Jonty - Quick Update

Jonty has had quite an eventful week. He was discharged from Sunnybrook on Saturday 18th when he finished his course of antibiotics. On the same day his mom and dad, assisted by siblings and a number of stalwart friends, moved from their apartment (flat) in Toronto to their new home in Peterborough.

The original plan had been for the whole family to come to Oma and GrampaMac on Christmas Day but the Paediatrician in Peterborough suggested to Jonty's mom that a long trip through the snow-gripped bundu of Ontario would not be a good idea considering his age and medical history. Sooo... everyone except Stephen and Heather gathered at Jonty's new home in Peterborough to sing Christmas carols, have lots of good food and drink, and exchange Secret Santa gifts. Heather and Stephen spent Christmas with Heather's folks in Penetanguishene. (That's not actually on the tundra but you can just about see the tundra from there when it's not snowing :-).

Here are a few more Jonty pics for his many fans to oooh and aaah over.

Jonty, Dad and Mom

Looking for something

I'm sure it was here somewhere

This isn't my mama

Gloria In Excelsis Deo - Peace Upon Earth

Christmas Peace and Joy to all - from all the McCann's

Winter Solstice Moon - Ontario

'Twas in the moon of wintertime when all the birds had fled

That mighty Gitchi Manitou sent angel choirs instead;

Before their light the stars grew dim and wondering hunters heard the hymn, 

Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

Within a lodge of broken bark the tender babe was found;

A ragged robe of rabbit skin enwrapped his beauty round

But as the hunter braves drew nigh the angel song rang loud and high

Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

The earliest moon of wintertime is not so round and fair

As was the ring of glory on the helpless infant there.

The chiefs from far before him knelt with gifts of fox and beaver pelt.

Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

O children of the forest free, O seed of Manitou

The holy Child of earth and sky is born today for you.

Come bow before the radiant boy who brings you beauty peace and joy.

Jesus your King is born, Jesus is born, in excelsis gloria.

Words: Jean de Brebeuf, ca. 1643; English trans by Jesse Edgar Middleton, 1926

http://www.ramshornstudio.com/the_huron_carol.htm

I am sceptical about skeptical atheism.

Preliminary remarks.

Before I start, let me acknowledge that I have friends and relatives who are professed atheists. In my reading and conversations I have come across both atheists and believers-in-a-divinity who are very derisive of those who hold the opposite opinion to theirs. I wish to distance myself from these behaviours and attitudes.

Secondly, I am not going to provide footnotes and citations. You can do your own reading to backup or disprove any position of mine. I would be sincerely interested if you can point out for me where I make any errors of fact or logic.

Foundation

My position is based on the following, upon which both atheists and I seem to agree:

1. The natural universe as we know it had a beginning. Scientists have calculated its age as between 13 and 14 billion years.
2. Before this there was nothing, not even space. Even saying "before this" is a contradiction in terms because there was no time either. "Before" is a time-related concept. Both space and time began with the beginning of the universe.

My position on creation

Atheistic sceptics hold the position that we should not accept anything that cannot be demonstrated empirically or logically concluded. At least, I gather that this is their position - I am open to correction here. In contrast, my position is that we should not accept anything that contradicts logic or empirical evidence.

When I was in high school our chemistry teacher taught us about spontaneous combustion. I totally get it that when you have the perfect storm of prerequisite conditions you can get a reaction. I simply don't get it that something, even or especially a "singularity", can bring itself into existence before it, or anything else, exists. To me, that so flies in the face of reason and logic that it requires a huge act of faith far greater than any faith I have ever been called upon to profess as a Christian.

This brings me to the conclusion that the atheist position is founded upon faith. Atheists "believe" that there is no creator outside of the empirically demonstrable natural order. There is no "proof" for this position which I consider illogical, and having no logic that I have found to defend it. As I understand it, the closest thing to a proof is that there is no proof for the contrary - the so-called sceptical position.

So deists, theists and I conclude by logic that there must have been some Being, before time and space began, which brought time, space and the natural order of our universe into existence.

The role of this "Being" fills the minimum definition for "God" - the Creator.


Why did "God" do this?

Deists claim to be agnostic on this point. They say we cannot know anything about God the Creator or Architect other than what we can conclude by observing the world around us. Deists actively take a position against organised religion that relies on or accepts any form of "revelation". They see God as not intervening in any way in the natural order of the universe. God can thus be compared to some amazing watch maker who created and assembled all these parts, started it ticking and has now left it to itself to wind down in due course while He-She-It goes off and does something else.

