A lovely relaxing time listening to the Scottish music on the radio

I do so enjoy the Scottish music as heard on 740 A.M. each Sunday.

When I was a young girl, some of my teachers were Scottish and so through them, I learned some of their songs.

In Quebec, at that time, most of the teachers the English Protestant School Board hired were from the British Isles, if I am remembering correctly.

Mind you, both of my aunts were elementary school teachers, and both of them taught in one room schools in the country when they started off. Both were born in Canada so my memory must be incorrect.

I will always remember one school master who was from England. Our class did not get up on our feet fast enough when he entered the room and thus, we were kept after school to write these lines....

"I shall stand up when the teacher comes in".

The school system certainly seems very different today!

Actually, I think we had the best time, as we learned respect for our elders and for each other.

Whitehern's Gardens in the Spring

Irises at Whitehern

Lilac Bush - the smell was heavenly!

My favourite log

LI

After I walked my guests to their car and they went on their way back home to Kingston, Ontario, I decided to drop into Whitehern's gardens to see if the flowers were out yet.

I found, to my delight, that some were out and certainly the Lilac bushes were in full bloom.

Fortunately, I had my camera with me. Hope you enjoy seeing Whitehern in the Spring!

A wonderful weekend!

Sauble Beach in the afternoon Two young

children in the water.

Sunset over Lake Huron, in Ontario, Canada.

We left at 1:30 Friday afternoon and took the backroads rather than the highways. It was much more pleasant and we saw lots of farm animals this way.

We stopped in Elora at the Country Kitchener and met the other two cars there. The food there is really excellent.

We arrived in the late afternoon at the cottage and were able to spend a wonderful evening together, just chatting and enjoying each other's company. Hanna & Waltrault's cabin is pictured above.

In the morning, once sleepy eyes were opened and coffee drank, we had devotions. This year it was on the three wives of Abraham and this provoked a lot of interesting discussion. All very amicable. It was told through the eyes of The Tanakh, The Old Testament and the Qu'ran.

At the same time, we did another devotion on the Lord's Prayer, two particular verses of it.

After lunch, we all went to Port Elgin, Sauble Beach and Southampton and checked out the local stores and sights. It was great fun. I was quite amazed by what one could buy in those small towns. I preferred Southampton as it was very quaint and nice.

Saturday night, after a nice supper, and a lovely walk on the beach at Sauble, we just hung out and chatted again.

The next day, being Sunday, we went to Southampton to Faith Lutheran and enjoyed a wonderful service there. It was great as I could hear every word the pastor said!

It was a very modern church, much to my surprise. I had half expected a little country church.

The people were extremely friendly and we all enjoyed chatting with them at the coffee hour after the service.

After lunch, we tidied up the cottage a little and went in three different cars back to Hamilton.

The scenery alone was wonderful, and passing through all the little towns was great. I am thankful to have had this opportunity to spend the weekend with congenial people enjoying God's wonderful countryside!

E.L.W. Mother and Daughter event

On Tuesday, May 19th, 2009, the women of St. John's gathered together in the evening hours to enjoy a Mother and Daughter event. All women were welcome, and all ages turned up which was lovely. As is normal for this event, much singing, many beautiful poems, some personal reminisces, and a guest speaker were the order of the day.

Our guest speaker was Pastor Loretta of Grace Lutheran and she gave a very powerful talk on Placing Your Life before God, as based on Romans ,Chapter 12. The message was originally done by Eugene Petersen.

Pastor Loretta's talk reminded us that grace means trusting in God, not being dependent on our possessions. She talked about her experiences with various runs, stair climbing expeditions and how she was one of many trying to raise awareness of various diseases and causes by participating in these events.

After Pastor's interesting talk, the programme went on.

The evening ended with the Hospitality Committee serving up another delicious feast for those in attendance to enjoy.


A very worthwhile event to attend, both for spiritual enlightenment, good fellowship and, of course, lovely refreshments.

Movie Night at St. Paul's

I joined a group of people I know to watch the movie '"A Place for Annie", which was a Hallmark Hall of Fame production made for TV in 1986.

It was a well attended movie with snacks available to nibble on, including popcorn.

The movie tells us about a baby who has AIDS, and the nurse who looked after her in the hospital after she was born. As the story progresses, one gets very involved with the characters in the film and this film's actors were marvelous, in my opinion.

The stars were Sissy Spacek, Mary-Loise Parker, Joan Plowright, S. Epatha Merkerson, Jack Noseworthy and David Spielberg. The direction was John Gray.

The birth mother had abandoned her baby and against all reasoned arguments of professionals, the nurse fostered the child in her home with the intention of adopting her.

The story has many twists and turns, including the return of the birth mother to claim her child but in the end, love, care and devotion triumphs and the ending, although very sad, was an appropriate one considering the circumstances of the birth mother's life.

Some discussion was held after the movie about adoption, AIDS etc. and many a tear was wiped away during the course of the movie.

