In this post guest writer Barbara Richardson reflects on her first 18 months of retirement. I retired in June 2019 after 35 years of a rewarding, thrilling, adventurous career. I thought a lot about it before I retired. A lot. Would I be bored, lose my self-identity, have financial worries without a paycheque, get depressed? […]
TOP TV VIEWING OF 2020
Because TV Thursdays now appears regularly, today’s post will be the final of four annual lists of recommendations. In 2020 Glen (a fussy viewer) and I may have turned off as many series as we watched, including several praised by TV critic John Doyle of The Globe and Mail. Still, the following shows on Netflix, […]
TV THURSDAYS: THE CROWN
Glen and I do not really follow the Royals. We don’t tune in to the Queen’s annual Christmas message, her 64th televised one tomorrow. Didn’t watch the fairytale wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana in 1981 or her mournful funeral in 1997. We’re not au courant about Prince Harry and Meghan or Prince Andrew, […]
PANDEMIC POSITIVES: ARE THERE ANY?
Guest writer Tanya Loretto is a Spiritual Mentor within the Christian tradition but journeys with people of all faith traditions, as well as those with no religious affiliation. She has personal and professional experience in the areas of grief, neurological disability, mental illness, dementia, and addiction. She wrote the following article for my blog. No […]
TWO SLEEPS RATHER THAN ONE?
Guest writer Patricia Young was a Law Librarian for 20 years in Ottawa and Montreal, serving on the executive of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries in several positions including President. Pat then moved to Los Baños, Philippines. After volunteering for a few years, she discovered her true calling as a school librarian for grades […]
TV THURSDAYS: STRANGER
Watching a Korean drama exercises our minds as we try to speed read the long subtitles flashing across the screen and struggle to become acquainted with characters whose triple names can confuse. We learned the family name precedes the first name; almost half of South Koreans bear a family name of Kim, Lee or Park […]
SEEING CLEARLY
This month Glen and I celebrate a year of cataract free vision. It’s embarrassingly cute that we both required cataract surgery in our eyes at the same time. And the same ophthalmologist operated twice on each of us on the same days last year. Given our ages, however, it seems we’re rather typical. Cataracts are […]
TV THURSDAYS: THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT
After a reader suggested I write about the importance of television viewing in our later years, I began publishing a list in January of Glen’s and my favourite TV series of the year. We enjoy programs for the conversations they stimulate, between us as well as among family and friends. Such exchanges often influence my opinion […]
ADOPTION: A LOVE STORY
November is National Adoption Awareness Month in Canada. Bear with me readers who already know about Glen’s and my experience in becoming adoptive parents. In these feel bad times I decided to write a feel good story. For posterity. ‘The Baby Project’ dominated the decade of my thirties. I was diagnosed with infertility at age […]
TRAINS OF THOUGHT
Guest writer Barbara Richardson retired a year ago to Alberta from a career in the Foreign Service. She lived in Ottawa, Manila, Nairobi, Dhaka, Harare and Prague and was Ambassador for three assignments. Coronavirus was not in her retirement plan. Retirement brings the luxury of time. Freed from work pressures and child-rearing demands, we now […]