This seems to me to be a little like the atheist position on creation: we cannot prove God's existence empirically therefore God does not exist. By contrast, I would posit that there is place for reasoning to a likely or probable conclusion. Before doing that let's make some observations which could be used as premises.

1. Some of what makes up the universe is inanimate such as metals; other elements are living, like plants, microbes and animals.
2. Some of the animals have reflective self-awareness as individual persons, can communicate complex concepts and can reason logically. Humans are one such example. Theoretically there could be others.
3. Many of these human, reasoning animals have come to similar conclusions about the existence of a Creator-God from their own powers of reasoning.
4. This ability must have been put into the "DNA" (analogically speaking) of the original singularity or "cell" of creation. The alternative is that the Creator-God did not put this into the original design and we got to this ability by accident, which I find most unlikely.

This last point leads me to conclude that the Creator-God wanted reasoning animals such as humans to be able to deduce that He-She-It exists and was responsible for their existence. Again, the alternatives are either that the Creator-God did not want us to deduce this but that we did so anyway, which I find absurd, or that He-She-It never thought about that and we got to this position by accident, which, again, I find unlikely.

So, why did God do this? At least one of the reasons must surely be... so that we could know Him-Her-It.

More in due course...

Seasons and Nature

View from living room

I decided to create an album called "Seasons and Nature". Here are some pictures taken in the last week. Click on the pictures to zoom and appreciate the intricate beauty of ice crystals.

Kitchen window

Back deck

You know it's cold when...

Gaudete Sunday

Jonty Day 6

In yesterday's post there is a black and white photo. Some people thought I was being silly, that obviously it was a picture of Jonathan. Actually, that is a picture of Mark taken at the same age.

Mark sent this email about an hour ago:

Hi Everyone,

Here are a few more pics. We were lucky enough to be around when Santa came to town! Jonathan had a grand time as you can see in the pics J. We put on his going home outfit to hide all the leads and had immediate use for the little (large!) hat the cashpeople gave us! He received a personal visit into the room, a sock stuffed full of goodies and a wrapped present. Lucky boy. Santa has done some studying since last year and is a neonatologist when not dressed all in red!

Jonathan is doing really well. He still has to have regular sugar checks which require a heel prick but those hopefully only happen 2 more times! They have prescribed him an antibiotics course which will discharge him on Saturday.

We are doing well too and very relieved he is improving daily. He is really starting open his eyes now in particular after feeds.

Cheers
Mark, Luisa and Jonathan

Jonathan Tiago update Day 5

Thank you to those who have offered congratulations and expressions of concern for Jonty's health. He has really progressed well. Luisa has been discharged but Tiago has not and so Mark and Luisa are "living" in the ICU ward at Sunnybrook Hospital.

Skin on skin is encouraged and he has been getting lots of that from both mommy and daddy, interrupted only when he needed to have sessions under the UV because he was also jaundiced. That has passed so things should be a little easier now. Jonathan is still on antibiotics to which he appears to be responding well.

Yesterday's picture of Jonathan showed a tube in his nose. This was not for oxygen but for supplementary feeding. This has now been removed but you will still see some bubblegum on his left cheek in case they need to put it back. The splint on his hand is holding an infusion tube connector in place.

Here are some pictures of the little chap with his adulating and besotted fans. There is also a "Guess Who?" picture of a mystery baby. No, it is not Albert Einstein.

Guess Who?

Jonathan Tiago Magalhaes McCann

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Jonathan Tiago Magalhaes McCann aka Jonty, and congratulate the proud parents, Luisa Magalhaes and Mark McCann.

Born 8 December 2010 2.66 Kg, 5 lbs 13.8 oz

Jonty

Blind sided by snow

Front steps

Ingrid and I went to Peterborough today with Sean to help Luisa and Mark start getting things sorted out in their new home. On the way there we were commenting how much more snow there seemed to be out that way than around our place, which had little more than a sprinkling.

Front deck

On the way back we drove the last hour in continuous heavy snow. These pictures show what we came back to. It must be close to 25 cm of snow. We had no idea that it was coming.

Back deck

Thank You to the Mo Stashed Hairiers

Here is my thank-you tribute to all the Mo Stashed Hairiers and to our sponsors. I have also included a few people who were not involved this year but who were loyal stalwarts in years past.

