Epic Encore

Salut.
Our names are Greg and Kirstin Johnson, and we live not far from Grenoble, France.

Once upon a time we had a Blog, to keep our dear family and friends updated on our frequently eventful lives. And then, in December 2006, we travelled a lot, visiting some of those friends and family. We continued such ventures into January and February 2007. Each of us also added travel for our respective work.
By the time March had arrived, we had been in seven different countries, some of them multiple times. Many virtual blogs were written in the realm of the mind, but none made it to paper. Indeed, even the camera remained idle for months (shocking). When home, we both worked long hours (when health allowed) tapping away at keyboards, or squinting over books.

And then the e-mails began.
And the phone calls and the post cards.
“Are you ok? Are you still out there? THERE’S NOTHING ON THE BLOG!!”
Photograph exchanges were even offered, undoubtedly with hopes that that might spark some sign of life.
Good intentions continued. We’re good at those around here.
But life gets so full, doesn’t it?
And each year, the energy gets less!
But,

Here we are once more. Forgive us our inboxes filled with hundreds of unanswered e-mails, even unanswered phone messages (being away so much meant we just never got on top of them all). We wish we were better at keeping up adequately with you all. We are not. But then, this is why we hoped the blog might be a good thing.
And so, we start up again!

Pré Borel. That’s where we are. And this time of year, it’s hard to imagine wanting to be anywhere else. Flowers in full bloom, birds in abundance, the pond JAM-PACKED with frogs, the crickets joining the owls at night…it’s pretty darn lovely.
Crazy thing is, it’s already too hot to be outside at midday.

Once upon a time it was only Farmers and Brits who thought the weather was interesting. I guess that’s changed pretty much permanently.
One of us having grown up mostly on a farm, and the other as a half-Brit, the weather’s always been on our radar. Living rurally again, it is even more so. I know that the weather’s been wonky in a lot of places. Here, despite our proximity to the Alps, we had no snow this winter at all. In February temperatures were already hitting the 20’s C (70’s F). Then in March we had two snowfalls (same week as more 20C weather). Neither fall stuck through the night, but the second one had the most gargantuan snowflakes either of us has ever seen – and we’ve seen a lot of snow in our combined days! These were snowclumps, really…sort of like feather-weight golf-balls. Bizarre. And beautiful.
Made one think of Avison’s poem “Snow” : “Nobody shoves the world in at your eyes. / The optic heart must venture: a jail-break/ And re-creation.” (I’ve always loved that one…)

Our daffodils, and other spring bulbs, were glorious.
Some of last year’s annuals forgot that they were supposed to die; some perennials never stopped blooming.

And then it got too hot, too quick.
Some plants that were in bloom for weeks last year, lasted only three days – including the cherry tree. For Easter last year it was just barely warm enough to eat outside – with warm clothing on. This year Easter was two weeks earlier, and we actually were seeking out shade, because it was too hot in the sun. A week before Easter we had already begun to don sunscreen. And now, the parts of the lawn that burnt in late June 2006 are already brown and crispy. And the roses are blooming alongside the tulips.
The roses seem to love this bizarre weather – maybe because the aphids were tricked into appearing in February, and then were zapped by the snow. Dunno. But we have buds galore. And heavenly scented blossoms.
But even the roses are now longing for rain. The fields are dust as the farmers plough. Not how it should be in April.
And in the garden, it’s already too hot for some seedlings to survive. For us that is a shame. For others, it’s a travesty.

On a lighter note, thinking of some of our farmer neighbours compels me to share one of Greg’s most exciting achievements in the last few months: he has learned how to milk a cow!! Our neighbours were in need of an extra hand for a while, as one of the farmers had been hospitalized. And so Greg offered to chip in for a couple of weeks, in the evenings after work. I never dreamed that he would ever come home regularly smelling like dairy cows!! (the milking is mechanized, but they taught Greg how to do the deed by hand as well) I must admit, I loved it (although I will always infinitely prefer the smell of beef cattle to that of dairy cattle!). And it was truly hilarious when one night we showed up late for a musical concert in Grenoble, and had to explain to Greg’s colleagues that it was because Greg had been too busy milking, and had lost track of time!
I can’t razz him for being a city boy near as much as I used to!!

That is but one of the many events I’d love to share…but this blog would turn into a book were I to really catch you up with the last four months.
Instead, here is a smattering of photographs – it’s so hard to choose just a few! – to give you a glimpse. I'm having the usual probs, more than usual even! -- we should really switch to a more photo-friendly blog-page I guess, but I'm reticent to change addresses. So here are photos of varying sizes, placements, and even orientation!
(remember, should you wish, you can double-click on a shot to enlarge it) (and, you can even turn your computer side-ways.....)


