Winter's gifts

On the Eramosa River


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I went into the office at 9. There was no one else there for most of the time until 2, and not much to do except answer the phone and tally grocery tapes. I wrote my morning pages at a big library table with an oak surface that reminded me of my desk at home, golden with age, flooded with sunlight. Then I knit for several hours.

The office is located in the basement of an elementary school. There's something comforting about an empty room in a building full of children, like a womb, still and warm, surrounded by muffled sound and movement: chairs groaning across upper floors, tots singing ABCs, teachers' voices resonating down the hall, distant shouts. Whenever a bell rings, the whole building surges and creaks, the mother beast awakening.

My back is better, still sore but not enough to restrict activity. After arriving home, I ambled down to the river. The weather is finally cold enough for the toque-scarf Danny made me last winter, a sea-blue swath around my head, neck and beard.

Here are two of winter's gifts. It creates new spaces to explore, like the river's surface. And it records stories of invisible lives.

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Another photo is posted in texture.

Christmas menu

I'll be cooking Christmas dinner at my parents' house again this year. Here's the tentative menu.

Christmas Eve

• Sylvie's tourtiére recipe
  
• And?

Christmas Dinner

• Roast duck with cranberry glaze
  
• Apple dressing
  
• Wild mushroom sauce
  
• Mashed potatoes
  
• Green beans with butter and savory
  
• Tangerine sweet potatoes
  
• White chocolate blueberry cheesecake