I'm back! Happy birthday to me, and a special book treat....

I feel so refreshed and somewhat relaxed now. It was a fabulous weekend away. There was a heron on our dock on the first morning:

There was fishing, cards, a family turkey dinner, shopping in the US - a day trip to Watertown, NY, my first time in that state, and lots of new clothes and even some books: 4 new ones from Borders:
- Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold
- Winter Study - Nevada Barr
-Old Man's War - John Scalzi (point to Chris!!)
- The Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion (I've long wanted to read this)
and 3 used ones from Picton's only bookstore, Olivia & Company:
- Dragon Fantastic - ed Martin and Rosalind Greenberg
- Tricks - Ed McBain
- The Song of Rhiannon - Evangaline Walton (with the original cover.....now I need books one and two!)

There were sunny days and a wind storm that - yes, you guessed it, knocked out the power on our part of the island! Not where my sister-in-law's house is, but only where the cottage is on the east side. I think I said something like, "Not again! not so soon after the tornado!" but since the fire was lit (we had very cold nights so the wood stove was on) we could light the candles. I know some people find the city relaxing, and we have friends who go to Toronto or New York to relax. Us, we go to the country. So it was a very welcome break indeed.

Then, it was my birthday yesterday. This is one of my presents (note the big smile, the glow....)

Yes, it is hot today - (son isn't wearing a shirt for a reason!) but I'm glowing because I'm so happy: that's my copy of North and South in my hands, and as soon as I finish here, I'm off to the tv to finally see it on the big screen. As many of you wrote on my last post, you too have this DVD, so you know how excited I am! No small You tube screen on my computer! Richard Armitage up close! And, I also received wonderful book gift certificates !!! Oh yes, it was a lovely day with family, and at work with my co-workers.

I also picked up a real treasure while in Picton, and I thought I would share with you some of the glorious pictures. This is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, "Thorn Rose", The Brothers Grimm version, illustrated splendidly by Errol Le Cain. It's a Puffin book, so it's from England, copyright 1975.

I love this picture! All the fairies, the leaves and flowers and dark tree trunks.

I love the evil fairy flying by on the dragon!





My daughter loves this book too, and is showing you her favourite of the fairies.

It's the fairy riding the unicorn. She has just discovered unicorns and dragons, and is fascinated by them.


She asked me what mine was, and I said, "Oh, I love the one flying with the magic wand." My daughter is very creeped out by the wicked fairy who curses Sleeping Beauty. I love how she is painted in the corner, all in black. Holly-Anne asked why, and I said, "It's because she was left out. Only 12 fairies were invited, and there were 13 fairies in all."

I didn't get much reading done on my weekend holiday. So it was only today that I finished reading "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss. What an excellent fantasy! I will do a longer review later, I just wanted to let you know that if you are looking for a new fantasy to read, with magic, and dragons, and creepy mystery killing creatures, then this is one to try.

And I thank you for all the lovely Star Trek comments on my last post! I am so thrilled so many of us have gone to see it! I almost saw it a third time while in Picton, with my niece who can't find any of her friends to go with, but we couldn't get the time.

Meanwhile, I hear North and South calling. I wish my American blogging friends a fabulous Memorial Weekend. I really hope you can get some time away, some time to read, some time to yourselves.

I do still love my blog! I really do!! and Star Trek thoughts

I know, you've been asking yourself, "Where is she? Why isn't she posting?"

After I was kidnapped by North and South (and I watched it full through once, and after, many times, the final episode because the last scene is one of the very best romantic scenes EVER), I saw Star Trek - not once, but TWICE, at the theatre. Not on the same night! And there was a death in my husband's family, and then it was Mother's Day, and we decided to take a small trip away this long holiday weekend, to Picton, by the Sandbanks National Park. So I am taking a break in between packing clothes and eating Cheesies to say HI. Hi. How are you, my Gentle Readers? I'm sorry I haven't been by to visit. I love my blog. I love all of you.

