I'm A New Mom--Sort of

Yesterday I went to the Humane society and formally adopted two Himalayan cats. They are in need of combing but they are beauties. Here they are in the adoption room.

this one is temporarily named keshara.




The Sealpoint lurking under a chair is temporarily named Banjari. They'll let me know if they like the names.


Once I got them home, they raced for the basement to locate good hiding spaces and occasionally popped upstairs to get a nice neck scratch before heading back to their hidey holes.

Last night I woke up to find one sitting on my pillow and I seemed to be chewing tail fur. That tells me they're still with us.

I'm so anxious to cuddle them and tell them about their new home but you know cats--they decided where and when.

Tonight I'm trying the old trick I used on my other cats whenver I moved them to a new house--I'm buttering their paws.

Steve's Career Change

My son Steve flew to Thailand at the peak of Canadian winter so that he could contemplate his future and when the Ontario snow disappeared and Bangkok temperatures soared into the high 40’s C, he returned.

Now he needs some quiet time to see if he can make a living at writing instead of carpentry and we have worked out a barter: his carpentry talents in exchange for food and shelter, leaving him plenty of important writing time.

Anything he does is done with total commitment and the energy of ten strong men.

Each morning after breakfast, we sit down with our planners and discuss the day. We prioritize my creative list of construction/repair needs, then he takes the rest of the morning to write and devotes himself to my list after lunch.


I am in down-to-earth heaven right now, not having to worry about the things I can't do myself and as we're both loners at heart we don't have to chit chat unless we're in the mood.

There wasn't a front step and the step down was a killer. Now there's a front step.


New deck entry steps.


Attaching planters to the side wall.


Cutting the deck stairs.


He took time for a coffee break after digging in the new pond.


At the end of the day he returns to his laptop and writes. Stay tuned.

Liberace lives In Old London Town

The Thames always looks muddy and unappealing but the water is really clean and the muddy look is caused because it has a silt bottom. Would a tour guide lie to us? Here are the parliament buildings with big Ben at the right, caught on our Thames boat tour.

The Ravens at the Tower of London are extremely tame and will sit and pose as long as a camera is in sight.


This is the crooked house in Windsor, in the center of the picture. I have an unerring ability to find a good shot like this and presto-- the house looks almost straight.


And here is my travel mate, Pioneer Melissa, wondering why Liberace could be so short and have a better wardrobe than she has. Them’s the breaks kid.