Priority Admission at the Louvre

…..walking with a cane has it’s advantages

When we travelled throughout Italy in 2016 with our 9 month old granddaughter we found that museums, galleries and restaurants bent over backwards to accommodate us. Six years later in France we’re finding the same thing except now it’s walking with a cane take gets us priority admission.

Back in April Kevin needed an emergency hip replacement and even though his recovery was remarkably fast he occasionally has balance issues. As a result and playing it safe he brought his cane with him on this trip to France.

On the day we went to the Louvre Kevin brought the cane, knowing that there would be a lot of walking. We preordered the tickets, thinking that would get us into museum without having to line up. We booked for the last time slot of the day and ended up in a line with hundreds of people in front of us. Our son was visibly upset. I asked him him if there was priority admission for people with mobility issues. He asked us to stay in line while he investigated.

Upon his return he told us to follow him and we walked directly to the entrance where security waved us through. This is something that all travellers with babies and mobility issues should know. Once inside I can’t say that the Louvre was easy to navigate, as there are lots of stairs but fortunately my husband was able to go up and down without too much difficulty. Had we investigated a bit more we would probably have found more elevators.

Christmas Baking in March

….I finally got to use all the icing and decorations that I bought in December

Last Christmas our granddaughter from New Brunswick was suppose to come and visit with her Mom and Dad. With the emergence of the new Omicron strain they decided to play it safe and stayed home. In the meantime I went to Bulk Barn and loaded up on icing pouches, sprinkles, mini candies and peanut butter chips because Winnie had requested that we make cookies together.

Last week they finally found some time to visit and they flew to Toronto for four days. Out came the cookie mix, the cookie cutters and all the icing and decorations. It was so much fun until Oma, that’s me, ate the broken hand that fell off the Santa cookie. I was in so much trouble but luckily the trauma passed quickly but I’m not sure that I’ve been completely forgiven. Ouch!

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We also got to finally celebrate Gaelan’s 40th birthday in style.

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Good Morning Shot

it’s not often that I get to see this

It happens every day but I’m usually still in bed. Yesterday I had to get up early to drive my daughter and her family to the airport. It was still partially dark when we left but on my drive back home the glare from the rising sun was almost blinding. I stopped at the bottom of our street to get this shot.

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College Royal is Back

….not as big as in years past but open non the less

In the past College Royal has attracted up to 30 000 visitors but in the last two years it was mostly virtual and this year it was limited to staff, students and family members. It was much smaller in size but we enjoyed our two days of exploring the campus, speaking to the exhibitors, learning new things, watching the dog show and walking through the barns.

If you had any doubts as to the what the University of Guelph is all about, College Royal highlighted the agricultural, veterinary and animal and food sciences. As a graduate of U of G I can tell you that there is much more to this university, i.e., Family and Child Studies, The Arts, Biomedical studies, Business and Economics, Athletics, Human Kinetics, etc.. Hopefully in future years College Royal will be back to hosting more clubs, more of the arts, fashion shows and will have more hands on activities and bring back the milkshakes.

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Three Generations of Guelph students, past and present

Wacky Bird With Attitude

….Kevin wanted me to post this one last Tuesday

Tuesday was a tough day for us. We heard that we were in contact with COVID on the weekend and we needed to take some rapid antigen tests. We’re leaving for France in two weeks and today our daughter is visiting from New Brunswick. The good news is that we’ve all tested negative.

So this bird was named Ticked Off Tuesday. Does he look a bit miffed?

Two More Paintings Finished

….and one is a sunflower

I think I complained that I couldn’t paint sunflowers. Well I persisted and the smaller of the two paintings features a sunflower. Both paintings started out as large pieces that I ended up cutting down in size and painted over what I had already done. It took several tries but I’m finally happy with the final outcome.

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Acrylic 6 1/2″ x 8″ unmatted
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9″ x 11″ unmatted

Here’s a photo with both matted and framed and sitting side by side.

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