 Dearest friends and family, Happy Advent by email. It is the season of waiting and in Canada we are not only waiting to celebrate the birth of Christ but also the end of the postal strike!
This will be the second Christmas without my sister in-laws, Gladys and Nelly, and the 9th Christmas without Ernest George. I miss them still, especially Ernest. However, creativity must continue and so I am now writing my fourth book. It is my first effort in fiction. It is a book of short stories on the topic of kindness; a subject much needed, I believe, in these days of climate crisis and other eco-justice issues. I'm hoping by writing stories on kindness I might become kinder in the process! I post the stories on my weekly blog which appears on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter (I know that the name is changed but some of us continue to say Twitter for political reasons). I hope you will join me if you are able and inclined on these platforms or on my website/podcast Storysoupenterprises.ca. See you there. Christopher Charles continues to teach Academic Literacies & Identities, a specialized English language course, at the University of Toronto and is still enjoying his work enormously. In his free time, he has gathered a group of friends and designs fantasy games which he leads. He's also called upon to design games and be the game master at a local pub or two from time to time. He bought an electric bike just over a year ago which isn't all that one might wish. It has its downside and so now he can be seen most frequently going to and from the university on his good old “acoustic” bike. My favorite activity remains an every other week Zoom meeting with a group of five old friends. We meet for about an hour and a half to talk about the climate crisis and give each other support and to keep up with one another. Last summer we again met in person. This time at Mary and Ian’s lovely farmhouse, about an hour or so North of Toronto. This gathering includes partners and we spent the day around their big old country kitchen table, took a walk in their woods and each of us went home with a bunch of homegrown asparagus. I also continue to meet with the neighborhood book club. There are six of us in the immediate neighborhood and we meet once a month in each others’ homes to discuss chosen fiction novels and gossip about the neighbours who aren’t there. I still have the same tenant in my little basement apartment. He is a graduate student writing his Doctoral thesis and so since the basement is no longer my guest room I receive guests in the spare room on the third floor. Chris assembled a queen sided bed for me with a memory foam mattress and I'm told by the several guests I've had so far that the bed is quite comfortable. It is awaiting all your visits (perhaps not everyone at the same time). One guest, Winifred, is new to Canada from Ghana and she stayed with me for two weeks while she found her own apartment. Because I'm a lover of language, particularly old/new English words, I wish you all a Happy Brat Christmas and a 2025 as free as possible from brainrot. Much love, Sally [email protected]
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