You can view the movie here or watch it on YouTube. Enjoy and... THANK YOU!

The End of Movember

The Mo Stashed Hairiers will continue to accept donations from sponsors for the first few days of December.
I am pleased to be able to tell you that, as at the end of Movember we have raised $5,373.00 for Prostate Cancer Canada.

See http://mostashedhairiers.blogspot.com/

Mo Stashed Hairiers on the brink of $4,000

Terry McCann, Patrick Ford

Read all about - and a thank you to the ladies.

Mo Stashed Hairiers

Movember Canada: Over 12 Million Dollars - So Far

Over twelve million dollars will be going to Prostate Cancer Canada for funding cancer research and promoting men's health education and awareness.

...and the Mo Stashed Hairiers have raised over $3,000.


See Mo Stashed Hairiers blog

Movember: Half Way Mark

We are half way through Movember. I am very pleased to tell you one of our Mo Stashed Hairiers is now a Platinum Class Movember Citizen.

Lest We Forget

Please see my post on the Mo Stashed Hairiers blog.

Pictures of Claire and Miriam

See my Picasa album of Claire

Claire Boothroyd

What Canadians Want and Don't Want

Don't you love the way some people talk about "Canadians" in such a manner to imply "all" or "the overwhelming majority" of Canadians. Mostly, it's politicians who use the word "Canadians" in this way to tell us what "Canadians" want or don't want. The latest example is in the rhetoric around the long-gun registry.

The reality, however, is that we Canadians are a pretty divided bunch. In politics we seem agreed on what we don't want, but cannot agree on what we do want. If this were not the case we would not have elected two minority governments in a row. It's time politicians of all stripes accept that fact and spend less energy on deceptive spin and put more motivation and energy into working together. It's only all the politicians together, government plus opposition, who are reflecting in parliament what "Canadians" want. If Canadian voters elect a minority government, or a coalition government, then suck it up and make it work, please.

Vacation in Quebec - Part 2

The Sainte-Anne Canyon

Canyon Ste-Anne, upper falls

On Sunday we went to the Sainte-Anne Canyon. We took it slowly and made the most of some of the spectacular and beautiful views, taking dozens of photos.

Canyon Ste-Anne, lookout points

Some of the 187 steps to the lowest bridge

The canyon has been grooved into rock that is 1.2 billion years old at a rate, if I recall correctly, of about a millimeter per year.

lowest bridge

The waterfall, at 74 meters top to bottom, is higher than the Niagara Falls. The volume of water varies immensely during the various seasons. I would love to see the Spring melt.

Foofie Slide

There is also a zip slide at the highest point for the adventurous. We used to call it a foofie slide :-) I understand they have them at a few places in South Africa now, as well as Vic Falls.

This is a video I took of the rapids behind Ingrid and me in the picture above. Unfortunately I took the video with my camera tilted 90 degrees so you have to tilt your head to the left to watch it :-(

Vacation in Quebec

Clem's place - start and finish

On Friday 10 Sept we drove down to Shefford, Quebec,  in the Eastern Townships between Montreal and Sherbrooke where my old friend Clem stays and slept over with him for the night. He is a gracious host and was only too happy to have us use his home and hospitality as a staging post at each end of our holiday - Friday 10th and Saturday 18th.

Evening view from Clem's front yard

On Saturday 11th we drove up to Saint-Ferréol-Les-Neiges which is NE of Quebec City along the St Lawrence River. More of that in forthcoming posts. Suffice to say we had problems getting through Quebec City because I missed a turnoff and then could not take the route that Samantha wanted me to take because of construction. (Samantha is the patient lady who gives me directions on my GPS.)

A week later, on Saturday 18th, we took the trip back to Clem in Shefford. This time Quebec City itself was no problem. The curved ball came from construction on the highway when a detour forced us onto the north-bound lanes and prevented us from taking our off ramp - and the next three off ramps. Samantha took us through back roads and little villages where the locals had never seen English speakers before. We had lunch in a little place called St Christine. Ingrid and I practised how we were going to ask for an egg sandwich. It all turned out better than we feared because they had a menu and we could point to what we wanted. It turns out that Clem's mother came from that place.

Clem's place. Definitely Québécois

Line dance - Weekly dance for seniors

Clem is on the board for a seniors' association and took us to the weekly dance that is locally organised. There may have been one or two people there who were younger than us. It was quite an experience. Ingrid and I were very impressed with the strength of the local community.

