Preparations and Shopping for Xmas

It is funny how until yesterday I thought we were 2 weeks away from Christmas and today by looking at the date I realize we were 7 days away. Time to get busy with getting menus and food.
I always like going to the Liquor store to see what they might have. There is not the variety we found in Europe, say London or Rome but there was quite a few wines I thought interesting. The sales lady was most helpful and in a very good mood, she was even wishing people a Merry Christmas, how very nice and old fashion at the same time.

So I got a good variety of Prosecco, white and red wines and a bottle of Zinfandel to make pears in wine which is always a nice Festive dessert and is served chilled.

As for food, I also want to make small Tarts with blue cheese and pears which are served warm, they are easy to assemble and you simply put in the oven at 325F for 10 minutes.

Then some puff pastry and fresh sausage meat, usually a mild Italian sausage will be used to make piggy in a blanket, always nice to have with a drink. On Christmas eve we will have Canadian Lamb
roasted, easy to make and quick. I found some nice Wild Pacific Coho Smoked Salmon to start. Then for the dessert I called Michael Holland of Cake and Shake at 229 Armstrong st. in the Parkdale Market area, who makes wonderful pastries the old fashion style. I ordered 2 Bûches de Noël, one vanilla with vanilla icing and the other carrot with orange icing.  www.cakeandshake.ca

All our Christmas wishes have been sent electronically or by mail. The house is decorated, so we can just sit back and relax. On the statistical side of things I note that I spent about 260 hours volunteering at the National Gallery of Canada and spent 40 hours at the Canadian War Museum on the Summer exhibit this past year. Something I really enjoy a lot.

'' God is not dead nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail. With Peace on Earth, good will to men.'' from the poem Christmas Bells by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Noël in Canada, les anciens Canadiens.

In closing this picture of two little dachshunds in the snow, so very nice and makes me think of my two Nicky and Nora

More photos of Xmas preparation and Xmas puppies

Well we got our menu planned out for Christmas Eve, which will be dinner at home
starting with some Smoke Salmon and fixing and then Lamb filet with vegetables and
I will order the mini Bûche de Noël from Michael Holland. On Christmas Day we are going
to Le Café at the National Arts Centre, they have a very nice menu.

Drove by Parliament and the Christmas lights are amazing the National Capital Commission did a
very good job this year. It is spectacular to see.

This evening we watch on BBC Player on the Internet Chef Delia Smith who lives in Suffolk. She is 73 yrs old now and the programs are about 20 years old but nonetheless very well made and very interesting. She basically shows you how to make Christmas Pudding and Cakes and all manners of
other things for the Festive Season. She had one recipe for a fruit cake which can be made in minutes and takes 90 minutes to cook, very simple and perfect for anyone who has never made one. The one I really liked was the sticky toffee pudding cake and of course all those candied fruits and candied chestnuts, so very good. Now come to think of it we should have suggested to our friend Spo who wanted a recipe for Plum Pudding to watch Delia make one, very simple.

While she was mentioning the ingredients you need and even wine pairing, I felt nostalgic for those days when I would at the Holiday time fly through London on my way home to Ottawa and stop off and buy all manner of food stuffs. London prior to Christmas is a great shopping place and has so much to offer. Even Heathrow still has the real Duty Free shops not the make believe nonsense you find in most airports these days.

Such shows on the BBC really put you in the Christmas frame of mind.

Xmas puppies they sleep about 20 hours a day to prepare for the Holidays.

Holiday Table Centre

Silver snow flakes

this is such a nice Panettone, so good with a coffee.

Will's home made Ginger cookies

We also discovered on the internet radio RMF Classic 98.3 FM Warsaw, Poland. They have a 

very good selection of Christmas music. Music in Polish and English.

photos of Ferragosto

From what I hear and messages I received from friends in Rome some people are leaving the Città for  the beginning of the Summer Holidays which in fact started as early as Monday 11 August and will continue until at least the 2 September for the very lucky and up to the 18 August for those not so fortunate in more ways than one. Italy has slipped back into a severe recession and the economy is not good, unemployment for young people (under 30) is hovering around 43% which is a disaster. This is due in large part to years of Right Wing Conservative Politics and negligence under Sylvio Berlusconi as Prime Minister.

As a tourist you are not likely to see anything and if you do not speak Italian you will not even be aware of the problems facing Italy.

Nonetheless now is time for the annual vacation and the 15 August which was instituted by the first Roman Emperor Octavian know as Augustus some 2000 years ago. When in the fourth century Christianity became an official religion in Rome the holiday meaning was gradually changed and became a major religious holiday dedicated to the Assumption into Heaven of the Blessed Virgin Mary,  nowadays it is the signal for summer vacation time.

