General Chat

The NFB is a treasure trove - and the shorts are wonderful. This black fly song may be my fave. Or maybe Ryan is.

Not all flies are bad, C! Some of them eat other flies!

After a holiday or two around the Rideau Canal and lakes, I developed a theory the sail-boards were invented by deer fly. One gets tensely braced against the wind, racing along, doing all the tricky things one does before falling off, when a clutch of deerfly land on the sail. One will then circle your head to get your attention, then home in on the tightly stretched skin of the belly. Should I let go of the boom and swat, losing control and somersaulting in - or grin and bear it?

As Janey in the book wrote, some flies - mosquitoes - look on repellents as added sauce on their meal!

OH's sister lives in northern BC

One year her husband decided the exterior of the house needed painting.

He started at the top corner of the side of the house (gable end), using a light coloured paint

By the time he reached the opposite bottom corner ........ the whole side was black



literally covered with black flies!



The house they built, and where sis-in-law still lives, had cedar siding that never needs painting!




sylvia

Flies of all sorts...hate 'em =0)

Black flies, MikeyJay!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjLBXb1kgMo

One of those award-winning National Film Board animations. ;)

At least I think that's the one. I stll haven't got my speakers hooked back up.

I used to be a rugby widow :))))

By way of reply to Pam at the top of the page, plus 11 C is one thing, in the sunshine, at least. I've seen students at the University where I spend my time, in shorts and tee-shirts at about minus 11 C... I hope on their way South for reading week, but who can tell? We all get a bit of cabin fever in late Winter.

Hockey is inevitable around here, Janey. The three local grandchildren are all players, my son plays _and_ coaches, the graduate student I share a project with plays several times a week, and so does my neighbour. What chance do I stand?

It could be worse. It could be golf!

I'm not as sure (or optimistic) about the age range as Janey seems, at least the youthful end of it. But - to speak of killing - try this excerpt:

"I have been keeping a record of the bites I have had since the beginning of the season, also of the mosquitoes killed–a kind of debtor and creditor affair. They balance up thus:–

Bites, 583,672,154,871. Deaths 13.

Stewart Edward White declares that the mosquito is superior to all fly pests in that it holds still to be killed. It is not necessary to wave your arms or slap frantically; all you have to do is to place your finger calmly and firmly on the spot and you get the deliberate brute every time. This sounds well in theory, but it is not always practicable or, for that matter, modest. "

My daughter-in-law is off later this month to graduate from Laurentian U in Sudbury, taking two of her three boys. They'd obviously been discussing the Northern insect life, black flies, when the youngest, Tyler, 6, asked me what they looked like. I found a picture, and added the usual tall story about their size. Two of them, I said, were heard discussing whether to eat some Southern visitor there, or carry him off to the nest... now he didn't quite fall for that one, but he looked quite thoughtful!

I can only begin to imagine the mosquito season in Manitoba this year...

MikeyJ

Thanks it's got to be better than the one she brought home from school today "I'd tell you I love you but then I'd have to kill you".

I think anything from young adolescent on up? Have a look at the link MikeyJay gave. If she can read it on line, it must be cool. ;)

How can you hate Maple Syrup ...the real stuff anyway ?!!
I'm with you on the hockey though...yawn...playoffs !
What age range is the Janey Canuck story aimed at please ? Might be worth my daughter reading it, rather than some of the rubbish she reads right now =0)

ooops



and you a "born" Canadian!



leave it up to us immigrants to uphold Canadian customs!


:))))


sylvia

I just hate that my name makes people talk about hockey.

I hate hockey. (As well as football, I really hate football, really really hate it -- our kind, of course, as watched on tv.)

And I hate maple syrup.

Hi MJ

If you're out on a limb ....... I'm out there with you!


actually, we are not watching, or even listening, tot he Canucks games.

We watched 3 in Round 1 ............... the ones they lost. so we've decided we're jinxes



s
xx

We should recommend Janey Canuck in the West for the Greaders!

