Wild, Wild Horses and The Boxing Day Blues: Thursday, December 26th!

The soul is healed by being with children. -Fyodor Dostoyevsky, novelist (1821-1881)

Dear Pat, Corinne, Chloe and Rowan James We hope you are doing fine and that you have settled in a good rhythm of daily and nightly life. After the exciting years 2018 and 2019 with a stay in Copenhagen (two addresses), Bern and Basel, we are happy to report that we have settled well in Basel and picked up work (Simon) and kindergarden (Lia) again. For 2020 we wish you luck, health and happiness. With warmest greetings, Nils, Max, Lia, Sabine and Simon 

Hello Simon and Famiglia! Thank you for the lovely, lovely New Year's Wishes on such a wonderful, wonderful card! Life, it seems, is going extremely well, in Basel, and we are all more than pleased to learn of this, of course. Rowan James is now a month old. Chloë took him to the hospital for his regular one month check-up, this past Monday and he now weighs 10 lbs 2 oz and has grown 1.25 inches in length! You'll have to convert to metric! From all of us, on both Burns and Winnipeg Streets, we wish The Basel Five a Healthy, Happy New Year in your new home and new situation. Stay well, dear friends. Fondestos and Cheers, Patrizzio!

 
Today is Boxing Day and Corinne will walk over to Winnipeg Street to collect Chloë and Rowan James and go for a walk along Lakeshore while I plan to go for a ride. Plenty of overlefts so we don't need to do any cooking today! Must away as I need to suit up for the outing. Forecast suggests it will be reasonably sunny, although brisk!
 

[Kirsty Tassell It was a very welcome hand - me - down from a much more stylish than me friend!]

Hi TNT! Bit reluctant to use that acronym, given the terrible, terrible wildfires ravaging your countrysides across the continent! Although we have suffered similar wildfires, over last couple of years, cannot even begin to imagine the magnitude of devastation that Australia is experiencing. Our hearts go out to everyone afflicted.

On a happier note, enjoyed seeing some of your Christmas gatherings. Cannot believe how both your lovely, lovely granddaughters have grown! From all
of us, on both Burns and Winnipeg Streets, we wish you, Teens and Trev, a Healthy, Happy New Year. Please convey same wishes to rest of friends and family in Adelaide. Stay well, dear friends. [We trust we might be able to see you at Sun Peaks, Trevor!] Fondestos and Cheers, Patrizzio!  

Hi Corinne & Pat, Trust this finds you both well and enjoying the holidays. It's too bad we didn't make it to the Okanagan in 2019. It will be more likely in 2020 what with my sister settled in Kelowna. One thing for sure, I'm glad we weren't trying to drive there over the holiday season. The mountain passes sounded bad for days on end - yikes!

As for the latter part of 2019, we had good visits to Dublin (8 days) and Venice (8 days) in the latter part of Sept and early Oct. We were blessed with good weather the whole trip and missed the Venice flooding by about three weeks. My sister Susan and two close friends of both of us traveled with us. 
 

The Dublin portion was occupied by visiting with the five cousins of mine and my sister's whom we get along with very well. All five of us in our visiting group are visual art enthusiasts so we had a good mix of family socializing and museum and private gallery visits.

Venice was Venice which in our books is just fine. It was my sister's first visit to the Biennale while our mutual friends had been there on three previous occasions with Joan and I. If anything it felt a little less crowded than two years ago despite the frequent news coverage on too many tourists. The Biennale rated as the weakest of the six in total we have attended. Far too much message based didactic art in the curated Giardini and Arsanale sections. Of course there were still stellar exhibitions. The best was the extensive Sean Scully show, Human, at the Abbey of San Giorgio Maggiore. 

The Skira catalogue is beautiful and well worth having a look at. The Lithuanian pavilion featured a continuous opera with radical and innovative staging. It is set on a beach and the audience looked down on it from above as the singers and chorus were scattered on blankets in pairs on the sand with invisible cordless microphones, two dogs roaming about, a couple playing badminton etc,. It won the Lion d'Or as best pavilion. The music was wonderful. In the New York Times best of the year listings ranked as the best opera premiere staged world wide in 2019. There was a large and great Jannis Kounnelis show at the Fondazione Prada and an extensive and engaging Luc Tuymans exhibition at Palazzo Grassi. Despite the frustration with some of the art, a good time was had by all.
 

In late Oct/early Nov we attended Art Toronto, Canada's largest art fair, and a week later I went to the Toronto Rare Book Show which is the best in Canada. In between we took a road trip with two friends to Buffalo and Pittsburgh to look at art and architecture. Pittsburgh especially was a revelation including the Andy Warhol Museum which is the largest museum devoted to one artist in the world. The highlight was visiting Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water house which is an hour and a half outside Pittsburgh. It really is magical in design and setting.

Individually, Joan's big news is that she is scheduled for her second hip replacement surgery in February. The hip which was operated on is doing fine and hopefully the next go round will be as successful. At least we know what to expect this time around and we have all of the necessary equipment to hand. This will keep us close to home for the winter and early spring,

Grey Whale

I have been working hard in my role as a member of the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board which is taking more than the 45 days a year they projected when I signed on. The good news is that it is not full time, they pay me and I'm learning a lot about art and public policy to say nothing of getting to travel in Canada and meet many interesting people. The downside is that the more I learn about art the more I buy. But at least I have the extra income to devote to this. The downsizing of my book collection continues through donation and sale. Joan asserts things don't look any different despite my diligent efforts.