Here are some favourite photos of Rome and Italy.

 The Church of St-Agnes in Agony on Piazza Navona, the church dates from the 8th century, the baroque facade from 1652 on the orders of Pope Innocent X of the Doria Pamphilij Family. 

 Our pool in our first home in Rome, Via Asmara 9. It was quite large, no we did not have to clean it.

The old garden area of the former estate on Via Asmara 9, never did discover who had built this garden but it was quite large and pleasant.

Another view of our pool on Via Asmara 9, never used it really.

 Our Reesie, he was a long hair Dachshund. Sitting quietly amongst the white roses in the garden

 The Oculus of the Pantheon in Rome, the opening is 27 feet in diameter or 8.2 meters

  Moon over Rome, if you look closely at the picture the middle dark part you can see the ruins of the Imperial Palaces on the Palatine Hill.

 Seen from the Market of Emperor Trajan a side view of the Italian Altar to the Nation also known as the Vittoriano on Piazza Venezia, the largest marble monument in the world. 

 The window of the French Ambassador's Office at the French Embassy in the Farnese Palace in Rome. The Coat of Arms above the window are those of the Farnese Pope Paul III.
Incidentally the first French Ambassador to rent out the palace as a residence was none other than the brother of Cardinal Richelieu who was Chief Minister of the King of France. Cardinal Alphonse Richelieu (yes it ran in the family) was the religiously inclined one compared to his politician brother.

Street parking in Rome with Olive trees

 Castle San Angelo originally built as the Mausoleum to Emperor Hadrian.

Carabinieri in gala uniform, they are the elite police corps in Italy 

 The famous fountain of the turtles near the old ghetto of Rome

Equestrian statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius on the Campidoglio Piazza in front of the City Hall of Rome on the Capitoline Hill. The original statue is 1900 years old and is inside in the museum to the left of the photo.

Eleonara di Capena or Nora for her friends.

We had a few days ago our little story about our Nicky and now it is Nora's turn, our eternal little hunter. She cannot help it her mother was a National Hunting Champion in Italy and she has all those instincts. The lady in Capena who owned the kennel had a room full of trophies and ribbons to her champion dogs and she did offer to train Nora for hunting but we declined given that we lived in the Città and move to another City. Though in the city there are cats, squirrels and wild rabbits, badgers too. We live by the Rideau Canal and there is a lot of wildlife despite being in the centre of the city.

Nora is also an excellent guard dog, she has a very keen sense of hearing and smell, nothing escapes her. We are constantly surprised by the fact that she can hear the elevator door open some 20 meters from our front door or knows when someone who is downstairs, that is 4 floors down is coming up, she is able to differentiate the phone ring tones, though we cannot perceive with our human ear the subtle differences.

She is also very talkative and modulates her voice to attract our attention, every sound means something different and we have become accustomed to it all, though we are not always sure what she means. Her hunting howl makes her sound like the Hounds of the Baskerville and can wake up the whole neighbourhood, it is a booming howl for such a little dog it is surprising.
Dachshunds have that capacity which make them sound ferocious.

And like all Dachshunds she likes to hide and burrow, we often loose her in the apartment, though she always knows where we are at all times. Unlike Nicky she does not like to lie in the sunshine as much as he does, she gets too hot and moves off to a shady corner. She is also not shy about putting him in his place if he annoys her. He is often scared of her because she bosses him without mercy.
She is a week older than him maybe that is why.

Her favourite sofa in the house, she is in this picture but you cannot see her though she is looking at the camera, hiding behind the small cushion. The sofa is growling you say, look closer and you will see her. 

There she is wedging herself between cushions and falling asleep, she loves doing that, especially at night. If we let her she would probably sleep there all night.

the one nice thing about Nora is that she loves everybody and is quite affectionate unless you are a squirrel then you are dead meat.

  

Sunday pictures

A beautiful Summer day just received news from Rome where friends attended an event at the Canadian Club of Rome (CCR). Here I am sitting on my balcony in Ottawa looking at the Canal and thinking of those days in Italy. We could have gone to the Villa Borghese to walk in the gardens all the way to the Belvedere to see all of Rome at our feet or met friends for Sunday lunch and a little Passeggiata.

A photo taken by our friend Anna Ambrosini just 3 days ago from the roof garden of Hotel Locarno in the old centre of the Città.

   The church dome on the left is one of the two churches which stand guard at the entrance to Piazza del Popolo. Right top the two towers are part of the French Academy in Rome, Palazzo Medici.

Three dachshunds wire hair not our Nicky or Nora but cousins.

