Grey Cup Week-End

Time is marching on. It is already Grey Cup Week-end in Canada. A time for celebration, family and friends get-togethers, partying, a kind of dress rehearsal for Christmas. Talking of Christmas, there are demonstrations against taking Christ out of Christmas, and against taking Santa Claus out of Christmas, and against taking Christmas away altogether and calling it Holidays. I don't think they are camping out in parks and "occupying" about it yet, maybe later.

Hanne on the KVR Trail Penticton

Clay Cliff overlooking Okanagan Lake

Left Over Crab Apples

Rainy Day in the Park, November 2011

The weather here is great, switching between clouds and blue skies, a sprinkle here and there, nice yesterday for a walk by the lake....

d'Urban

The UN Climate Change Conference starts in three days in Durban South Africa, and interestingly they still have 25 highly decorated and colorful rickshaw-pullers left from the old Zulu days. I hope some of the delegates will make use of them to keep the air fresh and free from pollution!
An interesting development on my iPad today to report. I was reading about a conductor of the New York Symphony who uses his iPad in place of paper music scores. Like Mozart, he conducts from the harpsichord, but places his iPad on the music stand. To turn a page one touches the screen. So today I downloaded the Muse Score Viewer App and a copy of Bach's Prelude No.1 and away I went! It works very well! No more corners to bend down on the paper pages! No lights needed to be carefully positioned over the music!
The other bit of news I found interesting was that the water level in the Rhine river is so low, (down up to two metres ) that unexploded second world war bombs are coming into view and have to be dealt with! Also barge traffic is no longer economical as their loads have to be cut from 4000 tons to 1000 tons!

The Rose Garden, late November

Michael surveying Okanagan Lake (photo by Hanne)

Ice on the Lake (Do you HAVE to follow me around EVERYWHERE?)

One-Legged Great Grey Heron WITH head ( and a fish in his beak?) Okanagan River.

We hope you have a happy Black Friday! Cheers from Penticton.

Thank You

"It's Raining Today" Rain on Ford Road

This is a day on which to be thankful. We thank all our readers and commenters for their faithful input and hope the forty-six million American turkeys are tender this year. Several of our blogging ladies decided to have roast flamingo instead, just for a change.....

Looking over the bridge at Enderby.

Time

Sketch from Armstrong in Winter a couple of years ago. Or was it three?

"A thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone; short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun. Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away; they fly forgotten as a dream dies at the opening day."
These two verses from "O God our help in ages past" show how difficult a concept time is. For one thing, it is not one of the five senses, so the brain has to do some pretty complicated things to keep track of it, and even then it gets muddled sometimes as to how much time things actually take. We are aware of such sayings as "Time is Money" but have you ever thought about how much time you save by driving faster? For example for a 25Km commute at 100Km/hr it takes 15 minutes. At the speed limit (90Km/hr) it takes just under 17 minutes. So do you have something important to do in those extra one and three quarter minutes? If one goes fast on the highway a long way, then slower through town on the streets, one thinks the longer route takes longer, even though both journeys take the same time. On holiday time seems slower than at home. I remember summer holidays for two weeks at the seaside, the first week went slow, the second week went too fast! Different philosophers have varying concepts of time. Some think that time is unreal, because events occur in past, present, and future. But that's yesterday's post....In the meantime, I will just keep on killing time until my time is done....and you may enjoy this wonderful video relevant to this post about "A Day in your Life".

Reality

It is tempting these days to worship the new technology and think " that is all we need."
for instance, iPads are replacing textbooks. But how about the present resurgence of museums? Surely it is more realistic to sleep under a real mammoth than just view a 3D animation of one using modern graphics ? These days too it is also difficult to see certain news items as reality when viewing the written word. Try this one: "The Soyez capsule has landed safely in Kazakhstan with its three astronauts inside." Really?
Try understanding too the video art of Hilary Lloyd.
Are photos depictions of reality? Maybe. But they can also not be, merely another work of art out of someone's creative thinking. But that is someone else's reality.

American Wigeon

Great Grey Heron

Horse with Horse Shelters

Sage bush by the lake

What is reality anyway? Maybe everyone's reality is different because of how their brain developed. We know people select different bits of the world around them to engage with, some hear, some see, some feel. Some just text, then get run over by a truck. The photos today are from our walks by the river and lake. We are getting warm South Pacific air over us so it is rainy and windy, the snow is melted on the ground and the temperature is going up to plus nine Celsius today.
But in conclusion, maybe all of these things mentioned today are part of reality. Then again, Albert Einstein said: " Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one"  Really?.....

A Bald Eagle and Free Beer

Bald Eagle (Photo by Michael Melford)

Notice the sign in the middle....I think that's actually Alan himself just about to go in...

Today we were breakfasting by the waters of Okanagan Lake in the Hooded Merganser restaurant, when we were treated to a five-minute-display of a bald eagle hunting a young ring-billed gull. Round and round they went, up and down, the eagle would do an aerial pounce on the gull, but always the gull would swerve at the last minute. It was so exciting the whole staff of the restaurant stopped work and gathered at the windows to watch. Eventually the eagle gave up and flew away empty-clawed, with a few adult gulls chasing . The other photo is of a selected part of an old painting of mine, showing where Alan can go for free beer...(The Black Lion, Little Walshingham ).