Hi Janet,Back in the fall of 2018, I spent 7 weeks volunteering at the Churchill Northern Studies Center in Churchill, Manitoba, aka The Polar Bear Capital of the World. This little fella wandered up to the kitchen window one afternoon when I was on dinner prep duty.
********Our cook, Bob, was making beef wellington and Yorkshire pudding, so of course polar bears would be interested. The best part was, Bob sighted the polar bear first which meant he was then the responsible party for alerting the center that we had a polar bear on the premises. As the mere second witness, I used the opportunity to take multiple selfies with the bear. Such a great day!--blog reader Kelly
I've been indulging in Dick Francis novels the last few days.
They're the first thing I've been able to read in long form for a while.
A lot of the ebooks are $3.99 so it's been a cheap solace!
I know I need to get back to work....
I love Dick Francis.
ReplyDeleteStay well, everyone, and pray for our hospitals.
I remember your post, Janet called 10 Things I Love About My New Kindle.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fabulous selfie! Polar bears are awesome!
ReplyDeleteIt is day 7,982 here at chez NM. Husband has taken to leaving his coffee mug and dishes where they lay, clothes don't make it to the hamper but fall short by this much, the blanket that he uses to cover when watching TV in the evening is on the floor in a pile which makes the dog ecstatic, he's interrupting the flow of my day...it's like having a toddler in the house.
"Hubs! Why didn't you take your coffee mug to the sink if you're done?"
"I dunno. You're there, you can take it when you get up."
O_O *growls*
And it snowed almost all day yesterday.
The only thing saving him is he's claybarring my Mustang out in he back garage so I get two hours to cram things I need to get done into that time. I've told him already unless he treats the back garage like a job when he retires and works out there every day, (and he can, he has guys chomping at the bit to get an engine done) he's not allowed to retire.
Sorry, just needed to blow off some steam. I love him dearly but I'm not adapting well.
In the meantime, I am reading The Peat Dead by Allan Martin. So far, it's been good. Set on Islay, it grabs the island well. And they mystery is also interesting.
My grandfather, a magnificently self-educated man who liked the ponies and the classics, was a HUGE Dick Francis fan. No greater endorsement. Enjoy.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great photo, Kelly, and what a wonderful project!
ReplyDeleteI started a re-read of Pride and Prejudice, which takes me way, way out of current events.
Things are ok here. I'm on annual leave by order of the powers that be this week, which means I marked 30 assignments yesterday (academics need to work on our definition of leave). But I have managed to plough though a good chunk of the WIP and The Great Rewrite now only has one chapter to go before it is a complete new draft (essentially a new first draft because what started out as a rewrite of a few sections I wasn't happy with... expanded. Some original words are left - like "the").
ReplyDeleteI've also just adopted a tiny disabled rat and spent the last two days trying to persuade him to take his medicine. Finally tonight, after trying [insert looooong list of most foods in the house here including all my usually infallible rat medicating options], he has accepted his meds in honey. We shall see whether he'll do that again tomorrow.
Polar Bear!!! An artist friend of mine has gone to Churchill to photograph the Polar Bears. With a nice, long lens, I imagine!
ReplyDeleteI still have a stack of Dick Francis novels. I used to get one every year for Christmas. That worked well for me because I couldn't read two in a row without a break. Just too formulaic for me, regardless of how well-written they are. Maybe once I'm done torturing myself with the old John Irving book I"m reading, I'll pick up one – I deserve a break! Ha.
We don't have polar bears here, just a few gators, so it is treat of a picture.
ReplyDeleteIt is the time of the year for the gators to be looking for love, but the governments have decided it can't trust us to keep a decent social distance and have closed all of the good spots to see them.
I love Dick Francis too. To me, it's an interesting example of voice & writing style to look at his books vs the ones his son has written. His son's (the few I've read) are well-plotted, fast-paced and contain all the same elements (race horses, etc) as the originals, but I don't care to read any more of them. There's nothing wrong with them, but also, nothing that particularly stands out to me as different from anything else in the genre. Except maybe the racehorse bit.
ReplyDeleteBut the reason I love the original ones by Dick so much is his voice. How he writes his stories is just as important to me as what actually happens. Maybe even more so. (Ok, I like his main characters too; that always helps!) I can read them over and over again, delighting in a turn of phrase or a particular wry comment.
I love polar bears....right up until they want to eat me. But then I think, who could blame them. I am crunchy and delicious with ketchup.
ReplyDeleteI love Dick Francis as well. And I started reading the most fabulous book last night. It is called The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It is literary with a new twist on the Dracula tales. Creepy and vibrant and the kind of thing you don't want to put down so you stay up too late reading even though you have a zoom meeting first thing and are supposed to be coherent (and dressed) when you present your plan for assisting in book turn in for the sheltering in place school district. Oh well, being coherent is over-rated. As is being dressed. Good books are the best.
And it is so wonderful to have my ability to concentrate returning in little bursts.
What an incredible experience & picture! Hooray for the mere second witness status!