I think though, that the toll at work has been much harder on me than even I have realized, until this past week. It's finally a bit calmer (ie I am being left alone to do my work), but at a regular check up with my doctor last week my blood pressure was up, way up. Very high. So I've made it a rule that my health has to come first, which means I attempt to get to bed somewhat earlier, and this is leaving me less time on the computer. Less time for anything I love! I think someone wrote a post yesterday about wanting more time....I'm with you there. And since I do love to come to your blogs also, I have to find a way to balance everything again. I've missed visiting so many of you, and I don't like doing it only one day a week. So, I will be back early next week, hopefully feeling replenished.

Meantime, Star Trek. I went to the early preview night, Thursday night, 10:20 showing. And about half-way through, something happened that so totally shocked me, that I thought I wouldn't end up enjoying the film at all. By the end though, it was all made right, and I walked out feeling like I had seen a very good, very emjoyable film. And my Star Trek universe was all right still.

In fact, I loved it so much that it's among my top 3 Star Trek films of all time now. I have to confess, I am not a Next Generation fan, I am an original Star Trekker from my earliest childhood memories of having a tv. Mr Dressup, Jolly Giant and then - Star Trek. I lived and died by that show. I know episodes off by heart. So when this thing happened - and I know some of you haven't seen it, so I won't give it away - I believe I actually said, "No!' out loud in the theatre. "That didn't happen", I thought. But, as I watched and dreaded not being able to believe in the movie any more, suddenly they made it right. It is ok. For those who have already seen the movie, I left a few thoughts at Falling Stack's review, here, because Matthew can't get over the changes. Let me know your thoughts, if you have seen it already, or let me know your post, and next week when we are back I will come visit your blog.

So, I saw it twice. I took my husband on Monday night, and even though he nodded off a few times (we have a joke: he gives snooze ratings for films, the less snoozes the better), he was delighted by it and really enjoyed it also. Me? I was able to relax the second time, and thoroughly enjoyed the performances, the writing, even the script (which still has one or two holes in it, but i will save it for later when anyone who wants to, has seen the movie by then). Excellent direction and the sets are stunning.

I do also confess here that Spock was always my favourite character - I so longed to be able to hide my emotions like he could, to be in control of them, while I was growing up! (and now, if I'm going to be honest....) But the character I was most like? McCoy. And Karl Urban as McCoy is hugely delightful. In fact, he says things in the same way that I secretly think!!!!

So, if you haven't seen it, please go see it - you don't have to know much about the history to enjoy it, it's a good story on it's own. For those of us like myself and my ex-husband who are long-time Star Trek fans, it was very, very good.

I am reading a book - The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, which I am really enjoying. I just need some more time to read it!! This weekend, this weekend......we leave tomorrow right after work.....

I hope you all have a happy weekend, my Gentle Readers. Back early next week!

Star Trek: 4.7/5 (me)
1 snooze (my husband. Excellent rating from him, since he is guaranteed to fall asleep at least once every time we go to the movies. Something about the dark space.....)

Oh: I nearly forgot. For Mother's Day, my family gave me the first season of Babylon 5!!! I am so excited! My eldest son and I watched this every week when it was on, and I haven't see it in a while. I love this series. I was so excited when I saw it! Mind you, I did point out a dvd of North and South to my husband while we were in the dvd store, and it's on sale, and my birthday is next week, so my fingers are crossed that it will be waiting for me come the 20th.......

Funny thing is, I've bought so many books this year, that I'm not sure what I'm going to put on my birthday list. which is in itself a sign that work has greatly affected me, because I can always find books I want to buy, and read. That I haven't even got a partial list up yet for my husband, is scary. So here's to relaxing by the lake and being far away from anything to do with work!!! Family and barbecues and shopping across the border!!!! And time to read......