Le musée du chocolat - Terry, Clem, Ingrid

Breakfast at Le musée du chocolat

Sunday morning after mass we had breakfast in the chocolate museum across the road from the church.

I will tell you about the intervening week in future posts.

Accountable government through transparency.

Crown agency expense reports cleaned up before release.

This was the headline on the front page of Saturday's Toronto Star (Sept 4, 2010).


The headline and the revelatory style of the article made it sound like something foul was afoot because the provincial integrity commissioner is going over each expense report in detail, querying improper expenses and having executives reimburse the agency before any reports are made public. Apparantly Premier Dalton McGuinty said last autum that these would be published starting 1 April. Apparently Kevin Donovan expected these reports to be fully available on 1 April.

Whatever. It works for me. Transparency, I mean. The fact of the matter is that provincial executives are not being allowed to get away with improper spending. Why? Because of transparency, their accountability to the public.

It may be going more slowly than some would like but Dalton McGuinty is actually doing at a provincial level what Stephen Harper said (during his election campaign when he first defeated the Liberals largely on this issue) he would do federally but isn't even bothering about going through the motions of doing: introducing accountable government through transparency.

Long on rhetoric, short on science

There are, at least in my mind, two important political issues going on right now where emotions are being used to argue the case. Worse, there seems to be a deliberate attempt to keep science out of the picture.

Firstly, there is the Quixotic "Scrap the long-gun registry" windmill.
Fact: it did cost a billion dollars to implement over a decade.
Fact: it now costs between $1.1 million and $3.6 million per year.
Opponents still call it "a billion dollar boondoggle."
Fact: as a result of overwhelming evidence presented in public hearings the House of Commons Public Safety and National Security Committee passed a motion to recommend to parliament not to do away with the registry.
Fact: the RCMP held an independent audit of the effectiveness of the long-gun registry.
Fact: the Government refuses to release the audit report and its results.
Rumour (unsubstantiated but persistent): the report proves that the registry is effective and efficient.
Fact: 427 out of 430 police chiefs believe it is valueable for law enforcement and public safety (if Antonia Zerbisias has her facts right in the Sunday Toronto Star.)

The anti-registry group seems to consist mainly of hunters, gun collectors and the Conservative government. Today's Toronto Star quotes Greg Farrant of the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters as saying, "We should not have a registry of individuals in this country who are allowed to own firearms; we should have a registry of those individuals too dangerous to own firearms." To this Toronto police chief Bill Blair responded, "I don't tell hunters how to hunt. I'm not sure why hunters want to tell the police what we need or don't need to do our jobs."

As a Canadian and a voter, all I ask for are the facts and figures. Let's have the audit reports and results, please, so that we can all make informed decisions. Cut the crap out of scrap.


Secondly, we have the even bigger Quixotic windmill, "We need more and bigger prisons." This is according to Stockwell Day who told us a couple of weeks ago that statistics which show that crime in Canada is on the decrease are wrong because the number of unreported crimes is actually increasing. He did tell us how he knows there is unreported crime but he did not tell us how he knows it is increasing. He also did not tell us how we were going to catch the criminals who commit unreported crimes.

Daniel Baird has a great article in today's Toronto Star covering some wonderful and effective work being done by Rev. Harry Nigh, a chaplain for Correctional Services, Canada, with a program called Dismas. The purpose of Dismas is to provide a community where ex-prisoners can find support to try and make it in a society not willing to trust ex-cons. This lack of trust makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to find employment, accomodation, and friends who will not lead you back into a life of crime.

A key point of Baird's is that one consequence of having more prisoners is that, eventually, you have more prisoners being released who will need all the services that are presently poorly and under-supplied to today's prison population. This oversight is so typical of what happens when governments, or anyone for that matter, don't use full-cost accounting. We presume that the cost of petrol/gasoline is what you pay at the pump, or that the cost of plastic shopping bags is what the supermarket pays its supplier, or that the cost of generating electrical power is the charge to the end user, and ignore the cost of creating greenhouse gasses and the health costs, or the cost of disposal after use. The worst offender here is the "cost" of nuclear power generation. It only includes short term disposal costs in the calculations. Nobody has any idea as to the cost of safe, long-term disposal or the cost of research required to come up with that solution.


