Welcome to Our Web Page
When this web page began more than twenty years ago, it described most of the activities of our whole family. Now that most of our children have flown the coop, it is mostly about what Ann and I (Dave) have been up to. I update it most weekends. We save all the messages over the past year in an Archive along with links to what we were doing ten and twenty years ago.
You can click on the pictures above to get a bit more information about each of us.
Monday December 9
Dave starting a new puzzle
We are now well into the lead up to Christmas and Ann has been incredibly busy. Along with her weekly stint at the food bank, our twice-weekly skates at the RBC Centre, our weekly walks in Shubie Park with the Roadents, and her book club meetings (which also require reading the books), she has baked goodies for the church bake sale, helped set up the church book sale, attended meetings of the church Truth and Reconciliation Committee, gone shopping and out to dinner at Usta with Alice, attended several Christmas concerts and made chili for a church function as well as for our neighbour Barb who arrived home from the hospital earlier this week. No doubt there are also some things that I have forgotten. With the exceptions of the skating and walking and the outings detailed below, I have stayed closer to home.
We have also been doing the requisite Christmas shopping and decorating. There is now a large wreath hanging from the railing of front deck, Ann has put up the Christmas lights, and a tree has been acquired, in the pouring rain, from the lot by the Superstore (the tree farm where we have got one for several years is closed this year) and has now been erected in the corner of our living room, though it is not yet decorated. We have also done some more general winter preparations having snow tires installed on the car and cleaning out the garage so that we can park the car in it when it snows.
I have been watching the World Chess Championship which has been going on over the past couple of weeks. It features the current champion, Ding Liren of China, and an 18-year-old challenger, Gukesh Dommaraju of India. After 12 games, it is all level at 6–6, each player having won two games with the rest drawn. Most of the games have been very exciting. Unfortunately, the match is taking place in Singapore so that the games start at 5 am my time, so I usually only see them after two or three hours of play.
Nova Scotia had a provincial election a week ago Tuesday, called by the incumbent Conservatives in contravention of their own act to fix election dates. Ann and David both worked at the polls which required a few hours of training as well as a 14 hour work day on the day of the election. The result was not to our liking with the Conservatives getting back in with a super-majority which means that they can change the rules of order to their advantage.
A week ago Tuesday we met Kim and Glen for dinner at the Quinn's Arms Pub in Halifax before going to see the Celtic Tenors at the Rebecca Cohn. That was the day we had the snow tires put on the car and they didn't finish by 5 pm as promised, so we were late arriving at the pub. Ann phoned Kim to let her know and she placed a food order for us. We finally arrived at the pub half and hour late and sat down just as our food was placed on the table in front of us.
Last Saturday, Ann and I went to Henry Offman's bar mitzvah. He is the son of Laura, who lived with us for a few months in France in the mid-nineties. We have not seen much of her since she and her family moved back to Halifax from Ontario a few years ago but Ann plays mahjong regularly with her mother, Marilyn. We were honoured to be invited.
This Thursday we met Ingrid, Mike, Kim and Glen at the Resolutes Club for dinner then went to see Frozen at Neptune. I enjoyed the show more than I expected, not being a big fan of musicals. It was well attended with the average age of the audience being much lower than normal.
We are still getting vegetables out of the garden. This evening Ann made a fresh kale salad for dinner and this afternoon I harvested the remainder of our carrots and parsnips before they get irrevocably frozen in the ground. It was already quite difficult to get them out with the top three inches or so of the ground frozen. There is still a bit of broccoli to be harvested as well as some Brussels sprouts.