I certainly would recommend this movie to any person who is interested in human behaviour. It was based on a true story.

Musical concert, lunch and then a wonderful DVD

June Caskey's students played for the audience which gathered at Centennary United Church at noon today. They were amazing! So very young, and so very poised and accomplished!

Afterwards, the three of us went out to the little cafe on McNabb for lunch and a nice chat.

My friend Andrew had lent me a DVD so I watched it. It was a great one, about the miracles at Fatima. I had always known the story but have never seen it acted out.

Tonight, it is Lit Chat and I shall go to that.

Mother's Day blessings

I was reflecting on what a blessing for me that I have children, even though they are all grown up and no longer need me as they did before.

How different my life would have been without them. I think I would have missed a great deal and I am so thankful to have them in my life.

Life was really hard, bringing them up by myself, but through it all, God provided me with a job and the strength to do that job. For that I am so grateful. It is extremely hard to be both mother and father to children, but we were blessed with so many good and close friends throughout the years and they were always there for us, even in the difficult times.

My heart is full of gratitude for the love of God in my life and the love of my family and friends.



Ken is away on his Army duty this weekend and, of course, Anna and Billy live in Kitchener.

I am not only the mother of two grown up children, I am blessed with Billy, my son-in-law and also Ameen, Ibrahim, Ahmad as my "sons".

It is such a privilege to hold such a spot in the hearts of these wonderful people.

I feel so blessed and fortunate.

Mother's Day Tea

I poured coffee for about an hour and a half, had a bite to eat and treated a street person to a meal of knockwurst, German potato salad, and a bread bun. I offered him a piece of cake but he was diabetic.

It was very well attended and I was very pleased that Jennifer, a friend of mine came. In fact, I was delighted. I had put it out on the e-mail for the Whitehern gals and guys but she is the only one who turned up from that group.

We had a nice little chat while I ate my dinner and then we drove together to the Tower Poetry Society Annual Meeting.

I remained soaked to the skin, even with my raincoat on, as I had to leave when the worst of the rain came down.

The atmosphere at St. John's was wonderful and Jennifer really had a good time.

It is a very loving congregation and I try to do what I can to help.

The A.G.M. went much better than last year. If it had gone the same way as last year, I was ready to resign as it was just too much for me.

However, it was more orderly.

I am really quite tired and will just rest now. Jennifer drove me home for which I was most thankful. Both Jeff and Ed offered to drive me home, but I went with Jennifer as we came together.

A lovely visit to Kitchener on Wednesday

Rosie and I arrived at Anna and Billy's at a little after 2 p.m. and had a little visit. Anna was tired so we went out to explore Kitchener in Rosie's car while she rested.

By the time Billy got home, we were back and had a nice visit with him as well.

We event went out to St. Jacob's which is very close to Waterloo where Rosie's son Ron lives.

While Rosie went to see her Granddaughter swim at the Waterloo Recreation Center, Anna, Billy and I had a nice chat at their place.

We got back about 8:30 that evening and it was a very nice visit.

Thanks Rosie for the drive - it was fun!

Busy, busy day on Sunday!

What happened to the Day of Rest????

It seems that my life gets busier and busier, rather than slowing down but that is okay.

I went to an interesting talk by Karen and Al Craig on the Living Rock and spoke with them afterwards. I hope to interview them for an article I shall write on the work

The more publicity the better, as times are tough and there are so many young people falling throuh the cracks.

Jennifer picked me up and we went to hear a beautiful concert of church music in Ancaster. St. John's Anglican Church held a wonderful musical afternoon. It is a marvelous looking church and certainly is not hurting for money.

I arrived home at 6:20, gulped down some food and then quickly went over to Lit Live on King William. It was lucky that I arrived ten minutes before they started as they were locked out and Jean offered up her home to have the readings. That was extemely generous of her.

Anybody who arrived late, would have had to find their own way over there or go home. It was a very nice time and I just loved hearing the different readers. One was a young fellow from Montreal so we had a word afterwards.

Jean has a wonderful dog (pedigree dog) and he and I got along very well.

Chris drove Maureen and I right to our respective doors which was very kind of him.

Busy, busy day and I felt totally exhausted but happy that I did it all.

Research completed - now to the hard part

Hello Readers,

I spent yesterday afternoon at Central Library in the Special Collections Section and thoroughly enjoyed myself researching about my building and Mr. Willie Thompson.

This department is very well organized and fairly quiet and the librarian was extremely helpful to me.

I came away full of knowledge about the building but even happier about the information I found about Mr. Thompson.

Now starts the hard part, writing a poem about Mr. Thompson. I can see why the rumour started about the building being haunted now, but in my view, he said it in jest and people's over active minds have developed this thought!

From what I read, I really liked Mr. Thompson and have come to understand him better.

It was a pleasure to research this subject and in the future, I hope I will find other subjects which will interest me so I can return to Special Collections in the Library.