Spring Bonnets on Parade

I remember, in my youth, we used to get dressed up for Easter.  Often I got new shiny black Patten leather shoes, a colourful new spring coat, or a pretty new hat. I don't know if that's when it began, but I've always loved hats.

This year the New Horizon's Club in Burritts Rapids held a Spring Tea and the powers that be requested we wear our prettiest bonnets.  They could be store bought or something specially created for the event. Some people commented that they didn't have hats, and I offered to share some of mine. I already knew which one I would wear. It lives in a box in my basement and seldom gets out as it is so special there are very few places one could wear such a creation. It's too grand to wear even to a wedding.  It would outshine the bride.  So, when this occasion presented itself, I simply had to wear it.  It had been passed to me by a friend several years back, and the only other time I ever got to wear it was for the Hats and Hostas event.

Now, this is not the sort of hat that one slips on while wearing blue jeans or some other casual duds. I rummaged in the back of the closet and chose a dress. It was sleeveless and since it can be cool at the hall, I hauled out a silver scarf that worked well as a shawl. The chunky pearl necklace finished off the regal look.

The tea was lovely. Almost everyone wore some sort of hat.  Some put in a lot of work to create something very Easter like, pinning chickens and eggs, etc to their hats. We sat at tables set up for four, and were served fancy sandwiches and squares along with out tea or coffee. Then we lined up to parade around the room a couple of times. I'm not sure who was left to watch us, other than the judges.

They say I won the prize for the best hat, but really, it was the hat that won the prize, and I just gratefully received it.  All this did bring back the fun of getting all dressed up, and I do wish there were still more opportunities to do so. I think I may at least have to go on a little spring shopping spree.

An Unintentional Collection

Recently our New Horizons group held what amounts to a Show and Tell. They asked the members to bring in samples of any collection they might have.  At first I didn't think I could take part in this event.  I don't collect anything.  At least, I didn't think I did.

As I looked around the house, I discovered that I have an unintentional collection.   I have gathered a few samples here to show you. These are not in their normal positions.

There are birds everywhere, but I never set out to collect them. I guess they just sort of followed me home. They are nesting on all manner of flat surfaces, and there are even some now on the walls and in my cupboards.

I guess it all started with one of those Blue Mountain swans. I got it as a retirement gift over 40 years ago.  I know that some of the others were things I picked up on vacations, as souvenirs.  I liked the look of them, and brought them home.

I even bought a corn husk duck at a  major craft show as a present for my hubby one year.  He had really liked it when he saw it, so I managed to sneak it home.





When the surfaces were full, a few birds even landed on my wall.

 I inherited my grandmother's milk glass chicken, and that started a new trend. When I was

learning to paint, I painted a chicken on a plate

for my kitchen wall. 

Then I thought a group of three would look nice above the window.  Other chickens began to roost in my kitchen, until now

I have a flock of ten.  A couple of them have even managed to invade my cupboard.

I told the group all this, an that I don't actually collect birds. Some of them later tried to tell me that I do.  But doesn't a collector actively search out and collect?  I'm certainly not searching for birds. I didn't actually even realize they were collecting here.  I have no intention of actually buying any more birds.

Oops.  Last weekend we went to the Westport Fall Colours Studio Tour.  Sharon Benson is a  Paverpol artist. That means she crafts sculptures using wire and tin foil, which she covers with t-shirts, and/or other material dipped in a stiffening agent (Paverpol) to create figures with realistic folds in their clothing. In the past I've mainly seen just people sculptures done in this way, but Sharon also does birds. There were cranes out in the front yard, that she says will withstand the weather all year round. It was the little bird inside the house that I found fascinating. She had used a lacy doily to craft it's wings. I had never seen that done before, and I thought it was a really clever idea. The price was very reasonable, and it was the only one there. I knew if I went home without it, I'd kick myself. So, I have added a new bird to my flock.  That's what I have you know.  It's a flock, not a collection.

The Fun of Aging

When we are young some of us worry about making a fool of ourselves.  We sometimes avoid doing things we know we would enjoy, just because we think someone might laugh, or make fun of us later.  For instance, after moving from one coast to another, I was nervous about going to a school dance because my dancing style might be different from that of the new locality. I probably wouldn't have gone if my mother had not physically pushed me out the door. When performing in a mandatory school choir, I usually just mouthed the words, as I didn't feel I could carry a tune and didn't want to be heard.

Now I'm older and have a place to go that's full of senior citizens where I feel the freedom to just be who I am, and have fun without worrying about what others think.  It's still the only place I'll actually sing out loud though, other than the privacy of my own home or car.

The New Horizon Club meets twice a month, in Burritts Rapids,  for a wide variety of activities.  This week they held an event titled Viva Las Vegas. I wasn't sure what would transpire, but knew we would have a good time.

I got drafted to be in charge of one of the Black Jack tables. This is silly because I don't play cards. I'd been told early in life that I have NO card sense so many times that I just decided not to bother playing anymore.  As a result, I'm very awkward even handling the cards. I quickly found someone else who could deal, and decided I'd be in charge of the chips.  Neither of us were really sure of the rules, but we learned them, or adopted some of them and made up others for our particular table.  There was no money involved, as it was just for fun.  Everyone who played was given 10 chips and instructed at the beginning of the event to please leave the table if they lost them all, so that someone else could take their seat. I think, over the course of the afternoon, we only ever had two people at the table who actually knew what they were doing. But we all had a great time.

