Part-time prevaricator
I hopped on my bike for about an hour today, and I bring you these photos from my ride. Above: a 9‑image panorama from the southwest end of town. Below: Lilacs and sky. (What’s your favourite focus? I prefer the flowers myself.)
I took a stab a re-editing a photo of the aurora I took in 2016. It’s a lot more dramatic now. What do you think?
They have such a lovely smell and such a brief season.
Update: In a bit of weird synchronicity, I posted this the day before “Wear the Lilac Day”, a day created by fans of the late Sir Terry Pratchett—one of my favourite authors—to commemorate his writing and to support research into Alzheimer Disease. Since Dad had dementia, this one strikes me a bit as “is the universe telling me something?”
A bunch of rejections cropped up in my email in the last week or so. I know it’s part of the job (the game? the process?), but it’s not all that much fun.
As I was gearing up to re-submit the pieces in question, though, I got a cheery little message from a friend and fellow author, which made me feel better about the whole thing.
Meant to say I quite enjoyed your story “The Smoke” and I hope you find a good placement for it. Didn’t have much else to add, I like the narrator and the ending. […] Great job!
So, thanks for that, Chadwick.
Currently “The Smoke” is in the middle of editing, but I assure you I’ll be sending it back to him when it’s ready for the next round. If you’d like to read it too—it’s a viking/Iceland–inspired ghost story… in space!—do let me know.
I found some flowers on today’s bike ride. Enjoy.
Today I went 28km (further than I thought) and got photos of a bee at work, a couple of dead trees, and a miniature riverside inuksuk.
I went 21 km today, and saw a couple of deer at the Riverbank Discovery Centre…
…and some pigeons flying above some rocks on the edge of the river, as seen from the 1st Street Bridge.
On the way home from Virden.
There’s a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they’re absolutely free. Don’t miss so many of them.
—Jo Walton
Since I was in Dauphin today to supervise a judo grading, I took the long way home, swinging by my old home town, Ste. Rose du Lac.
It’s been a few years since I was in town. I didn’t know what I should expect: would I feel all the feelings? Have I been away long enough that I would be dispassionate?
Turned out to be door number 2, mostly. I snapped a photo of our old house—I haven’t lived in it for, what, 30 years?—and mostly I was a) surprised by the addition of a chimney to the side of the house and b) impressed at how many vehicles fit in the ol’ driveway.
The town’s famous grotto, which I had intended to photograph, looks like it’s under construction—scaffolding everywhere—so I didn’t bother with pictures.
I stopped in briefly at École Laurier, where I learned français, and got a weird hit of nostalgia looking at the playground. I’m like 75% sure that the monkey bars there are the same ones a friend fell from in grade 2, breaking his arm.
I stopped just outside Laurier and snapped the 19 images that make up the header image, a panoramic view of Riding Mountain.
Well, the trees are starting to bud out, anyways.
