a sleepy, slow day 1 January 2012

First I find it difficult to believe that 12 years ago we were living in Warsaw, Poland and the big topic had to do with Y2K and a theory that the Earth would collide with other planets and planes fall from the sky etc... the hysteria from our collective leaders around the world was something to behold, a bit like bird flu and frozen rock hard chickens scare a few years later, we were all going to die, all this seems like a million years ago now. This year some Mayan Calendar and the end of the world, looks more and more like the news is run by the tabloids at the check-out counter of your local supermarket.

First here is my official 2012 New Year's portrait taken on 30 December at the house of our dear friend CP where she served us a wonderful multi-course dinner. I told her this could be a second career and celebrity Chef Gordon Ramsay and his mini-hamburgers at Laurier Bar-B-Q in Montreal could take a run for his money. She served amongst other things Cornish Hens, they were very good and I got from her a sea scallop recipe, simple and wonderful. The dinner service is well over 100 years old, very elegant.

During the Holiday period I promised myself I would tend to my army and take care of arranging it all properly. Took me 3 days to do it, quite the task, I know how Kim Jong Un now feels in underfed and hysterical North Korea. I had to arrange them by century, period, monarchs, battle and in an historical context. Have four basic periods, the easiest is the Coronation parade for Queen Elizabeth II, then comes the 7 years war at Quebec City, September 1759, I know my ancestors were there as they lived not far and were soldiers. In fact August 2012 will mark the 350 anniversary of the arrival of my ancestors in Canada, (1662-2012).

Then comes the Napoleonic wars, etc.. though it is not a period I like, 12 campaigns in a very short term if you think of it, a whole male generation in France slaughtered and economic chaos in Europe over some Corsican fellow, who admitted he did not like France or the French that much to begin with.
At any rate it is a lot of work but much fun, each piece has a history and a different provenance.

Today I also did a little housekeeping, polishing the silver ice bucket, a Christmas gift of my sister back in 1983 in New York, where my parents then lived. Will and I spent 3 hours at Fortunoff on Fifth Avenue deciding what we would get. It had gotten quite tarnished and it was inexcusable so now it is all clean again.

We also listened to the New Year's day concert from the Musikverein, Golden Hall in Vienna, the flowers in the concert hall are magnificent, a gift each year I am told from the city of San Remo in Italy. The tickets to the concert are obtained through a lottery and for 2013 you can apply now for your tickets, from the reasonably priced to the very expensive in Euros. See the web site, well worth it, www.musikverein.at


Last night the weather in Ottawa was miserable, slippery and wet, cold, humid, so like most of the people we knew, we stayed home and had a lovely dinner with fine wines and a lovely annual fruit cake by our friend J who has made them for the last 30 years, this year's cake is excellent. By 10 o'clock we were ready for bed but did stay up until midnight listening to the radio from Toronto to ring in the New Year. Had a glass of Marsala Vergine and went to bed. Today the 1 January the weather was quite warm at +5 C, water everywhere under heavy grey skies. Just quiet time.