We had our first visit to Paris, on our way to Cincinnati -- only 2 days, but lovely ones (and the best food? Sushi!)















Notre Dame...

and the Painter's Market photo? Honestly, NOT posed at all!!
















The favourite French past-time? People-watching. Note that at this café *everyone* is seated looking Out!


Views up and down Champs-Élysées .




Champs-Élysées had incredible windrow fronts...the first two are for a car dealership! Then there's the Coffee Cup Zip...




And the next Church was our favourite -- Sainte Chappelle is the 'chapel of light'...amazing stained glass windows, incredible painted design. And dates back to the 13th century!




This place needs no intro...
as usual, we have slightly unusual views....




















From Paris we flew to Cincinnati, where we enjoyed Christmas with Mom and Dick. We hung out with extended family: Steve, Lanie, Tanner, Stephanie, Sarah -- and also were privileged to have visits from friends from different 'corners' of our lives: SteevO & Rhonda from college summer days, Kelly (and three special 'fellow travellers') from 'Regent-and-Beyond', the Guthrie clan and the De Rico clan from Scotland days.



























You'll see that the wee remote control airplanes that Greg and his colleagues have been so keen on found their way across the ocean: for Dick it was his first airplane ever, and added to Tanner's and Steve's, there was soon a whole family fleet zooming around outside.











We had a few manic days in Ontatio & Quebec after that. It's always so hard to have too little time. We need to go back for a real visit! Unfortunately we have misplaced most of the photos from that rushed time, including those of Greg's family. (we'll try to amend that) We do have one of Kara's cats! (no, that's not a cat in a mirror -- it's a pair of brothers!) We shockingly have none even of our vivacious goddaughter Tasha K. Here are a couple which we know that many of you will want to see though: one is of two of the Prokopchuk fam, with whom Greg and I hung out on New Year's Eve (in Quebec). One of my favourite moments of the holiday was, after teaching Sam how to make snow-angels, lying still in the snow and listening to the woodland 'quiet.' It has been too many years since I have done that. And 6yr old Sam loved it.

And here is one of the Michaelson triplets: Hannah, Keleigh, and Karis. They met us at the door with a "Narnia feast" which they had cooked in our honour! Having not been in their company since they were 'in utero,' we nonetheless felt like we'd always known them -- we could definitely all get up to some good mischief together. (Some of you will remember their father Kris as the pianist/organist from our wedding, who also wrote the quartet piece "Come to the Table," which was sung at both Cdn & Engl weddings. Val and I were a rambunctious duo at Regent, and still would be if we lived closer!)

We had a frustratingly short time in the Valley -- only a half-hour at The Ranch, eventhough it was Greg's first time. For those of you who don't know, my grandparents for many years ran a children's horse-riding camp: "Frontier Ranch." A beautiful property of 800 (mostly wooded) acres, I could wax lyrical about it for pages. As could most of the Jeffrey clan -- it is part of our family myth, of our identifying story. As The Ranch is only 7 miles from the farm I grew up on, we obviously spent a lot of time there. (My first word, apparently, was 'horse,' inspired by the herd cantering by the window... a few years before we also became Ontario residents.) Summers of riding, swimming, campfires and so much singing, archery, canoeing...winters of x-country skiing, wildlife-spotting (my first moose, plenty of deer, even bears)...stunningly colourful autumns with massive family reunions (my Grandmother is one of twelve!)....
so to have 35 minutes in the twilight to show Greg this Place was hard, but better than nothing. The Ranch is sadly no longer in the family -- though many of the cousins, and my aunt, would be very keen to invest time and energy in bringing it back to life. Between us we've all the necessary skills and vision...just not the money! But nonetheless, the Place itself still shapes us. And we love it. It was very Good to have my aunt Jill and Terry, and my cousins Jenny & Ben with us...and interesting to experience a sense of shared and differing emotional experiences in that brief half-hour. We are all friends, but just spread enough in age to have had entirely unique experiences of the Ranch...and while we stood there, alternately sharing voices and silence, each of the women longing for our accompanying men to understand what this Place was and is, there was something palpable in the yet-ineffable Meaningfulness...of both the particular and the shared nature of our relationships with the terrain and its memories. How much sense that makes to you, I dunno...I need more space to write it out than a 'short paragraph' (!) in a blog. But,
it was very Good to have Greg there.
There are only a couple of shots...for better photos, see my cousins' blog: http://great-britton.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html
"Frontier Ranch Revisted" is in about the middle of the page. It also has some shots of our fantastic fondue with Grandma (thanks J&T!) -- and a fun one of Grandma telling me something humorous...minutes before she valliantly downs a shot of Chartreuse from Greg: in one gulp!! (when Greg walked in the door, she immediately said: that's an Australian riding hat! -- -- and made in Australia his hat indeed was...years of life on the Ranch gave her good eye for Cowboy headware!!)


