Year's end

It seems we're back to normal on the banks of the Rideau and the Ottawa; a year's gone by since I thought of starting this blog and it's midwinter again, no doubt about it. In a windchill of -20º I waded over the crunchy surface of our riverside park to take this photograph as the sun began to set in clearing skies.

Merry Christmas

After the mild December we've had, there has been some debate as to whether or not we'd get a white Christmas, but there's no doubt now that we do have one. Last night as we walked home from our friends' house (they also live near the Rideau River) the sky was clear and starry; the snow didn't begin to fall until 3 a.m. or so, but at -16ºC the river's surface was freezing rapidly and the lamps on Cummings Bridge were reflected brilliantly in its sheen. Looks and feels like Christmas, I thought.

Freezing over now

Back to Ottawa! The Rideau has started to acquire its icy winter crust, but open water is still predominant, with a few hooded mergansers swimming on it. Hardly any snow has fallen on the banks as yet, so the new plaques on the ground under the young memorial trees by the river path through New Edinburgh park across the river are still readable; they have touching and thought provoking messages beside the names of the people they commemorate:

... Loved forever and ever.

... Walk in peace.

... drowned, trying to save his dog ...

aged 21, who died tragically, mourned by the whole community ...

and there is one in Italian exhorting us to celebrate the life of everyone.

European rivers

Over the Neckar

I saw all three of the expected European rivers, the Thames twice from the air as we flew into London, first from Canada and two weeks later from Munich, after dark.

Over the Seine

The Seine was its usual self, cold, grey and atmospheric. Our hotel overlooked it by the Pont de Neuilly; we sailed up and down the river on a Batobus for an hour while on December 3rd by the Quais, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. I remembered Baudelaire's poem Receuillement which imagines the dying sun going to sleep under an arch of one the bridges, ("Le soleil moribond s'endormir sous une arche...") like a homeless vagabond perhaps. I learned the poem by heart in 1970 and haven't forgotten a word of it as my husband will confirm, since I recited it to him on the Batobus.

The Seufzerallee by the Neckar

On the banks of the Neckar, in Tübingen, I walked past the place where another poet once lived, Friedrich Hölderlin, and I saw the "Avenue of Sighs"—Seufzerallee—on the river island where students at Tübingen traditionally bemoan the fact that they haven't studied hard enough for their exams.

I even saw the Rhine as we crossed it at Strasbourg on the train journey from Paris to Stuttgart, where the river marks the border between France and Germany. Rhine-Donau cruise ships were docked there in readiness for next year's season.