Sylvia's Journal

We welcomed the New Year with a bagpipe serenade. Our friend Steven plays many instruments. He brought two to our house, the sitar and his bagpipe.

The sitar he played indoors, the bagpipe was pulled out at midnight to play Auld Lang Syne. Standing under a crystal clear sky he sent the bagpipe’s haunting tones across Lobster Cove from where they bounced back to where we were standing. A dog barked next door and then fireworks (of the teenage boy variety) started someplace else. We rushed inside as it was very cold.

That was the end of a lovely evening with our musician friends from down the street – wine made by a Manchesterite in Italy, fish soup, Dutch apple pie. Around these delicacies we wove stories about cross cultural music, Quakers and Buddhists and the persistence of religious images that we bring with us from our childhood.

I finished another puzzle, obsessively I might say. There is no one to help, Axel is clueless about puzzles, and the puzzle doesn’t progress unless I do it. It is done now and I can put it back in the box for later, when I retire.

My other new year’s holiday project is the knitting of a sweater from the wool Sita gave me for Christmas. I had to go to the yarn shop for some technical assistance which the knitting guru gladly provided. All the while I am playing scrabble with my sister and niece over the phone. I am doing quite poorly.

I am also doing poorly with my joints and tendons which all seem to be permanently inflamed – this takes some of the fun out of our daily walks with Tessa and her dogs.