One of the many Fontanella il nasone fountain in Rome, Nora loved them and would often put her entire head under the very cold water. Very good clean water to drink comes to Rome carried by the ancient aqueducts.

Oh the sunshine is so nice!

oh the sunshine is so nice, a photo by lnb1956 on Flickr.

This photo was taken in our Rome Apartment on Via Dei Villini 26 when Nicky and Nora where still puppies, they turn 5 years old this week. Haapy Birthday Nicky and Nora!

7 January 2014 Christmas Season is Officially over!!!

So it is over, we had some fierce weather from 23 December onwards. We took down the decorations today house is back to normal.  It also means we now enter the dark period of winter, no festive lights, it's winter and the reality of icy sidewalks and difficult driving conditions, cold unpleasant weather and dark days with little sunlight is our lot.

            The tree waiting to be put away, puppies taking the morning sun. 

In Ottawa we will have a kind of, sort of bureaucratically nice Festival called Winterlude Jan. 31 to Feb. 17.
Last year the weather cooperated and the ice sculptures at Confederation Park where interesting. Skating on the Rideau Canal was good. Hopefully this year the weather will stay sufficiently cold for all the outdoor activities, if not it can be a watery mess. Winterlude is really a weekend carnival of sorts, all activities are concentrated on the weekends of the festival with nothing much happening during the week. The activities are mostly about skating on the canal with activities for children.
Though it is 30 years old it seems that the organizers have not much thought about what else they could do to make this festival more interesting to visiting tourists from abroad and for the population in general.

Until the May Tulip Festival that is pretty much all there is in Ottawa, meaning this is the worst of time in the Capital. Lucky those who can escape to Florida or warmer climes wherever they may be.

For me it will be a return to my volunteer activities, reading and being a pillow to my dogs.
I am reading the new biography of Johnny Cash by Robert Hilbrun, a fascinating book, I can see why it got such good reviews.  I am not a Cash fan but he was a popular music figure while I grew up and remember him from the 1970's.

As for being a pillow for my dogs, well the hounds have decided that they can just sleep on us whenever they feel like it. Just climb on top and make themselves comfortable. They go into a deep sleep and weigh more than elephants. After a while you have to move them, to which they do not take kindly, giving you sleepy eyes dirty looks, uncomprehending.

Of course Nicky can be bought off for the price of a cookie, just say the word ''Biscuit'' and he stares at you the way wolves do before the kill. Biscuit is an important word not to be fooled with. Nora is the same though not so obvious. She also will make herself comfortable on you but you won't be, it is very one sided. Hounds will be hounds I suppose.

Thanksgiving Puppy

Here is a picture taken today of our little Nora, not quite a puppy anymore but a dachshund who knows how to play the camera. Nora Desmond you say? Yes, I am ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille.

Nora just enjoying the morning sunshine. Not a bad life between cookies.

Morning Sunshine

Both Nicky and Nora love the sunshine in the morning. Though Nicky is really the beach boy.

This week though the weather has been cool, the sun is warm and bright.

 Nicky 

Nora

Nicholas and Eleonora di Capena

Dogs are funny creatures, at least for us humans. Anyone who has lived with dogs will notice how they observe everything humans do. They know the sounds of our foot steps, of our voice, friendly or angry, the inflection of our voice and some important core words, our mood swings and they also know when you are leaving for business or pleasure days ahead of time.
They have been behaving strangely, they have figured out that we are leaving for Europe in 6 days, they know. But how? They just know, strange really, most humans would not have a clue unless you bash them over the head and still, dogs know, as they observe everything we do.

So today and yesterday both got groomed for the summer, I really enjoy it when they returned freshly groomed. Here are some pictures of them today on our living room sofa, they love it, so soft for the them to sleep on.

Nicholas on the left side and Eleonora (Nora) on the right.

little hunting dogs capable of taking on a wild boar in a forest or bigger game. They have no fear.

Birthdays

Our little puppies, well not anymore, will turn 4 years old this coming week.

Imagine four years ago, we went shortly after their birth to Capena a small town just a few kilometers outside of Rome, a suburb by today's standard. Capena is famous for being in antiquity a town for wealthy Romans who had villas. Marcus Tulius Cicero (the father of lawyers) was one, Livia, Empress of Rome, mother of Tiberius and wife of Augustus, also had her famous summer villa at Prima Porta.

We had heard, I do not remember how, of the Casa degli Orsi, (the house of the bears) which is a breeding kennel for Wire hair Dachshunds and for Saint Bernard's, two very different breeds of dogs.
The kennel is owned by a well known Veterinarian Dr. Massimo B. and his wife Tiziana who have won many trophies and awards.

