Return from Canada

It is now almost three weeks since Asha and I returned from our trip to Canada and what a wonderful journey it was. It is so good to share quality time with those you love. We began our Ontario stay with good friends Vera, Scott and Aidan in Toronto. It was the first time we’d seen them in six years. We ended our trip with a short but sweet sharing with Chris and Carmen and their now grown up boys. I hadn’t seen them in more than eighteen years. In between, we spent part of the visit with my mother in Tillsonburg and part with my sister Cathy and her family in Cambridge. Aside from simple sharing of meals, meal preparation, walks, talks and the viewing of old family slides, there was a trip to my birthplace, Niagara Falls. I spoke with a curator in The Butterfly House near Niagara. Just as I told her of the great movie starring William Hurt, The Blue Butterfly, and describing the time when I was covered in butterflies in China, Blue Morpho butterflies landed on me. There are no coincidences.

Released in 2004 and based on a true story, The Blue Butterfly tells the story of a terminally ill 10-year-old boy whose dream is to catch the most beautiful butterfly on Earth, the mythic and elusive Blue Morpho. His mother persuades a renowned entomologist to take them on a trip to the jungle in to search for the butterfly, leading to an adventure that will transform their lives. The picture is filmed in Costa Rica and Montreal.

Near the end of our Ontario visit I was interviewed about my book by a London (Ontario) writer who was filling in for a Tillsonburg journalist who was off sick. I’m pleased with the article, John Haines’ Search for Simplicity, Jason Rip wrote.

We’ve had mostly amazing spring weather since returning to New Zealand. The garden continues to flourish, responding more than favourably to the almost four years of seaweed and compost it has received. My breakfasts these last weeks have been smoothies made almost exclusively from the fruits of our garden—bananas, tropical guavas, babacos and pepinos. It is so satisfying and nourishing to eat the fruits of one’s labours.