Why am I worrying? My grand-children can sort that out! They'll love me for that, won't they!

But I digress. My point is that it seems to me absurd that we would discard a billion dollar investment in the long-gun registry for the relatively paltry saving of a couple of million dollars a year while justifying the launch into another huge investment into building more and bigger prisons with unknown ripple costs - and all without any published research or findings showing that either course of action has any more link to reality than the windmill dragons of Don Quixote.

Friendship Appreciation Day

Today I want to express my appreciation to all of you my friends. Thank you for being my friend and letting me be your friend. This includes members of my family, blood and in-law, and starts especially with my wife, Ingrid, my best friend.

You, my friends, make up a widely and wildly disparate group of people. Some of the variations are common to most people's friends : I have friends who are old, friends who are young, male and female, friends of different nationalities, racial backgrounds and different economic and educational backgrounds. Many of my friends are apolitical while others are decidedly left or right wing or fringe. I even have a very few friends who, like me, are Green supporters. I have American friends who support the Republicans and some who are Democrats. Some of my Canadian friends seem to know more about American political issues than Canadian. Some Canadian friends are wannabe Americans and some define their identity as decidedly not-American.

To my knowledge none of my friends are neo-Nazis and if you are a closet neo-Nazi then I don't want to be your friend any more.

I have been out of South Africa so long I no longer know who supports which parties but I think the ANC and the DA account for most of you.

Some of my friends are Québécois who think that the best thing for Quebec is to leave the Canadian federation. I have some English speaking Canadian friends who think that the best thing for Canada is for Quebec to leave the Canadian federation.

Some friends are deeply religious, whether Jewish, Christian, Hindu or Moslem. Some are decidedly atheist. Some don't know and don't care if there is a God or gods and aren't sure what the difference is between atheism and agnosticism. They don't mind if I pray for them. Thank you.

I have friends who are straight as a laser beam and other friends who are, or whose children are, gay, lesbian or queer.

I have friends who are passionately Pro-Life and others who are just as passionately Pro-Choice. For the record, I am passionately Pro-Life but I seriously doubt the usefulness of hurling insults at people who believe differently to me.

I am under the impression that very few of you have a similar mix of ingredients to me. It is highly probable that most of my friends would not like most of my other friends. I should be used to that by now. My mother would not have liked many of my friends and I was careful not to bring them home.

But I like you all and I value your friendship. Heck, some of you even asked me to be your friend on FaceBook! I value that, especially considering one of my own family clicked ignore to my friend request !:-) I can live with that. We are good friends in other ways.

Once again, thank you for being my friend and thank you for letting me be your friend.

This is my daughter Miriam (right) and her friend Liora.

Childhood friends and still friends today.

Water IS a human right

If there are any human rights at all, the right to life itself has to be the first one. From this it follows logically, as surely as banging your head produces pain, that the most essential means to continued life must also be human rights. Top of the list of essential means to life must be air and water of sufficient quality to sustain life.

As a Canadian I am disappointed and ashamed that, instead of leading the charge, Canada chose to join 41 other countries who abstained from voting for the recent UN resolution declaring access to clean water and sanitation is a human right.

Does this have something to do with the fact that so many aboriginal communities (more than 100 according to today's editorial in the Toronto Star) are on "boil water" advisories or relying on emergency deliveries of drinking water and that voting with the UN resolution would appear hypocritical. I get the impression that neither Conservatives nor Liberals in Canada are too concerned with First Nations issues. This can only be because they do not see the Aboriginal vote as having much impact on their fortunes.

Can you imagine how long Torontonians or "905'ers" would tolerate being on a boil water advisory or being told it is dangerous to shower?

More photos of Claire - Geoff's album

Here is a link to Geoff's (proud daddy) album on FaceBook. They are public so you don't need an FB account to view them.

Geoff Boothroyd's Photos - Claire Abigail McCann Boothroyd

Claire Boothroyd - Photos

Here is a link to my Claire Boothroyd Album on FB:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=76559&id=1222212000&l=fa4af1b88c

Plus a few photos to make this post look pretty :-)

Claire Abigail Boothroyd - Welcome into the world

Geoff and Miriam have asked me to let you all know that they have a safely delivered daughter, Claire Abigail, born 16:56 Toronto time, weighing 6lb 13 oz (3.09 kg).

