Happy Birthday Nana Crunch!

Today was my mom's birthday. I won't say which one!

Being that she has a yucky cold and we are all just starting to feel human again, it was a low key event.

But the kids painted her pictures and had gifts for her so we had a lovely little tea to celebrate.

She is a great Nana and a great mom and my great friend too. I don't know what I would do without her support AND laughter.

We are lucky to have her close by.

Here's to you Mum!

Now let ME tell you a story!!!!

My mom and I are pretty tight.
It has been the two of us against the world for a long time. Therefore we tend to share the same sense of humour and the same sense of absurdity. This can be a good thing, but it can also cause much tragedy.

Quite a few years ago now, tenish I am thinking, The King's Singers came to town. Being that we knew them from our life in Scotland, we thought it would be nice to go and see them. They were playing at the Orpheum Theatre, a beautiful concert hall in downtown Vancouver. Also home of the Vancouver Symphony and therefore filled with a heady breeze of class and pretentiousness.

Now we both actually DO enjoy choral music and they are an amazing group with stunning voices. We did enjoy their eclectic selection of new and old, medieval and baroque that they presented with such beauty. You really should hear them.

And their concert was lovely. Before each piece they would give us a little background on the music and the arrangement, we also found this very interesting, that is until they came to one song. One song that seemed to have the unfortunate name 'Lydia' or it was about a 'Lydia' anyway.

Well that was it. There was a crackle of energy between our twisted brains as we both thought the same thing and hummed the same thing in our heads at the exact same time.......


"Lydia, Oh Lydia,
Have you seen Lydia?
Lydia the tAhtooed lady!"

(if you don't know this little ditty, check out 'The Fisher King,' they sing it there, I believe)

Now we both knew that they were NOT going to be singing THAT Lydia, but the thought that they might struck us stupidly funny.

We could not look at each other.
We dared not. Because we both knew we were thinking it. And we both knew that we would take one look at each other and burst into hysterical laughter.

You do not burst into laughter at the King's Singers. You may politely chuckle at a clever English witisicm, but you do not guffaw or snigger like some demented prepubescent.

We really wanted to snigger like some demented prepubesents. We reeeeeeelly wanted to.

I could feel my mother's shoulders shaking with barely constrained hysterics. I was breaking out in a sweat. I think I wimpered.

We were starting to get 'looks' from the crowd around us. The season ticket matrons were NOT impressed.

Finally, my mom broke first. She let out this strangled 'Muhaharrrgghackcoughcough' and leaped out of her chair and fled out of the theatre, leaving me bent double and snorting into my coat.

Real mature.

We really should not be allowed out in public venues.

Musings on a winter day

The other snow day, the Crunch family were out frolicking in the snow (not frockiling as wee crunch said when she was 6 as in "Grandad, what does 'No frockiling in the pool mean?"). But I digress. Anway Adam, 41/2 going on 14 suddenly stops dead in his tracks and pointing at the pristine snow in front of him exclaimed; "Look Nana, snow nip nips!" And sure enough when I looked, there were two perfectly molded soft mounds of snow together, looking strangely enough like some unfortunate woman was laying under it. Adam then added "they look just like mummy's in her sweater! I'm going to look for more!". Spoken like a true male!

The icequeen cometh

Well, here I am back on line after a slight hiccup due to a variety of things I'll not test your patience with at this time. We are currently "enjoying" a period equal to a mini ice-age in our small corner of this benighted planet. I wish it would go away. But the icy state of our lanes and streets brings to mind an occasion that brought me into rather hard contact with the elements. It went something like this:

A number of years ago and before we had a car, I had stopped at the local shops for groceries on the way home from work. My darling daughter was in the house with her best friend Rebecca. The trails home were just sheet ice so picture me, coated and booted, toque firmly in place, scarf wound around my face with just my glasses and nose showing. I'm teetering along carefully balancing the heavy grocery bags in each hand when "wham", my feet shoot out from under me. Next thing, I'm flat on my back, head hitting the ice, arms flung wide out still clutching the damn groceries. I'm stunned for a few moments, no one in sight of course, and I can't get up, can't get any purchase on the ice. I sort of crawl to the side of the path and haul myself up by the trees and mustering what dignity I can, stagger to my house. I fling open the door, and stand there, hat askew, glasses steaming up and glare at my daughter and Rebecca who are tucked up in front of the telly, sipping hot chocolate or something equally warming. They look at me like I've arrived from outer space and chorus "what's wrong, are you alright"! I drag myself in, throw down the groceries (or 'messages' as we called them in Scotland for some strange reason lost in the mists of time) and practically in tears, tell them my sad story. They try very hard to be sympathetic, making soothing sounds as one went to put the kettle on and the other unwound my scarf and helped me off with my coat. They clucked and tutted and sat me down, gave me my tea and then they burst into hysterical laughter. I was still wittering on about my misadventure and they couldn’t hold it in any longer, little beasts! Years later, Rebecca even sent me a wee drawing she had done of me lying in the snow, a good likeness too! Oh well, I can laugh now, but it WASN'T FUNNY AT THE TIME!

My daughter will relish this story as I am never allowed to forget it. Hope it brightened your day, and yes I know, compared to other parts of the country we get off very lightly!

Life in Kielder Court

Life has been quite interesting here. Between wicked windstorms, snowstorms and my weird health issues, we have been dealing with new things almost every day.

Last night Adam was feeling awful. He always seems to get the sickest. This lovely picture was taken when he really needed his daddy to just be with him. Daddy stuck by his boy through his sickness, even helped him when he threw up. This is a quiet moment for them.

Thank goodness I am finished the majority of my medical tests and can be here in mind and body for my family again.



We are in another cold snap here and all the snow has turned to ice. Makes for beautiful if not chilly days. The 'find the black ice' game is a riot too!

'A guid New Year to ain and all!'

Well here we are in 2007 or 007 as I like to see it. Good movie by the way, just like the early ones with big Tam Connery playing Bond.

Well the tree's oot the back, the decorations all restored to their summer resting place and no doubt after I vacuum for the umpteenth time, I will finally sook up the last of the pine needles hiding in the carpet, waiting to stab an unwary bare toe. I have made no resolutions, no point, I never keep them but I have a cunning plan. Starting today, I will walk more, eat less, suffer withdrawal symptons from cutting back on TV, oh which reminds me, CBC have cancelled 'Emmerdale' and there are apparently at least 310 irrate fans across Canada now protesting it's loss. Petitions have been signed! E-mails sent! Of course no attention will be paid to us. They want more 'Canadian content' whatever that means. However, their latest new show starting next week is "Little Mosque on the Prairie". 'Nuff said.

Now where was I, oh no resolutions just a plan to lose 10lbs by April. Watch this space for my progress report! Meantime, I'm off to mind the grandbairns for a wee while.