Jims Travel and Life or Lifeless Blog: 2009 January 1st - December 31st Toronto and environs - Home, France, Massassauga, Boston & Vermont 👍

Dateline: 2009 December 31st Toronto, Ontario, Sigean, France, Massassauga

This trips travelling map

Just another year, January - December

My brainchild, The Toronto Debating Society takes off

Kayla's birthday extravaganza

With the usual suspects in attendance

Late in late April. The Distillery

Margie at the debating club
We had so much mind boggling fun here

At the Newts place
Sigean, South of France
Just the two of us to be lads

Break for a quick freeload
Talk about beginner. I book a flight
Toronto to Perpignon but to CDG
and FROM Orly. Piss wit!

The Newts Pied a Tere
Just a fabulous place

We drive out to a monastery (somewhere)
to try their wines and eventually, climb a rock

We could, and often did, all just sit on the balcony
for hours and watch France

Peter always has a bevy of clapped out ancient
motor propelled things to fix

Life continues in an endless stream of Halcyon daze
Here, we parked the car and just walked into a fabulously deserted spring grotto

Dave, Peter's neighbour is big into foraging

We dig into the local marine life in the E'tang
and pig (fish?) out on the proceeds

Another picnic in the limestone hills
There's lots of them around here

With an occasional trek along the shore

The entire area is full of ancient castles and defences

Holly (Newts youngest) arrives and
we all forage

This is the local co-operative for wine
They are happy to let you sample all their offerings and you buy in bulk
Here "cubies" of 5 litres at 1 euro per litre. Fantastic stuff, and of course I email these happenings back to my clients

We have such a great time just boozing and oystering

We occasionally head out for picnics on the Velo's

Usually to the E'tang

But occasionally for a more extensive trek

Laura (Newts eldest) and her friend
comes for a weekend with her friend.
It doesn't go well and is painful to watch

One of our treks up to Gruisan, this time on
we get a few dozen huge Oysters and score a
great white and just head out to a wooded area
I toss my shells into the bush with gay abandon
Peter picks them all up after we are done,
and like Tom the cabin boy, says, nothing
What a guy!

The area of Port Mohan is usually empty
We have some favourite locations along the E'tang
where we have our Sigean Baguette #1 and a bottle of Red most days

Leucat is as delightful as ever
Never fails

Peryac-de-Mer
The French have got everything worked out. It's fantastic!

Bulk wine. Fabulous stuff, incredible value
But it's time for me to head back.....

Back at the homestead..... Lilacs at Queens Quay

The financial crisis is in full flow right now
Hard to believe

And of course, for a change, down to the islands on the bikes

For dinner at the Rectory

Of course, any excuse and we're biking to
St. Lawrence for our (still) full bacon butty
Life is full (still)

And the King Street park in full bloom

My long time trusty
steed

Again at my regular spot at the distillery

Massaussaga Provincial Park. Site# 103

It's one hell of a hike, 3 portages and takes a LOOOOONG time

Richard is in Toronto for his bi annual R & R
We play Bridge endlessly. We get fabulous hands
and get incredibly pissed for several days

We have invited Liz & Erik along

This is peak season, so there weren't many sites available

It's right on the edge of the park
Your correspondent doing a Mr Canoe Head
(Canadian joke)

And getting sucked dry by a lot of friendly mosquitoes

There's a few resident snapping turtles here

So the guys only do back stroke

Liz with kit

Erik portaging back

And we only saw 2 canoes
our entire time here

There were enough Gin And Tonics for the entire
trip

Now late August, Lighthouse at the end of
Tommy Thompson park
The economic chaos is beginning to effect my consulting
I've had to cut my fees, and hours. I don't really care
as I've had my great financial years so just continue
living it up

Often with the two of us

Kayla has been accepted into Western

She's in residences for her first year

Ongoing Bacon Butties
and coffee still in vogue in
the October sunshine

The Debating club continues another season in
September, and I continue to ride the waves

Birthday cake, so must be Aiden's 22nd

And again, all the usual suspects

The cottage, although probably worth
a lot one day, needs insuring

The insurance company wants pix
then condemns the stove, then denies insurance due to the stove

Karin & Urmas are in town.

We meet them at St. Lawrence to catch up

Then somehow, we head down to Boston

Where Alex and Grahame are holed up

With Richard and wife

I assume that we stay for a night

And have fun with the family

And head to the bars

And pet dogs

We arrive and realise the it's even
worse than we expected

Richard, of course will always
have a general good time and is as irrepressible
as ever

And by and large, even without snow, we did

With lots of this

And this

And how else would Richard pass a few days
but have the all American steak break

Occasionally, it rains and wipes out what little
snow there was

We head over to Vermont where Killington
is still operational

But only just. Alex tried and failed to ski, but
succeeded in crashing and re wrecking
his damaged shoulder
Not a good thing as he's just had shoulder surgery