Tuesday 14 May 2013

Lilacs in the Dooryard Bloom

Lilac Time!


May may be the best month of the year, because our little town becomes Lilac Town and our backyard is filled with the heavenly smell of lilacs.  I cut a few for the table for mother's day.


They were my mom's favourite flower, too. They spread by sucker roots from one plant to another. A mother plant may be dead yet the daughter plants, still attached, will live.  A metaphor if I ever saw one.


Maybe we planted it a little too close to the house, but I like to look from the kitchen table, through the window on the right.


What else do you want from life?

When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d

Sunday 12 May 2013

Let there be Light

Chandelier Rewired


Well, after a winter with a hole in the bedroom ceiling, our chandelier is back and operational.


If you read this post, you know the sad story of how the old wiring exploded one day.  I found a store in Vancouver that regularly rewires old chandeliers, so I sent my husband there one day when he was on a business trip to Vancouver. Another day, he had to pick it up and drive it to the CSA offices in Richmond for the sticker of approval all electricians need to see before they will install a light in Canada.  I think it was the first time they saw an individual with one old light in that place. They were used to dealing with huge importers of lighting fixtures and I'm sure they are talking about my husband to this day. The story is not over, however, for they found more grounding work for the repair shop to do. So back my poor dear husband went (I told him to imagine he was working for Sarah Richardson) to the repair place in Vancouver, then back again to Richmond to the CSA office, where by now he was on first name basis.  Yeah! It got the little blue sticker.

Then all I had to do was rehang the crystals and call the local electrician to install it. The repair place told him it was 1930s European. I still maintain the repair and approval costs were worth it and all together cost less than buying a new fixture with much less character.



 I like the pattern in makes on the ceiling. I had the electrician install a dimmer switch.


Now the room feels finished, and well lit when it needs to be.

For more on lighting, click here.