The local economy
There are many generalizations I have heard about wine over the years: I hate a specific grape variety (be that chardonnay, merlot or malbec); French wines are terrible; Italian wines are all the same; Australian wines are too jammy. There is no one style of any grape. Each is distinctly different from the others. Mostly […]
Colour can be a good thing
I had a great conversation recently with a distraught homeowner complaining about their neighbour’s yard. They were desperately seeking some advice as to how to handle a next-door neighbour who has painted their home in bright and vibrant colours because they were certain that the home was hurting their property value. This is such a […]
Destination
My apologies. I am still not writing columns, so don’t bug me about that. But sometimes I wake at 2 am, because I am cursed, and things that bother me tend to show up in my dreams, and I am forced to get up and write. Be glad you’re not me. Destination: This word has […]
Nature or Nurture or Wild
March will be happening really soon. It’s a promising month, March is. Of course, there is always potential for a bit of wintry weather during the month which used to “come in like a lion and go out like a lamb”. However, there is the promise of the first day of the new season in […]
Where’s the snack bag?
I remember when I was in Grade Four thinking “When I’m fifty years old I’ll be really, really old.” Well that ship sailed a long time ago. I’m way, way past fifty now. Heck I’ve got a kid who has been around longer than fifty years. In my mind he’s still a baby giving me […]
Taking a break
I need to leave you for a while. I like to say I’m ‘on hiatus’, because that’s what great writers do when they run out of things to write. My problem is: I read over the last few columns I wrote. Funny thing about writers: We write stuff, and then everything disappears from the brain. […]
The Mycelium Web
This Christmas I was admittedly a little spoiled. My family went overboard with gifts for the gardener (and yes Mom, I loved them all!) One big surprise was a book called The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. I was fascinated by the book’s premise that trees have feels and are able to communicate […]
Going green
We are finally awakening to going green. I’m a booster, as much as I can be. We recycle. I know this because there are blue bins on the sidewalks everywhere in the County. What we do is just a part of the bigger picture. We are well beyond the ‘climate change deniers’. They now look […]
Heart of my heart
It’s February! This will hit the Times boxes on Valentine’s Day. We can hardly spend the month of February without thinking of love, our loved ones and about hearts. Since 2004, the topic of heart health has been on my mind, almost every day. Yep, I’m thinking about that lovely internal organ and not the […]
The myths of Dom Pérignon
Every great wine has a story. And the wine known as Dom Pérignon has numerous stories that may be fact or fiction, marketing genius, or a case of broken telephone. It is widely believed that the Benedictine Monk Dom Pierre Pérignon “invented” Champagne as we know it. However, this myth is somewhat questionable. Dom Pérignon […]