We loved the farm or kennel, lots of big trees and meadows and old stone farm house, there was also a big pool full of Koi fish. The two bitches who were with their litters were inside the house. The puppies being new born still had their eyes close and were very small, smaller than my hand. Tiziana picked up one little female puppy and then went over to the other box and picked up a little male. The two mothers looked alarmed and kept an eye out so that their puppies would not be harmed. When she returned them to their respective boxes the mothers licked them, checking that nothing had happened to them.

The male dogs who fathered the litter were kept outside in a pen with the other wire hair dachshunds.

With Will at the farm in Capena, left Nora and right Nicky at 6 weeks.

We decided then to adopt the two puppies and left them at the farm to return 6 weeks later to pick them up. We also had to think of a name for them, in Italy you cannot give just any name to your dog, there is a complex registration process and papers have to be filled out, it is as we say ''la bella face''. We had a contest on the internet and a friend came up with Nicky and Nora as in the 1940 movies about Nick and Nora Charles. It was explained to us that both dogs could not have names starting with the letter N, so a device was invented to go around this rule.

Our Nora before her grooming session at the Salon.

Nora close up in 2010, Rome

So our female dog was named Eleonora della Casa degli Orsi, we call her Nora for short. Her father was Hungarian, Erik Ligetfalvi, her mother was Italian and named Lucy.

Nora was born on 19 February 2009, feisty even has a new born with a hunting dog mentality, very independent.

Our Nicky, we named Fantastico Nicky, born 23 February 2009. Both parents are Hungarian, the father was Indian Catullus and his mother Filomena Catullus. Nicky is not a hunter more of a show dog  like his father, life is a catwalk, very vain, he knows he is beautiful, how can dogs know this, he knows, its his Italian side, all style.

Fantastico Nicky groomed for his birthday on Saturday 23 February.

We got proof of origin for pure bred dogs (Hungary) and registration of birth in Italy and then permits were issued by the province of Lazio (Rome) with their Health Certificates. We being the owners had to provide proof of identity and our Codice Fiscale or tax number. They also got their European Union international chip inserted when we went to bring them back to Rome.

This is by far my favourite photo of Nicky in our den at home in Rome on Via dei Villini.

The trip back to the City down Via Tiberina and then Via Salaria in our car was comical, Nora was happy to go and settled quickly, while Nicky whined all the way for 25 minutes, very unhappy to leave his family and the farm. It turns out that Nora has a large vocabulary of sounds to tell you things and will bark at you to indicate different things that she wants. While Nicky whines, he does not bark unless he is upset about something and it is usually one sharp bark. He may give a low ominous growl as a warning but that is all. He can also tell time, per example 7am is breakfast time, 17:35 is dinner time and 22:00 is bedtime, if you forget not to worry he will remind you. He is very precise about such things, we just find it strange. I suspect he as a little watch like a Piaget hidden in his kennel.

Nora and Nicky on the ancient Via Appia, posing by a funeral monument in the Spring time, Rome.

Happy Birthday to our little Dachshunds who bring so much joy to our life.

A Winter Post from the frozen North

We are in January and it is snowing, the Rideau Canal is open in the section from Pretoria Bridge to Bank street bridge for skating, a distance of 2.3 Km. It's cold and frankly I don't like it.
Nicky and Nora love to run in the snow and stick their noses in the white stuff.
I had a very bad fall on Wednesday, we were going to dinner and walking in the parking area was difficult, thick polished ice is very dangerous and one wrong step and you are sent flying. This is what happened, I took one step and my left foot slipped I landed on my left side very hard on the ice using my arm to break my fall. My left arm and shoulder are still sore and sensitive, however did not break anything and no bruises. My doctor told me that I was very lucky, broken wrists and damaged shoulders are hard to mend. My art class presentation on behalf of the National Gallery of Canada was cancelled this week, labour trouble between the Ontario government and the teachers is playing havoc with our presentations this year.

I have also been reading a lot lately, several books friends recommended, love to read on Kindle. I will write a review of what I have been reading later.

I have been staying close to home, going out for errands but that is it. Puppies keep me company, I think that dogs purpose in life is to amuse us by clowning around. Nicky and Nora always appear to think of something to do to make us smile. Their birthdays is coming up in February, they will be 4 years old, amazing how time goes by quickly.

Yesterday was a bright sunny day and of course Nick the beach boy, like any good hound wants to lie in the sunshine, he will lie there on the carpet for hours not moving, only getting up for a little drink of water. He just loves the sunlight, I think it is his therapy to counter the dark winter days.

This photo was taken in Rome in 2010, I am holding Nicky and Will has little Nora.

Nicky on his blanket in Ottawa this week.

Nora peering from under the blanket, she has an Old Testament look about her.