rainy river road

Yesterday, because Flora was curling, I was alone as I drove down to Lancaster for my haircut. The day was pretty wet, with dark but distinct heavy clouds hanging low over the river. The road hugs the river quite picturesquely for most of the half-hour trip, making the drive a pretty Zen experience.

I like to drive with the radio off, mainly for the sake of absorbing the experience. I don't know why people are so afraid to be alone with themselves that they have to keep a radio blaring. I like the solitude. I guess that is a writer thing, part of the habit of being a contemplative.

Oh, yes: this is about "rainy river road", yesterday's poem of the day in wordcurrents

My niche of the St. Lawrence River

Some nostalgia for better weather: here are some photos from October, taken the day we closed our cottage. I found them stored as a draft in my Blogger account, so: better late than never. I notice that my camera's optical sensor needs cleaning. Anyway, these sunny shots show our dock up on shore, and views around the island as we left. The white thing in the view of the shoreline is a crash wave roaring by the beach. It was caused by a passing freighter, as usual breaking the speed limit during the off-season. These waves cause serious shoreline erosion, but nobody really polices this issue. Another example of a wonderful resource being damaged in an atmosphere of apathy. Getting grim; better stop.

wordcurrents: New Look progresses

Here is the latest version of the new look at wordcurrents. The photo I took in July 2006 from in front of our cottage, towards the Ontario shore. This is the view that I see from my favourite haunt, our screened front porch. That is where I do a lot of reading, writing and thinking. I don't have a computer at the cottage, so I write in a spiral notebook with a gel pen.

About the lettering in the photo: I did that in an old version of Ulead's Photo Impact, which came with a scanner that no longer works. I have finally given up on scanners. I don't think any of the three I have owned have ever scanned more than a few dozen things before burning out or failing in some way. That's no fault of Ulead, which makes fine software.

I am trying to make the site more accessible and more inviting and personal. We'll see . . . .

New look at wordcurrents

I am experimenting with new templates for wordcurrents. As a result, it is looking kind of freaky occasionally, as I run through the twenty or so templates I have down;loaded form the good volunteers at WordPress. I have always wanted a calendar that has live links to the posts for each day, to make navigation easier and more instinctual for visitors. I tried using "widgets" to have one with my usual "becca" theme, but the drag and drop does not work in either Firefox or IE7.

I like some themes, but I am worried about how my readewrs will react to white text on a black background or the number "82" mysteriously haunting a prominent corner. Here is a screen capture of the one I am currently trying. I may run poll here to see what my readers think.

The calendar is live, and gives a popup of the title on that date. I think the header image takes up too much room. I shall probably substitute another, like a photo of the St. Lawrence. This is called Wucoco two column, designed by Mike Lococo. I wonder if he is the same Mike Lococo who studied dentistry and lived with us at St. Mike's.

Blue

This trip inspired "Blue"; as you can see, there is a lot of blue in the photo.



This is a view downstream (towards the north-east) at the head of Lake St. Francis in the St.Lawrence Seaway. To starboard is one of the green winter stick-buoys marking the south (Quebec) side of the channel. What a beautiful day this was. All of the land masses visible in this shot are islands. Below is an enlargement of the horizon, showing the little floating islands that really seem to inhabit a never-land between earth and sky.