Slowly adjusting after my recent trip to Canada to visit my sister Mo, her husband Jim and my 3 lovely nieces!  Great beginning to the trip when I met up en route with our other sister Nicky who lives in the French Alps, and we travelled rest of the way together. With so many miles usually between us, email and Skype are great for keeping in touch – but nothing beats face-to-face time to catch up, especially over 3 really great weeks!

So many highlights from my trip to Canada – Mo and Jim’s wonderful organisation and cooking, unflappable even when packing and preparing for meals every day for 8(!).  Just a  few –

Talking round the table – and round firebox in the garden in St Catharine’s, round the firepit under the trees at the renovated wooden boathouse on Manitouwabing Lake where we spent our middle week.  Standing on glass floor at top of CN tower in Toronto – I’m assured it supports weight of umpteen hippopotamuses! The very special peace and calm of our days at Manitouwabing, no tv, radio, internet or phones – watching sunset and, if I woke early, the sunrise; trees on other side of the lake changing colour over our week there, from variety of greens when we arrived to reds, oranges, gold and yellows just seven days later when we left; only sounds to break that peace were breeze in the trees and ruffling the water, occasional birds, occasional boat.  Watching a beaver swimming alongside deck of the boathouse only a couple of metres from where I was standing. Visits from chipmunk most days, often close enough to touch when he called to say hi. Squirrels running just ahead of us on pavements, colonies of gossiping sparrows in St C garden…

And visiting some wonderful galleries featuring Canadian artists, including sculpture and paintings by Inuit artists…in one of those galleries I fell in love with carved Dancing Bear and brought him home to remind me of a very special trip, all part of my own personal Year of the Dancing Bear.