Here we are in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thankfully, we have not been locked down again in Kandy despite some cases cropping up here and there. A huge cluster started in the Free Trade Zone outside of Colombo at the Brandix clothing factory spreading to a fish market in the same area. 15,000 cases are attributed to these two clusters alone. The cause was the import of 64 workers from India who were not quarantined as the owner of the factory is friends with the President of the country. Typical! A large part of the Western Province ended up in another lockdown which has now been lifted. We have dodged the bullet so far and some friends have even been able to return after 2 weeks in quarantine and 2 more in self-isolation. For me, life goes on pretty much as usual, but with prudence and caution.
The situation precluded me from having a big birthday party or going away for my 68th birthday. However, we were able to have a small gathering of 12 at Simpson's Forest hotel. I celebrated by swimming 30 lengths of the pool, feeling very righteous and less hung over after the effort. (Too much cognac the day before.). A lovely day altogether.
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| Three ladies in a pool. From left to right: Me after my 30 lengths, Ava, and Lesley who helped me organize the event. |
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| Lunch with friends going around the table from left to right: Viv, Simon, Gerry, Bill, Ava, Me, Malcolm |
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| Blowing out the candles. Lesley organized all this without my knowing. |
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| Cutting the birthday cake that Lesley surprised me with. |
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| The cake. |
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| The assembled crowd. |
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| Ava, Viv, Simon, Bill, Gerry |
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| Ralph, Pauline, Lesley |
The birthday celebration was a highlight in an otherwise sad couple of months as I lost two of my dearest friends. My dear friend Evelyn Comtois (Bilodeau nee Michaud) died on October 12, Thanksgiving Day just short of her 98th birthday. She was almost exactly 30 years older than me to the day. My birthday is November 16 and hers was November 21. I first met Evelyn when I was 21 years old. We both served on the National Executive Board of the Manpower and Immigration Union. She was a very intelligent and engaging woman and I was a smart aleck. We got into quite a discussion about Quebec separatism. She basically told me I didn't know what I was talking about and that I should come visit her in Montreal to see how things really were. Much to her surprise, I took her up on the offer just a few months later. We have been friends ever since. In fact, she and her husband Roger became like another set of parents.
We had maintained close contact over the years, talking frequently on the phone, visiting each other in Montreal or Victoria and always making a point of visiting an art gallery or museum when we were together. After having lost contact with her over a year ago, I tried desperately to find what had happened. I was worried that she had passed away as had Roger about 5 years back. I tried everything, even calling the residence where I knew they had lived on Ile des Seour in Montreal. No joy. Finally, I received an email from her younger son Claude who found my email address on her computer informing me that she had died.
She and Roger both have left big holes in my life. Evelyn always said that I was the daughter she never had, falling in age between her two sons, Bernard, the elder and Claude. I miss her.
My other close friend from that same era, June Cassey nee Papas died on November 4 at the age of 93 after a battle with Alzheimer's. I met June and her husband Joe when I moved to Ottawa in 1977. She worked for the Canadian Labour Congress and Joe was a liquor rep and an alderman on the Ottawa City Council. I met June when the staff of the union I was working for decided to unionize. She was president of the OPEIU local which we ultimately joined. I went on to serve as Vice-President under June and we became very close friends. She and Joe lived with June's Mother (Mama) in a 150 year old house in Centre Town at 200 Cartier Street that used to be a bank.
Many a good time was had in that house and at the their cottage on the Gatineaus at St. Pierre de Wakefield. June's birthday parties, celebrated in June (when else) and their Christmas dinners were legendary. She was known as the Cat Lady of Centre Town as she took in any stray cat that crossed her patio. She instilled her love of cats in me and I have never looked back. She also passed on her unswerving fight for social justice. She too will be missed.
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| June just before she died. |
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| June as I knew her. |
The second surge of the pandemic has put paid to our book club that we managed to resuscitate for one meeting. However, we have managed to continue with our film club which carries on apace.
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| Enjoying lunch |
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| Better social distancing at this end of the table. We are learning and have set up better social distancing protocols since. |
Lunch on Sundays at Lesley and Ralph's has also become a weekly event and I have rejoined Discussion Club that takes place on Tuesdays and Fridays, although I usually only go on Tuesdays. Mahjong is also continuing. Lesley has joined us so now every second Saturday, Gerry and I play for 2.5 hours with the original group and another couple of hours with Lesley. The group with Lesley is much more advanced and consequently much more fun. We are going to start learning how to score this week.
I went on a bit of an adventure trying to find plant pots for my patio along with a tile or stone table top for my kitchen table. After running from one end of Kandy to the other, both were acquired.
My patio has been refurbished with the excavation of the pond. I have had a bit of a learning curve with the fish, not realizing that the gourami that I put in the pond are territorial and will kill almost everything in the pond including their mates.
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| Nilanta putting in the flower boxes and re-cementing the pond. |
 The female gourami who, as you can see was pregnant. Her mate built her a lovely next for her to lay her eggs and promptly killed her after she had done so. I didn't know you were supposed to separate the male. A bit erratic, but you can hear the pump and see some of the fish. Only the bright blue guppy survives. |
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| The first iteration of the completed pond. The mesh, of course, is to keep the cats out. |
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| The honeysuckle in bloom. Smells divine. |
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| Blue thunbergia climbing up the pillar and a lovely yellow lily growing in one of the pots I managed to get on my adventure. |
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| The newly configured fish bowls and plants with the other adventure pot on the far left. I has a black lily in it that should be spectacular when it blooms. |
 The current iteration of the pond. Mr. Gourami was moved out into one of the bowls where he sadly met his end at the hands of a bird, I think. So now we have guppies and one cleaner fish left along with some gigantic water hyacinths. The cats don't bother the fish so the mesh is gone. They drink the water, but that doesn't harm anything.  The last month saw a bit of a domestic crisis as my maid Vineetha got into a jealous snit over the Tuktuk driver. She kept coming to work but was grumpy and hardly said a word to me. I was on the verge of sacking her but decided that I would get my landlady to talk to her in Sinhala to find out what was wrong. I had even talked to my friend Rushma who is a clinical psychologist in my desperation. Finally, my landlady pointed out to her that she was in danger of losing of her job and she has reverted to her old self. The other maid, Poomani has been missing in action for almost 2 months now, so she has been given the push and I am in the process of training Mary who worked as a cleaner for 22 years at the British Council. Needless to say, her English is great, but only time will tell if she will work out. I have set things up now so that I have both Vineetha and Mary on one day a week and full coverage the rest of the time including Sundays. I am hoping for the best. Apart from my birthday party, monthly outings to Simpson's Forest continue. Always a nice day out.  Periodic gatherings at each others homes also continue, giving us a bit of respite from the virus restrictions. My friends the Kawasakis have a standing offering of high tea at the Cancer Home on the 15th of every month. I go over to their place to donate the bread and make sandwiches.  Cooking up the usual storm. Veg moussaka, lasagna with banana blossom instead of ground beef, pumpkin soup, and the usual assortment of curries.  It has been raining pretty steadily with the early advent of the north east monsoon and tropical cyclone Nivar in the Bay of Bengal, so we are being visited by an array of rain bugs: flying termites that come in their hundreds, huge black beetles that look like cockroaches on steroids, whip scorpions and occasionally a dragon or damsel fly, lady bugs and crickets. The frogs are serenading me to sleep at night. They love the pond.  And as always, closing with my furry family.      |
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