And to finish up, here are some photos from Feb -- we were gifted a flight to Bristol to visit friends (a whole 'nother story with the flight cancelled due to weather, and a crazy Johnson adventure of impetuously driving there through the night instead, along with two random plane passengers....)
The friends below are 'wedding folk' for us: the Hayhursts, Chambers, and Dormen. Six of us got married the same summer, and the others were involved in all the weddings. Steve D, third from the left, was Greg's best man in England. Chris and Paul were our ushers. Greg lived with Steve and Cath at The Kilns (CS Lewis' former home), and Rosie and I both lived with Paul's parents during our respective engagement periods. (all sorted?!)


(doesn't G look great? the lighting is right...but still!)

Typical to many of our pre-wedding friendships, Greg and I have independent connections with Paul. He and Greg became friends at St Andrew's Church in Oxford, and Greg very quickly became a fan of Paul's wife-to-be, Kathy. Shortly after meeting Paul, I discovered that, although growing up in Indonesia (his parent were missionaries there), he had been born in Calgary. There, his family had attended the church I attended years later -- and thus, a myriad of people connections. Even more importantly, my dear friend and inspiration Cathie Nicholl, one of the prime founders of IVCF, was a particular friend...when I mentioned the connection to Cathie, she said she remembered well watching Paul learn to crawl on her living room carpet! Then Paul's father told me that a certain man named James Houston had been a friend and mentor in his Oxford student days, and that this Houston used to talk of his dream of founding a college...one that was realized in the form of Vancouver's Regent College.....
All that to say, not only did I too become a fan of Paul's 'wife-to-be' (who is as serious about games as I!), but I have recently recieved the huge priveledge of becoming godmother to their second daughter, Natasha. Greg got some lovely photos (we'll have to work on getting some photos of our other beautiful god-kids to you!)


















I really love the following one!




I'll close the photos with a shot of the man himself...and some photos of his work...
(the synchrotron is not the one here in Grenoble, but one he was experimenting at in Switzerland).





And, we are excited to have spotted our first Hoopoe in the garden! Pretty wild bird, huh? And its Latin name beats all: Upupa epops (pronounced Oo-pup-pa Ee-pops!!)
OK, eyes tired of reading and looking yet??!
Here's the final wrap-up, to keep the inquirers content:
our bodies!

*Greg saw a doctor in England for yet another opinion…the short of which was that he should wait a year to see how much movement returns before proceeding with any surgery. His physio concurred. Change has slowed down considerably, which is hard, but I think it is still occurring. It is quite amazing to look at photos of Greg a year ago, versus now. He gets frustrated that his lips don’t move more on the right side, and that it still takes him about 2 seconds to close his right eye – but compared to last year, it’s so great. The neighbour stopped him the other day to say how normal his face was looking. His tooth cap has fallen out however…no, not yet another accident! just due to poor work on the dentist’s part this time (or so Greg swears). So he’s looking a bit like a comic pirate again when he grins. But that’ll be fixed this week. ‘Bit of a shame, really! (I won't comment on the antibiotics for the infected elbow scrape from mountain biking...........)
But, the grand challenge continues: Waiting.

*I’ve had the steroidal surgery on my wrist, and after realizing that I really needed to keep it thoroughly immobilized (not just occasionally!) for three weeks, it’s in pretty good form. The procedure was interesting – the doctor uses ‘live’ x-rays, to guide the needles (one has to sign a contract in advance, acknowledging that it will be a painful procedure!!). Apparently it was a bit of a challenge, as, my cartilage having been eaten away for a few years now, the bones were compressed in all the places where the needles were supposed to be inserted. Not fun for the surgeon – or me! His facial expressions provided some comic relief though, as did his sincere attempts to understand my thesis. In May I will see a foot surgeon for the same procedure on my left ankle. The rest of my body’s doing quite well at the moment – though I still have days when it checks out. Most frustrating are the days when my brain checks out too. But those are eversomuch less than they used to be. But things are good enough on the whole that the doctor’s agreed to let me try lowering my daily steroid dose again. Yeah! The process is proving a bit of a bear, however, as the side effects of reducing are hitting me full wack this time. Which means poor Greg comes home to find me out of sorts, sore, too tired to have accomplished anything all day, and thus, even more out of sorts. 5 weeks…we’ll make it!

Meanwhile, to help Greg bear it all, he finally has his dream: an espresso machine! Long he has waited, looked, yearned. And at last there it sits: shiny and productive. (and I’m certainly co-enjoying the production!)

More anon --
we're off to finish planting the veg patch --
And love to you all,
G&K