Welcome to December! It’s 23 shopping days till Christmas — do you know where your credit cards are?
Saturday’s Thanksgiving party was a smash hit. Erin and I made Rosemarie’s famous mashed potatoes (also known as Erin’s famous mashed potatoes, as she’s the heir apparent), cranberry sauce, brown sugar yams and pumpkin pie. We decided, since some of our guests were vegetarian, we’d do the trimmings without the turkey. Lori brought her daughter Esra and Esra’s friend Sarah, not to mention an excellent savoury squash dish and a green salad. Cameron Dixon brought taboule, Chris Stremlaw brought wine and butter tarts, and Dan Kukwa brought more wine.
We sat and chatted and ate and chatted and ate some more, and laughed a lot. It was a really good time. I’m starting to enjoy throwing parties.
On Sunday, Erin and I slept in, had breakfast, and headed out for a winter drive. We went to the old town of Dundas, a picturesque corner of the City of Hamilton, lying just beneath the portion of the Niagara Escarpment known as “Dundas Mountain”. Dundas has an excellent downtown, with good, old 20th century architecture, a good variety of stores, and a pedestrian friendly environment. Unfortunately, they seem to roll up the sidewalks at Sunday; most of the stores were closed. We did find a coffee place where we could sit and write, however, so it was better than Owen Sound.
The rewrites of Fathom Five continue slowly but surely, as does the laying out of the Trenchcoat Farewell Project. I’m now up to the end of Trenchcoat 3’s The Empty Man. We’re past the halfway mark on laying out this project. The end is now just weeks away.
Winter has arrived in earnest.