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of that place but just had to look them up. Their website has some pretty amazing pictures, too.
I have sequestered myself into the new aqua room, away from everyone else, to get a minute to myself. There is so much aqua in here, the air itself looks like I'm under water. I am still mulling over what kind of mural to paint here...
That is an amazing photo! I immediately had to look up how to volunteer at the Churchill center -- cool in every way!
ReplyDeleteE.M., I read The Historian many years ago and it still haunts me.
nightsmusic, when I first read your rant, I thought it said you were all watching TV in the evenings in a pile on the floor. That WOULD make the dog ecstatic.
I've never read Dick Francis -- putting it on my list. Sounds perfect right now.
I love Dick Francis! My grandpa grew up around horses and worked (as an accountant) in the last logging camp in America that used them. He dreamed of running a horse farm-- never did, but he would've been good at it. He spent most weekends at the track after he retired.
ReplyDeleteI started reading Dick Francis' books a few years before my grandfather died. I discovered my grandfather's copies a few months after. I wish we'd had a chance to talk about them.
Might I recommend "To the Hilt" and "Wild Horses?" They're my favorites-- Francis always writes about horses, but he brings the same amount of love and care when writing about other professions. Those protagonists are a painter and a movie director. If the man wrote training manuals, I'd read 'em happily-- there's so much gorgeous detail.
I still remember when I discovered Dick Francis. A friend had a huge collection of his paperbacks and I devoured every one, and then went looking for more.
ReplyDeleteGenerally speaking, it is not a good idea to take selfies with bears. Kelly's appears to have been at a safe remove, which is good, because as E.M. says, we are crunchy and delicious with ketchup! Polar bear cubs are adorable and you just want to snooggle with them, but again, this is not recommended. Just because they're cute, it doesn't mean they're easy.
All is still well in the northwest woods. I am only mildly insane and like many people, if it wasn't for the fact my phone tells me what day it is, I would never know.
Imagine how lonely we would be without the interwebs!
Panda on, everyone.
Lovely selfie! Also, the world capital of polar bears is a place I'd like to be now... social-distancing must be so much easier there than where I live.
ReplyDelete$3.99 for ebooks? Well I guess I'm not such a good writer... but my ebook is $2.99 at the moment (well only until tonight or tomorrow morning, then it's finished). Just in case anyone would want to give it a try. *Sighs* because it's dead, in fact.
(Paperback is also reduced)
*Sighs* again, because maybe I have now booked my ticket to Carkoon, Janet?!
Oh, but it would be okay: I do like kale. And I'm sure they have polar bears and not so many people there.
*takes back the second sigh ;)*
Stay safe, everyone!
Seeing a polar bear in the wild would be so much fun. Very happy for Kelly.
ReplyDeleteI just sat down at the computer, and, trying to remember why I came here, I said to myself: "What do I need?" Then the answer: "Janet Reid." I think that could be a call and response chant: "What do we need?! Janet Reid!"
What a great photo! Polar bears look so benign, and they's so not.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea--I need to dig out my Dick Francis paperbacks. In one mystery I read, they suspected the death wasn't really suicide because there was a Dick Francis book with a bookmark halfway through on the nightstand, and nobody would leave a Dick Francis book unfinished.
I have a very dear older friend who is like a second mum to me, whose house is chocca full of books. At the top of the staircase lie all the Dick Francis. Guess I should finally read one!
ReplyDeleteIn other news, lockdown has been amazing for 4yo's reading skills. She finally twigged letters = sounds and words = sounds squished together at the start of the lockdown. Now, she's burned through the set of beginner readers we have and is on the last one! I'm so proud of her. Watching her learn to read has been one of the things that's kept me going through this craziness.
OMG, BEAR! What a terrifyi-- er, I mean, what a terrific pic, Kelly! That must have been a very sturdy window for you to be smiling like that. Thanks for sharing, she says, as she adds Churchill, Manitoba to a list of dangerous places to never visit.
ReplyDeleteIt's been a long time since I read Dick Francis, but I loved his writing. Checked out every new release and every book in his backlist my library had in stock, which was probably all of them.
In stay-at-home news, we're doing a family zoom meet-up tomorrow at the request of my two-year-old granddaughter. Apparently she has been asking her mom about my cat and my son's dogs, whose names she remembers, and wants to see them. Priorities. I might have to break out the treats to get the cat to cooperate "on demand."
Dear Janet, stay safe and strong. I hope you and your family are alright.
ReplyDeleteHannah, To The Hilt is my favourite novel, too! I loved how he describes painting that portrait. It was such a powerful image that I still keep imagining what it looked like.
Beth Carpenter, it's hilarious! But true. Nobody would leave a Dick Francis book unfinished indeed. He used to be my favourite author when I was in Junior High. Longshot was the first book that I read and I just couldn't stop. I couldn't read books in English back then, but I found most of his books in Russian in the local library.
And that is why I have the full collection of Dick Francis and why they live on my "part with over my dead body" bookshelf :)
ReplyDelete