Haloranch

It's a wintry day. Unahppily,I'm home sick with a cold. Happily, I'm basking by a blazing fire which wards off not only the chill, but also perfumes the air with a light touch of woodsmoke. I love it. I'm watching the snow continue to fall. Last night with the temperature just around zero huge flakes floated from the sky, clumping together at times to look like bits of Kleenex torn and drifing on the wind. Today they're tiny but relentless and little snowy peaks have capped each fence post. Across the ravine I can just make out the shape of a coyote gliding across the landscape, his mate trailing close behind. It's a good day to be inside.

Beautiful horses painted by Favourite Dotter for our spare bedroom. Beautiful Favourite Dotter

I asked Hans to take a head shot of me for Rotary and I prepared him for the fact that it wasn't going to be just snap one shot and that's it. But even I wasn't prepared for how many it took to make me look reasonable (four!) I'm not thrilled with it but evidently my mirror lies. I seem to look better there than on photos. Or are those just the rose coloured glasses I wear?

I love the colourful parrot fish that were so abundant in the waters of Bonaire and I was busy watching one of them when something shiny flashed at me from the bottom. There was one of my earrings winking back at me! I couldn't reach it, but Clark and Rocco were snorkeling close to me so I waved them over for some help. They both dived for it after examining my other earring so they'd know what they were looking for. When you looked at it just right, the sun caught its reflection and it glittered merrily. Otherwise, it was just another lump on the bottom. Clark reached it first and brought it to me, tighty clutched in his fist. I had meant to take them off before swimming but completely forgot. Not very good, since glittery earrings could attract other fish... They do make lures out of shiny metal, don't they?

In the wee hours of the morning Hans fell in our cabin and badly hurt his back. See my earlier post about the hospital . Luckily, we had a full day at sea during which he could rest and he never left the cabin. That evening I went alone to dinner and our 4 friends came back with me, Clark poised at my back with his camera ready as I opened the door. "If you read this posting Clark, email me the photo and I'll put it up". __________________ These are the hours of lead. Waiting in the cabin until 8:00 a.m. when we had to vacate. Then waiting to disembark. However, the line actually moved very, very quickly. The hardest part was for Hans to have to stand while we waited for our colour to be called. As soon as we were in the warehouse we saw all the luggage stacked according to colour . I flagged a porter to give us a hand, identified our bags and then we lined up for the bus. The only downside is that we had 4 hours to kill at the Ft. Lauderdale airport, and we couldn...

Walked around town after our earlier snorkel and on one street we counted 16 jewellery shops one beside the other. And that was just on one side of the street. The other side looked the same. Despite this, there were deals to be had. Rocco bought Pat, his wife of 30+ years, a new wedding ring set with a gorgeous oval stone nearly 1.4 carats. It sparkled brilliantly at dinner that evening under the halogen lights.

There were taxis everywhere listing the various beaches and fares to get you there. "Which one has snorkeling?" we asked, and she points to one on her sign. $5 each. "Fine, take us there." She has a minivan full of customers and we're the first to get off. "Here you are," she says as we exit and hand her the money. "Just swim out about 100 yards to the reef." Oops. It's a public beach and there is nothing here but sand and a few trees for shade. Specifically, there are no lounge chairs. We've become used to them but hey, it's no problem to spread one towel on the sand and use the other to dry off. We decide we should take turns swimming since there's no one else around that we know who can keep an eye on our things, so off I go. I can see the darker area in the water where I'll find the reef and well, it looks a little further out than 100 yards. Oh. And because in some of the other areas where we snorkeled we foun...