Hello Christine, I hope you are well, not sure what time it is there as I see many time zones and not sure which one you are in. Here, it is 16 minutes past Midnight and so its Friday 🌎🗺🎆🎆🎆🤗
It's getting cold here, finally after aterrible Springtime with huge forest fires, at one time there were over 600 uncontrolled fires on our West coast! The USA had much the same situation in California. After a dreadful winter where we had 10 months of cold weather, our relief came in the form of a droubt up here in what is referred to as "Northern" Ontario and we had high fire danger alerts and after all our trees got dried out, then the "plagues" of caterpillars hit eating anything deciduous available. i lost 3/4 of my climbing roses. My cherry tree is dead after a black bear cub discovered it and his mama decided to eat the last apples left, at the very top and decided to bend my tree over and it snapped in half. Too dry by far. So after the caterpillers finished off the last surviving buds, the poor tree just gave up. Oh well, at least we will have pretty flames for Christmas Day. Cherrywood produces the .most colourful flames, or so said my Grandmother told me when I was a child. Guess I will find out in December.
How do you celebrate Christmas or do you? Bye for now, christyabrandon
Hello @ChristyFromCanada Nice to hear from you, I was only thinking about you a couple of hours ago as J noticed you back on Connect. We had an unusually hot summer this year the hottest since the 1970s but Autumn /fall is on its way so its getting darker earlier and colder. Last Wednesday a lstorm Ali hit Ireland and knocked down a lot of trees and some areas were without power and TV etc. You have had a very hard time in Canada by all accounts. I hope the wood will make a good fire. Yes I like Christmas, we celebrate the usual way with family gatherings, Christmas carols, midnight mass and eat and drink too much! It was a bit more fun when my children believed in Santa Claus and we left treats out for him and Rudolph. Of course its a time too we miss our loved ones that have passed away, but life goes on and we make new memories 😊 The next thing is Halloween, in October 🎃
Do you have .many children at your door on Hallowe'en.
Remember when Halloween had an apostrophe? I can't remember how to spell apostrophy. And yet I can remember well how kind the people of Espanola were to me when a friend, my age, went out trick or treating! I learned that the poor gave as many candies as the wealthy. I saw mothers giving out candied apples and homemade cookies..
I remember my Mother going through my half filled pillowcase searching for the ones she liked the best, like lifesavers and caramels! So much fun! But Christmas was my favorite holiday. And my Grandmother gave me a fantastic shortbread recipe.
So I will soon need lots of butter, which costs $5.00 a pound!
and icing sugar and candied cherries to press into the shortbreads.
Nice hearing from you Ireland! Now off to catch up on a month of e-mails! 😉
Hi @ChristyFromCanada I'm not mad about Halloween myself. Yes j get children calling to trick or treat. When I was a child when we knocked at doors we would say, Help the Halloween party but then with lots of american TV children channels, kids started the trick or treat. When it gets dark then, each area has a big bonfire and fireworks and then the emergency fire service is on alert. My favourite time is Christmas too and the message of peace. I remember the story of World War 2 that on Christmas Day the Germans and the British soldiers put down their guns, had a ceasefire and played a football match, sharing their ration boxes. Sadly the next day they went back to killing each other, but for one day, Humanity prevailed.
I didn't see your above post before I sent my last note! Its good to hear that you are well. I love that old war story,too.
I can just see it so clearlycin my imagination. Only I wasn't sure that it was a ww2 or ww1. Someone said that they came out of the trenches to greet each other and to play ball and share rations and any treats!
Hello @ChristyFromCanada nice to here from you, actually you are right it was World War one, 1914 . yes the leaves have fallen from the trees here its Autumn or maybe you call it Fall but the weather is quite good for this time of year. I think we are not on the new connect forum but on the old general Discussion which I miss. The new connect you have to stick to topic or they remove it to, off topic. I have done a few posts in local stories, did one on Titanic Museum in Northern Ireland also recently I did a couple of posts in photography one on Paris and another on Rome and I got lots of Kudos, I also join in conversations and am getting to know some guides better. Maybe you should post some photos of Canada on photography and write a bit about the places 🙂
2022