Niccolò Paganini (1819), by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Hope to see you in the Valley at some point in 2020 and visit exciting new vineyards. In the meantime, Best wishes for a healthy and happy 2020....Paul & Joan Hi Paolo and The Hippster! Thank you for the newsy message and New Year's wishes. Your trips to Europe, [Did you see Una and Hank? Had a lovely Christmas note from them.], and then to Toronto, Buffalo and Pittsburgh sounded wonderful indeed. Coincidentally, we enjoyed a fabulous Warhol exhibition in Prague this past September. I hadn't realized that he had been born in Pittsburgh and certainly didn't know much, if anything, about his parents.

Pleased to hear that Joan's new hip is doing well and that she is scheduled for second replacement. Sounds like a mirror image of my hip surgeries. I enjoyed a long chat with Kjell, a few weeks ago, so I knew you were still busy with the CCPERB. Loads of new wineries so you must return! Stay well. Healthy New Year to you both! Cheers, Patrizzio!

Various thermometers from the 19th century.

Yesterday evening Corinne and Chloë had arranged to go for a walk along Lakeshore while I planned to go for a ride. After Lady Dar left to walk over to Winnipeg Street to collect her and a bundled Rowan James I suit up for the outing, just before noon. Forecast suggested it would be reasonably sunny, although brisk, especially with the wind out of the SSE 24 km/h, gusting to 35 km/h. Although the temperature was hovering just above freezing, the wind registered at almost -6º C!

Didn't really feel its effect until I headed towards the PTC and then a few minutes later when I made my way down Riverside Drive. That was when I decided I's skip a jaunt to OK Falls as I didn't relish the Arctic blast along Skaha as I made my way south. Instead, I figured I'd face the head wind on Power as I described another series of the loops that had served me so well on the day before Christmas. Today however, I only repeated three times, starting out with the one along Burnaby and then moved to the smaller, quasi-circles, using the long back lane south of Dynes, then Dynes itself and finally Churchill before returning to the Riverside Mall where I did five of the shortest repeats using Wylie Street.

Illustration: Leah Palmer Preiss

Once these were completed I knew I'd need at least two repeats of the various loops I'd already ridden so worked my way back through the aforementioned route and after those were discharged I only needed a small dipys doodle to launch me on the road back home, the WWW I'd been dreaming about ever since my fingers and toes had started to tingle. Can't even begin to imagine how the hundreds of gulls, bobbing quietly, along Lakeshore, are able to tolerate the icy water. Anyway, I made it home just before 3:00 pm and as I was pulling into the back driveway, Berndt Dronkers was in the process of wheeling out the stroller that we were lending the family. His sister, Bodil, and her husband, Vince, along with their son, Arlo, were visiting from Calgary and had been unable to bring their own stroller so we were happy to offer one Chloë had received from her Aunt Barb and Uncle George, back in Falcon.

Sinon as a captive before the walls of Troy
From Vergilius Romanus (Roman Virgil), a 5th-century illuminated manuscript based on the work of Virgil

Artist unknown

They bought it for their grandchildren, Emmett and Quinn, but no longer need it as they are now 11 and 9, respectively. Anyway, we wished each other Happy Boxing Day and he left for Summerland while I started to thaw out, once inside. 

[Composer Frederick Loewe (left) and lyricist Alan Jay Lerner are seen in this April 1956 photo.]  
I had seen The Sisterhood, pushing the high-tech pram, on Power, close to the end of my ride, but knew they were heading back to Winnipeg to collect the car after their stroll. Started the fire to have the place cosy for them and noticed Miss Etta had returned to the crib in the "baby's room", formerly my so-called office! I suppose she is claiming her territory. Anyway, plenty of overlefts from yesterday's dinner, [Even better next day!], so we didn't need to do any cooking today! Cheers! Map and Stats for ride: 

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/4370351580#.XgU-_6pb7dE.email

Hello Anna Maria Tremonte and Rudi Rudenheimer! Thank you, so much, for the lovely card and New Year's Wishes! Your special package arrived on the day before Christmas so thank you for the wonderful, wonderful outfit for Rowan James and the Bern calendar! It will remind us, all year, of our most recent, simply marvellous time there and of you, such generous friends!

Angst Edvard Munch

Last night, after dinner, we watched The Goldfinch, [2019 American drama film directed by John Crowley and written by Peter Straughan, adapted from the 2013 novel of the same name by Donna Tartt. The film stars Ansel Elgort as a young man whose life is transformed after his mother dies in a terrorist bomb attack at a museum, from which he takes a famous painting called The Goldfinch.], and quite liked it. [We were quite amused that for much of the film Duke slept on Chloë's lap while she cradled Rowan. For her part, Etta really likes the crib we have set up in my so-called office, so they both seem to be adjusting to having a new "creature" in the house. Please pass along best wishes to Nadienka. Is she still traveling?  From all of us, we wish you, AMT and RR, a Healthy, Happy New Year. Stay well, dear friends. Fondestos and Cheers, Patrizzio!