According to Ingrid Claire is beautiful, looking perfect and, at the time, crying :-) Miriam, herself, had quite a long push at the end - about 2 hrs. When I spoke to Ingrid Miriam was fine and very happy - as well she deserves to be.

Congratulations Mommy and Daddy on the birth of your daughter and, Claire Abigail, welcome to the world of flashing lights and moving shapes and cacophony of sound and, in the midst of it all, the wonderful sound of your mother's voice. Congratulations, too, Sharon and Alan, on the birth of your grand-daughter.

Thanks to all of you, family and friends of Miriam and Geoff, and friends of family and friends, for your interest, support, prayers and whatever other positive input you have had to the safe delivery of their daughter and our grand-daughter.

Photos to follow as soon as we have them.

- Ingrid and Terry

Tah Dah!! Miriam went in this evening

On Tuesday when Miriam went for her weekly checkup the obstetrician told her she should come in Thursday (today) for an induction when there was a bed free for her. She finally received a call 9:30 this evening. Geoff and Ingrid will be in the labour ward with her. Hopefully we can give you some good news in the morning sometime.

Meanwhile we hope and pray for a safe delivery for baby Claire and for good health and strength for Miriam.

Stephen and Heather in Morocco (Part 4)

subject Re: ello from morocco

Hi,

three weeks later we are back in Casablanca after a wonderfull time in Morocco. Our last week or so has included trekking around in the beautiful Dades Valley with a very sweet man. Our favourite hike was through a gorge where we pretty much had to wade waste deep the whole way through the river that ran through the gorge.

We then went on to Marrekesh where we got a little city shocked after spending 2 weeks in the peacefull Morocco countryside (arriving at 9PM without a hotel booked was not the best idea). We decided that 2 nights in the city was enough and then went on to the very laid back beach town Essaouira (pronounced sa-wee-ra). The town became hippie central after Jimmie Hendrix spent some time there...we couldnt walk 10 meters on the beach without being offered "space cake".

While there we managed to catch the absolutely awesome Netherlands-Brasil match at one of the local watering holes: being 99% Muslim, watering holes in morroco are not bars, but cafès that are packed with men (Heather was the only woman) sipping their cafè au lait or their thè là menthe (mint tea) while cheering on their favourite team (Morroco cheered for netherlands because one of the players is from Morroco. We were congratulated by several men after the game).

Thinking that our flight to rome left Monday morning we headed back to Casablanca on Saturday (travelling between towns here pretty much requires an entire day...everything runs on african time), but silly us, our flight is tuesday morning so we got an extra day in Casablanca which is probably the worst place in morroco to kill time as there is literally nothing to do here, although it wasnt entirely without incident with a movie being filmed in our hotel...more to come about that; unfortunately it doesnt involve us being movie stars.

Tomorrow it is off to Rome and then back in Toronto on Saturday!

See you all soon,

Steve

Our Summer Garden

This is our garden in the summer. Ingrid and I consider ourselves extremely blessed and fortunate to have this beauty around us.

The birch tree in the left corner of our small front garden.

Left. Ingrid's garden at the back. It's a bit wild but that seems to fit and we like it that way.

This patch (picture right) is looked after by Barb, our next door neighbour. That spot is where there used to be twin trees that got blown down onto our roofs in a possible tornado a few years ago. The trees were on the property borderline and the stumps were difficult to remove. Barb asked us if we minded if she turned it into a garden. Hello? Would we mind?

Our willow tree. We get a lot of spring snow-melt running through our back yard so this willow is a great help. We had some tree people in to give it a hair cut last winter to get rid of dead branches and reduce wind resistance. Having that blow down is not what anyone would want. If you zoom in you can see the house of another neighbour who borders our property.

This is looking straight down to the bottom of our yard. It's actually quite swampy at the bottom right through until the end of June.

Left. Another view of Ingrid's garden, this time in the early evening.



My sundial in the front garden. It's not a very good sundial as sundials go. I calibrated it at midday at the equinox (allowing for daylight saving) and by two o'clock in the afternoon it was already showing the wrong time. It was made in China so I put it down to a latitude problem. Maybe they heard it was for Canada so they designed it for the Arctic Circle. Or maybe whoever ordered them gave the suppliers too much latitude. (I made that up myself.) Whatever. I still keep it because it reminds me of an age when time was measured in seasons and the smallest unit of day to day measure was an hour. I can sit in my garden and let the nano-seconds take care of themselves. The only time I have to worry about is whether it's time for another beer.