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Season's Greetings to all from Shelagh and Mike

Updated: 3 days ago

The call came early.  Shelagh’s uncle had fallen out of bed.  Cracked his ribs. Couldn’t get up.  In Ottawa, in January, snow and slush.  Still it had to be done.

 

Airline ticket purchased and Shelagh set off for Canada.  Uncle Joe reached 100 summers the previous October.  He was frail but alert.  His wife Paule would soon be 90 and was robust but not alert.  Indeed a dementia sufferer.  Shelagh moved them both to a care home after Joe’s hospitalisation.  A few days later, Joe died at the age of 100 years and 4 months.  With the death and the consequent funeral arrangements Shelagh was detained in Canada a month.

 

First death of the year.  2024 has taken away good friends, including 2 of my oldest friends in one month.    Which has made us ever more determined to see as much of the world while we are healthy and mobile.

 

We started the year with our dear friends Tim & Jenny in the Lot department of France. Driving back we spent 2 nights in Toulouse, “the capital of the southwest” and enjoyed its foie gras and farçous.  While Shelagh was in Canada I did a lot of cycling, including a 2 day trip to Lac du Salagou and St Guilhem-le-Désert (a famed stop on the Camino de Santiago) taking in 180kms. 

 

I was preparing for a bike ride from Apt to Paris (870kms) which you can read about in the following pages.

 

In March we went to Sri Lanka and visited the ancient capitals which we missed the last time due to the civil war.

 

In April we joined our friends Paul & Kirsty and Michael Sheridan in Nice and Menton, then spent a week in Venice.  Our flight from Marseille was cancelled (not for the first time this year!) due to an ATC strike so we decided to make our way by train. Actually it proved to be not that difficult – though we arrived at 10 in the evening instead of 10 in the morning!

 

In May our good friend from uni, Marcus came with his wife Kristen from New Zealand and much reminiscing was done.  By this time we had opened our doors to B&B guests and all 3 rooms were quickly filled.

 

At the end of May I started on my 9-day cycle trip to Paris while Shelagh took off for Florence with dear friend Christine from London.  The two of them spent a week in Castello di Montegufoni in Tuscany, a castle where we used to spend holidays in the 80s, organising a 75th birthday party for Christine next year.

 

In June we flew back to Ottawa for a week to empty Uncle Joe’s house – a horrible job!  We both got sick on our return, maybe we had overdone it!

 

In July the B&B was in full swing until we closed it to have our annual mini-vacation in Aix-en-Provence.  Although only an hour away, we shut up shop, go and lie by the pool and watch opera or classical concerts in the evening.  It’s a good way of tolerating the 38º heat!  We came back to help organise an art auction at a local wine chateau in aid of our local hospital. 

 

Every August, Rustrel hosts a Jazz Workshop for musicians and some of them stay with us.  This year we had a Swiss flautist for the week.  We watched all the bands perform in the amphitheatre of our village chateau on a balmy night.

 

September is birthday month, and this year it was the 75th of our very special Belgian friend Bernard.  His wife and daughters organised a party in Rustrel (not at our place!) with 30 guests coming from Belgium, Germany and Israel.  It was a fast-paced weekend, including a 2CV rally.  The Mistral wind blew so we had to scramble for outdoor heaters 24 hours beforehand.  Luckily they did the job!

Friends from Vancouver Island, Palm Springs, Ludlow, London and our good friends from the Lot also visited us in September.  The house was bursting at its seams!

Then in late September, on Shelagh’s birthday in fact, we set off for the Italian Lakes – Stresa on Lake Maggiore, the Borromean Islands, Bergamo, Desenzano on Lake Garda, Bellagio on Lake Como and returning through Turin.  The weather wasn’t great, but the lakes look somehow more mysterious when shrouded in cloud.

 

October saw the deaths of my old schoolfriend, Malcolm Money and our Dutch friend from Brussels days, Cornelis Vlaanderen.  Two funerals in 2 weeks.  Actually it was a blessing for both of them since their quality of life was zero.  And say what you like about funerals but they bring old friends together and rekindle relationships.  We took the TGV to Paris in order to see a Bob Dylan concert then took the Eurostar to the funeral in London for the day.  Later we went back to London on Eurostar to celebrate my brother Clive’s 75th birthday, catch up with some theatre and see Arsenal draw with Liverpool.

 

In November we flew back to Canada, ostensibly to see Bruce Springsteen in Ottawa, and then continued on to Victoria BC where we stayed in a friend’s apartment and discovered spectacularVancouver. Island.  We drove across to Tofino, a beautiful little port at the end of the hippy trail in the 60s where surfer dudes and draft dodgers used to congregate.  It is still pretty hippy, no Starbucks here!  We took a seaplane up over Vargas and Meares Islands and had a wonderful view of the 1,500 year old cedar trees.

 

Now we are preparing for Christmas at home.  It starts earlier and earlier each year so there is much work to do.  Our annual “Advent Apéro” takes place on Dec 14th when villagers come to our street and drink mulled wine or soup and eat various mignardises.  There is music too!  This takes place each night in Rustrel during December!

 

We hope this Christmas will be peaceful for you despite all the terrible things happening around the world.  Every year I hope that good sense will prevail – but it never does.

 

Merry Christmas to you – and Best Wishes for the New Year

 

Shelagh and Mike

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