After all, it's free. ;)

And that's a really lovely on-line copy of it that you linked to -- gorgeous illustrations and all. I think I'll bookmark that and recommend it to my young nieces.

Well, at least your avatar is statuesque...

I think your post could fit right into "Janey Canuck in the West" and not not stand out stylistically! I've had tears of laughter running down my face reading her - at least as funny as Stephen Leacock, I think. And a Senate reformer, to boot...

on-line here:

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/murphy/west/west.html#I

MJH

Duh, MJ, that's who I should have for my avatar, isn't it? Or a statue of the Famous Five or something.

You may not have heard the tale -- that Viscount Sankey, who wrote the decision in the Persons Case in 1929 (the original Janey's author was one of the five women who challenged the position that women weren't "persons" who could be appointed to the Senate), was my second cousin four times removed. ;)

I would never have known that if I hadn't posted a one-letter spelling variant to his father's aunt's grandson's wife's name at Ancestry and been contacted by a distant half-cousin in Canterbury who was researching our mutual ancestor's family. If only I'd known when I was in law school. Just think what being the Canadian cousin of the man who invented the "living tree" doctrine of constitutional law that has guided our legal history for decades now would have done for my rep.

But no, that's Ada the Actress, my gr-gr's sister who I didn't know existed until I tracked him down some six or seven years ago and discovered my mum's surname is an outright fake invented by Ada and her brother. Unless he really is the son of that other Viscount's black sheep younger brother ... the one who presided over Confederation ... because after all, Ada did have it as a middle name, and the brother was killed at Alma weeks before she was born ...

My mum's father, Ada's nephew and the second generation to bear the fake surname, was born in East Ham too ... well, maybe it was West Ham ... ;)

Yay!! the Canucks are on to the next round! (or am I out on a limb here?). :D

Corrie didn't take in our household...

BTW, I was born in East Ham, well, maybe it was West Ham.

Is JC's avatar the original JC? This one:
Janey Canuck in
the West
BY
EMILY FERGUSON

Author of "Impressions of Janey Canuck Abroad"

It's very funny. I read a bit, then look at a news report, and can't help being in the same mind-set as in JC in the West. It gives a whole new perspective!

M

Nice to see JC has cheered up =0)
The skies are blue and it's a lovely day what's not to like.
Knew we had something in common JC Coronation street, lucky you with the DVD's....I'm jealous...mind you I've seen nearly all of them except the first year or two maybe...in those days you could let kids watch it no problem...now sometimes it can be a bit much for them poor dears....that or it bores them.
Enjoy the lovely weather

My mum just gave me and No.1 our early birthday presents -- a 5-vol set of DVDs of old Coronation Street episodes. I imagine there will be lots of weddings in that so I'll watch for the church! I guess it's the one we often see the front grounds of as they go in for their hatching, matching and dispatching -- yes, it does look familiar in those pix.

One of my sets of grandparents married here, in Wellingborough:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=21373754

The second photo shows the spire of Irchester church in the distance, and I'm sure my grandmother's Carter and Craddock ancestors did a few things there.

My mum and I looked around the grounds and talked with the clergyperson at this one in Newham in 1994:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=21373807

before we knew her grandfather's connection with East Ham was tenuous and they really came from Cornwall/Devon. When we asked directions to the local church and were told St Mary Magdalene, we said Oh no, they weren't Catholic. Since the present church dates "from no earlier than the first half of the 12th century", the distinction doesn't apply. ;)

Nice site, ta!

Janey

Just made an interesting discovery .............. one of those little "tidbits"


The church where my gt gt grandfather was married in 1835 is

"a popular choice with the makers of ...... Coronation Street and has been used as the setting for several big storylines, including weddings and funerals, in the fictitious parish of “Weatherfield”. "


It's St Mary's, Prestwich, nr Manchester


for photos of it go to
www.geograph.org.uk/search.php?i=21354349&page=2


www.georgraph.org.uk/ is a fascinating site, in case you don't know it!





sylvia