Last updated: 13 September 1998 (Part 3)
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| The Willey
Year in Review (1998 Part 2) [January to March] [July to September] [October to December] April
The early Spring, while welcome from a warmth point of view, brought with it some of the worst flooding this century. The worst hit areas near Ottawa were the Mississippi and Clyde rivers of Lanark County. Some communities were completely cut off from the surrounding area because of the rampaging waters. The Mississippi River runs through Almonte as it heads towards the Ottawa River. Flooding is common at the fairgrounds but this year it was particularly bad with the water overflowing onto the appropriately named Water Street. Homes bordering the water were well sandbagged and appeared to be holding their own.
May This has been a tough month, work wise. I, along with my colleagues, am working hard trying to meet a tight deadline. The good weather continues and most experts say that we are about 3 weeks ahead of a normal year. This was clearly evident with the early activity in gardens throughout the region. In most years, the Victoria Day weekend is the unofficial start to the gardening season. This year people were planting frost-sensitive annuals in the first weeks of May! I added a waterfall to my garden pond the first weekend in May but I waited until the long weekend to plant my annuals...more from lack of time than anything else. Danielle and I went to Bromont on the 9th to attend the wedding of one of her cousins. The scenery was beautiful, with apple blossoms in full bloom. The drive back through the Eastern Townships of Québec was wonderful. My cousin, Melanie, arrived from the UK the following week on what is fast becoming her semi-annual trip to Canada. She keeps seeing the great summer weather but her next trip is planned for Christmas so she will get to experience the Great White North first hand. Danielle and I have once again joined a beach volleyball league. After a winter of lessons it will be interesting to see how well we can apply what we learned. It is different playing in sand with wind (and rain) compared to the hardwood floors of the gym. In June, the world's best soccer nations will be assembling in France to fight it out for the World Cup. Locally, in the last week of May, the quest for soccer supremacy in the Cumberland Under 13 House League (Christopher) and the BA Soccer League (for the old guy) got underway. For me it has been two years since I last played soccer. After the first game I realized that I had muscles that I had forgotten existed, despite the other forms of exercise I do. However, being the eternal optimist, I know that the season is young and those muscles will learn to work again! June
The beach volleyball on the other hand seems to be like a pendulum...one day the team plays like champs and the next we can't seem to make anything work. Oh, well...the summer is young. On the 12th, we went to see the last of this season's Orpheus productions. This time they presented Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. It was a wonderful production (though one of the shortest), full of catchy tunes and quite upbeat. The production used a kid's chorus of 50 school children. They did a great job and it added to the atmosphere. My birthday came and we sampled the cuisine at Laurier sur Montcalm. This small french restaurant in Hull serves excellent food and I am still thinking of the duck I had. The weekend of the 20th saw us travelling to Sorel for another wedding. We stopped at her uncle's house which is located on the St. Lawrence river at Verchères. It was great sitting in the pool watching the cargo ships and pleasure boats pass by. We received another wedding invitation while we were at the wedding. Danielle's family is large and I have been told to expect even more invitations. It's party time! Happy Canada Day
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On April Fools Day (no joke), after 9
years 5 months and 263,200 km, I said goodbye to my 1989 Mazda 626 and said hello to my
new Mazda Protégé. Within the first two weeks I had already put about 1,900 km on
the car. At this rate I will need to change it in about 2 years!
The falls in the middle of town were
spectacular and became somewhat of a tourist attraction the first weekend of April.
In some parts of the county tourists were so numerous that they were blocking roads and
hindering the delivery of sandbags to the affected homes. This did not seem to be
the case in Almonte. The river crested the next day and started to drop soon after.
This has been a year for natural disasters...first the ice storm then this.
Easter weekend we went to Danielle's
parent's home in Ste. Béatrix, Québec. Her father makes maple syrup and with the
warm weather the season was quickly coming to an end. We took advantage of
wonderfully sunny and warm weather to help collect the sap. Once the sap had been
boiled down we all sat down and enjoyed the fruits of our labours. Freshly made
maple taffy is great but very sweet.
So far, both
Christopher's soccer team and mine are doing well, having won our first few games.
Check out Christopher's team and some of the action above. 
Bonne Fête Canada