable to locate the apostrophe ) and it was really really beautiful.

A loving welcome.

Olive Louise Somerville Venart-Robitaille

On June 16th, I became the godparent for this child, daughter of Sarah Venart and Mathieu Robitaille. Welcome, Olive. I will do my best!

Sarah's birthday

where the house down the street was

night in the city

can't stop, won't stop

the Europe

Here are some more pictures that were lost but recovered intact. Part of the reason for starting this blog ( several years late, since the trip was 2003-2004 and the photos were lost in mid-2004 - I take my time ) was that during the loss, even temporarily, of some of these photos, I felt regret that they had not been shared.

Sharing is caring.



Ireland - Cliffs of Moher and Inishmoor

it's a cliffy place !




Paris - Sacre Coeur, Notre Dame and around

aujourd'hui, trois ans passee

frankenpictures

These images were retrieved from the trash can of a friend's computer after an accidental dump of travel pics after my return to Canada in 2004. Some images were permanently lost. Some were retrieved. Some, in their temporary absence, had morphed into something new. As Spike told poor resurrected-against-her-will Buffy, they 'came back wrong'.

It was a learning experience, however traumatic. This is a hot medium and things can disappear instantaneously. Most of the pics I took over there were analog anyway, so the loss was not as bad as all that.


But here they are, all the same.

The thin stripe across the top of this one, festive red and green, is from the elf show in Hong Kong, Christmas, 2003.
The middle stripe is Stephane's beautiful jaw and mouth in Paris, our last night at dinner, June 2004.
Below that are skulls and bones from the catacombes, also in Paris.





On this one, the top half is of the bank of the Thames in London on March 1st, 2004. The river was quite low and Tom Bates and I were down on the floor of the Thames.
The bottom half is Christmas Eve, 2003 in Hong Kong. So much like New Year's Eve, it was kuh-razy.

summertime

rama rama hare hare

I have never failed to be mesmerized by the Hare Krishna gatherings every summer at 2nd beach. I think it's Labour Day-ish weekend. I happened upon it the first time I went to one.

I had just come from a counter-rally to a rally against gay marriage in 2003. It was awful. Police moved me from Robson Street where I was standing holding a sign that said 'EQUAL'. They said they were doing it for my own protection. The anti-gay marriage protesters were, unsurprisingly, horrible. My overwhelming sense of them was as dim-witted automatons doing someone else's bidding.

But I'm biased.


Anyway, we left from there, voices exhausted from shouting, and headed to English Bay, bumping into the Krishna gathering. Seriously soul-soothing. Some dancing, some tambourine, some drums, some sunshine, some food, some colours. It was a spectacular contrast to the rally and turned the day upside down.

I loved the idea of killing vegetables....as in, murderous vegetables. Seriously, what about them ?

Everyone should go.