Happy Boxing Day!

Hey all... I had every intention of doing a few posts before Christmas, but you know how it goes... One thing leads to another and before you know it, Christmas Day has come and gone... And here we are at December 26, or Boxing Day in Canada.

We had a HUGE scare last week with one of Brad's nephews having a terrible accident while snowboarding. He fell and hit his head (sans helmet) and had to be rushed to the Regional Hospital in Saint John. He was within minutes of dying, according to the doctors, but they operated and removed a blood clot, and he was home in time for Christmas. A true Christmas miracle! One of his eyes is still not opening properly, but the docs are confident that it will basically heal itself and he'll be as good as new. He was a very lucky 17-year-old, and we are all lucky that he is still with us.

Other than that, we had a good holiday, going to Brad's dad's place on Christmas Eve and then to his sister's for the big dinner yesterday. Unfortunately, I developed a heck of a Christmas cold, and have not been feeling great, especially yesterday and today. We were supposed to go to mom's today, but I felt wretched when I got up (after an almost sleepless night), so we decided that Brad would go down on his own and deliver mom's gifts. I certainly did not want to expose her to the cold that I have. Don and Marlene had also invited us to their place today after visiting with mom, so Brad is going to keep up that end of the deal as well. He decided to take Jasper with him and do some snowshoeing out at Don and Mar's before returning here later this evening. Jasper will have a ball!

Brad gave me two new watches for Christmas - a very nice regular one to wear every day and a waterproof one that I can wear when I go swimming. The strap of my old waterproof watch broke a couple of weeks ago and I hate being without a timepiece on my wrist. I gave him all of the books on the Canada Reads selection this year as well as one entitled 24 Walks in Paris, which will hopefully come in handy when we are there next fall with Brad's sister and brother-in-law.

I have all of next week off, which I am very much looking forward to. Hopefully I will be able to ditch this awful cold very soon. I keep filling myself with vitamin C and Dristan. We are having some friends and neighbours over on New Year's Eve to ring in the new year.

2010 - Can you imagine! Just two more years to go until 2012!

More soon, I promise, including the long-awaited post on Brad's bike trip from Ottawa home.

Merry Christmas all, a bit belatedly, but better late than never! :)

Here's a little Regina Spektor. Wintry and a little melancholy, which fits my mood perfectly today ("and darkness spreads over the snow like ancient bruises"):

Mug Shots

I have been mulling this one over in my mind for a while now... I bond with my mugs and I have a lot of them! I try to pick one up wherever our travels take us. To wit:

This is my very favourite mug of all time. I bought it at Harrods' in Knightsbridge in 2000 on a trip that Brad surprised me with for our 10th anniversary. I dropped it on the ceramic kitchen floor in our former house and it has been cracked ever since, but it keeps on ticking. I actually take this one out of circulation when we have guests or when we have a housesitter.


This one was purchased on the same 2000 anniversary trip. FSUK it reads - short for French and Saunders United Kingdom. We saw them live while we were there and I picked up this mug as a souvenir. A GREAT show, by the way!


This is from Stockholm 2007


Brad picked this one up for me on his 5-hour layover in Manhatten when returning from Nepal last fall. Dean & Delucca, of course, is a famous foodie shop in NYC.


This one I picked up on our recent trip to Italy at a trendy shop in Rome.


From our recent trip to Tuscany, of course!


This was my mother's favourite mug. I took it when we cleaned out her place last fall. She uses it anytime she is here for a meal.


And this is one of my all time faves also. I bought it in 1999 at an Oslo pastery shop that bore the same name as our beloved Golden Retriever, Samson. Sam died in October 2004.


And once again - in case you missed it the first time, Regina Spektor sings Samson:

Fidelity