The Olympic Games-2012
They passed around the Olympic Torch at Wimbledon last weekend. It has circulated the British Isles, in anticipation of the opening of the Games. The opening ceremonies will be shown on our television screens this Friday night, beginning at 7:30pm, and will be watched by billions of people around the globe. Prior to the ancient […]
Go for the roots
We all need a respite from this relentless heat. 2012 has been the year of the perfect storm for local farmers and grape growers. First there was an unseasonably warm spring, then there was a frost shortly afterwards that destroyed much of the potential fruit crop in Ontario. Now they have to deal with a […]
A new golden age?
A couple of years ago I wrote a tongue-in-cheek column about how Wellington would soon be discovered by continentals raving about the charms of the hip cafe culture of “Vellingtunne.” Now I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t coming to pass. My wife had gone away for a few days with the car and I […]
FYI David Frum
Editor’s note: Last week David Frum penned an article in the National Post offering his impressions of his summers in Wellington. I’ve only lived here for 40 years. I work here. I pay taxes here. My children went to school here. My friends are here. Just in case David Frum takes a moment to read […]
The bad movie equivalent
It’s been a long hot summer and it must be almost Labour Day. Wait a minute, it’s only the 18th of July. We’re not even a month in, with more than two to go. It’s that constant heat that’s getting to us— the stuff for which at other times of the year we get up […]
Argos entertain Blue Bombers
On Wednesday evening, the Toronto Argonauts host the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in a mid-week game at the Rogers Centre. The Argonauts are reeling after a disappointing loss to their arch-rivals, the Hamilton Tiger Cats, last weekend. The Blue Bombers are off to a horrid start, thumped last weekend by the Edmonton Eskimos. The Argonauts have […]
Twickle purple
Rosea…Grosso…Melissa…the morning slips over a wind row, drawing cool shadows and warm light onto a field of Mediterranean blue. Thriving in this ground is a variety of cultivars from faraway places—Croatia, U.K., the Netherlands. Long dense rows of spiked flowers are ready for harvest, a once-a-season chance to take in the ‘wow factor’—the feeling —of […]
Best nose forward
Decant essentially means to pour a liquid from one vessel to another. (Hence the noun “decanter.”) Wine has been decanted, in some form or fashion, throughout the ages. The Romans simply poured wine from a large amphora into a smaller carafe. Up to the 17th century, wine was drawn from a barrel to a stoneware […]
Chubby nation
When it comes to the question “Why are Canadians so fat?”, I know there is more than one reason for the increase in our muffin tops, dunlop bellies, thunder thighs, man boobs, back fat, back boobs, chin wiggles and upper arm jiggles. Quite possibly on the same day we became possessed and enamoured by the […]
Time
In these moments of early summer, of extended passages of daylight and solstice moon, I consider time and its meaning. One recent evening, in the face of ‘heavy weather’, I drove to the bottom of Cold Creek Road in the company of my son Luc Henri. We jumped out of the truck and chased through […]