Mini-vacation - and England

I'm back! I ran out of time last week before we left, to post and say I was taking a mini-vacation to our favourite place in Canada: Picton, Ontario, on the world's largest fresh-water island, and the Sandbanks National Park. The best beaches and water for swimming in Canada, if not much of the Northern Hemisphere. So, last Thursday we left on the train, and where we went had no computer, no telephone, a radio, and a tv with 3 channels and no working dvd player. It was heaven. It was bliss. My sister-in-law's cottage overlooks the Bay of Quinte and is on the water's edge, so every morning we could go down to the dock and be near water. I'm not sure what it is about water that calms me, but it does. The cottage we stayed at is not in Picton (town of 4,000 people) itself, but out in the countryside of the island, so we had little traffic, little noise, only a row of mixed cottages and homes in a row overlooking the water. I know I'm lucky to live by Britannia Park here in Ottawa, and can escape there as often as I can. After a while though, I have to leave the city. I need a change of scenery to refresh myself, to feel rejuvenated. Actually, I need time to read, to feel rejuvenated, and that's all the time!!! Leaving the city, traveling, also helps wake me up. I have always enjoyed going somewhere, and Picton is our destination of choice. My sister-in-law and niece live there, so luckily we have a place to stay, and great family to visit, and we have a wonderful time. This time was the same, we had a very good visit, and the children came away wanting to go back as soon as possible. They survived without tv, vcr, and X-box! And since I didn't want much noise, we wanted to hear silence and the water on the shore and the wind in the trees, we rarely had the radio on. I could, at the quietest times, get a sense of the quieter rhythms of the earth that it is so difficult to hear in the city. That sense of eternal time, of being in a more gentle pace, of hearing the space between the waves, of the motion of the earth - that is what I found this time, as I do every time I visit there. So I didn't get much reading done, but I found what I had been missing, and I think the less frequent posts in May, June and July were showing how out of tune I was getting with myself.

However, I did visit the only bookstore in Picton!! Of course I did! And luckily a thunderstorm was overhead so no one complained about the time spent there! I only found two books to come home with me: In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead by James Lee Burke, and Sylvia Townsend Warner's In the Kingdom of Elfin. Both are books I have been looking for. I could have bought a few more, but my husband was watching books for the kids pile up - they each had chosen one and we'd found a box of stickers for the trip home - so I had to think about luggage and restrained myself.

Best of all, I heard a loon call twice on this trip. The first time I could hardly believe it, as it has been years since I last heard one in the wild. Then it came again, yesterday morning, and I saw it diving for fish out beyond the dock. I tried to get a picture, but of course, in the way of the wild, as soon as I got my camera out it vanished. For those of you who don't know, loons are only heard in the wild, on lakes, here in Canada, and they usually call before it rains. Sure enough, we had rain - and another thunderstorm - last night.

So, I'm back. And, as the header suggests.....England is next. We're going at Christmas! so all my bloggers in the UK, if you are going to be around London over the holidays, drop me a line, I'd love to meet you. I'll be on Charing Cross Road as often as I can!! (Rhinoa, Ann, Bride, Geraniumcat, Mariel, this is particularly meant for you) We're going mid-December, in time for the Christmas rush, and coming home in early January. My daughter cries once a week because we aren't there yet; her birthday is Dec 24 so she gets to have her birthday there with her grandparents and she can't wait! My mother-in-law is crossing the days off the calendar; she can't wait! All this is to say, we couldn't take a longer vacation in Picton because most of our holidays are being used for Christmas instead. So this really was a mini-vacation, to get us through to then!!

Before I go, I want to ask a question: for all of you out there who read to relax, do you find that if you don't have time to read on a vacation, that something is missing? Do you miss reading if you don't have the time, when on vacation? Do you take too many books on holiday? Or plan to buy a book wherever you are? I always take too many books, and I always buy some when on vacation. The best vacation for me includes time to read. Vacations have to, since that is the best part of my day, every day: reading. That's when I know all is right with my world, that I have time to read.

Happy reading tonight! Now, I'm going to go read while there are a few hours left on this mini-vacation.....