Then came the floor show.  Four of our ladies got all dressed up and performed a couple of dances for us up on the stage. Before they were finished, I know for a fact that they were all wearing red underwear. They made sure we saw that when they did the CanCan! There was nothing professional about this performance.  They expected, and got laughs, though it was meant to be more of a dance number than a comedy act. That doesn't matter as they were having as much fun trying to keep in step as we were having watching them. 

When they were finished they circulated through the crowd, flirting with the men and sometimes even planting a kiss on an unsuspecting cheek.





And what's Vegas without Elvis?  The president of this group came in, in a mainly white outfit, complete with bell bottomed trousers.  He had a wig on his head that was supposed to look like Elvis's pompadour, but in reality was a lady's long black wig that had been pinned up at the back with dozens of very visible bobby pins.  He tried to lip sync with the music, but most of the time he just posed or gyrated and broke us all up into gales of laugher.  We were even singing along at one point....me included. 

I love the freedom of aging and feeling more comfortable in your own skin.  You are only here once and should enjoy the ride. Too bad we have to wait so many years before we realize that.

Robbie Burns in Cramped Quarters

As is the custom at the New Horizons Club, the annual Robbie Burns Celebration was planned and everyone was looking forward to it. It had been an extremely cold week, and when the seniors arrived they found a very cold  hall.  The furnace wasn't working and help would not be available for a few days, at least.

Usually the hall is set up with tables, and everyone is comfortable seated for a meal of soup and haggis. The soup was made, and it was either come up with some alternate ways of doing things, or throw the soup out. I did hear that phrase used, but I'm sure someone would have managed to save it from such a fate.

The community centre is very old, and happens to have two distinct parts. It turned out that while the furnace wasn't heating the side we normally use, there was at least electrical heat on the other side. A decision was made to set the chairs up in there, row upon row. There was no room for tables. 

There was a piper, as usual, and this year we had a couple of little girls from the Andrea Goral School of Highland Dancing perform for us. I'm not sure anyone beyond the first row was able to see anything, but the members gave them a good round of applause anyway.  The haggis was piped in and addressed in grand style, by John Sullivan then carted off again to be cut up and served.

The soup found it's way into mugs this year, as that was a much safer way to eat it without tables, and sitting elbow to elbow. The haggis and a bun were put into the soup bowls and served as a second course.  Following that we had cake and then tea or coffee. Then Coral Lindsay filled us all in on the life and times of Robbie Burns. Apparently he was prolific in more ways than one.

While the day didn't turn out quite as planned, it still was an enjoyable one.

Roaring 20's Party

It's been a while since I told you about one of my little adventures, and really, that's what the rambles here were supposed to be all about.

I belong to a seniors club that meets twice a month. This week they held a Roaring Twenties party instead of a Valentines party. Perhaps that's because a lot of the members no longer have their spouses.   I don't know, but whatever the reason, it was lots of fun.

When we arrived we found that the hall had been turned into a speakeasy. Members making like waiters asked if they could get us a drink, as if there really was alcohol available. What we really got was cranberry juice, ginger ale, or a combination of the two.  There were various games of chance set up at tables around the room, and people came dressed in their 1920's finery.  If you approached one of these gaming tables, you were handed a stack of chips and told you now had $10,000 to play with.  It's a good thing it was imaginary money as I lost mine quickly.

Later on the speakeasy morphed into a cabaret and the music began. We have, among our members, people who are good on the keyboard, or can sing or dance so there was a nice little floor show.  Coffee and tea and lots of wonderful goodies were available at this point.  The whole afternoon was quite enjoyable, and didn't cost us a red cent.....not that those are being used these days anyway.

Local Rambles

Part of the idea of this blog was to let you in on some of the other things I do, besides geocaching . I guess I haven't been very good at that, since I've been on several interesting outings since I started this. There's no sense trying to go backwards too far, as that's what caused me to stall out on the other blog, so I'll just give you a bit on the most recent activities.

On February 16th, a group of Red Hatters came up from Ogdensburg to celebrate the anniversary of their group, and they invited my group (yes, I am Queen here) to join them for lunch at a local restaurant. They even hired a musician for the occasion, though we were likely all so busy visiting we didn't really pay that much attention to him playing in the background.  The Ogdensburg Mad Hatters are a lovely bunch of women, and I understand they come up this way quite frequently, so I do hope we can get together again sometime.

On February 23, the New Horizons Club held a Medieval Festival. We were encouraged to dress up for that, and while it was clear everyone had their own idea of what era they were supposed to be in, a good many of them did take part.  There was a tax collector who set about relieving those who didn't dress up of some of their gold. There was food and games and a lot of good fun.

Yesterday (March 5) we attended the annual Soup Fest in Winchester Ontario.  Many of the restaurants from miles around that area gather in one hall, and offer samples of their best soups all for one low admittance price.    This year there were 16 restaurants represented. That's down somewhat from last year's line

up, but still enough to fill you up and test your sense of adventure.  There was everything from a cold cucumber avocado soup, with a kick of jalapeno peppers, to a very popular Mexican offering that was more like chili than soup.  It's great fun to attend this fundraiser for TLC (True Love in Christ) Ministries, especially if you go with others, so that you can discuss and compare your views on the various offerings. Amazingly, we don't always agree on what we like, but we all get to vote on our top three favorites. There are official judges too, including some very prominent chefs and other celebrities.  Chef Michael Dunn, for instance, was once the Royal chef to Queen Elizabeth.  We like to take this opportunity to gather other family members for a good chat while tasting. It's becoming an annual family event, and we're already looking forward to it again next year.