Ursula Visits

Ursula is a former colleague of mine from the opening of the Moscow Aerostar Hotel. We remained in touch over the years and she was in Toronto for an extended time, she visited with Gaby (1 of 2 daughters) and other members of her Canadian family. We had a great time and enjoyed many reminiscences (Moscow is definitely the greatest generator of anecdotes). Thanks for dropping in everyone.

Niagara Youth Orchestra

This year’s end of season performances were definitely the best ever in my time following the Niagara Youth Orchestras; their recovery from the Covid lockdown is very impressive. The programmes were very crowd pleasing and challenging.

Fathers’ Day

Of course, you already know all about our Fathers’ Day celebration from reading Haute Goat III. We celebrated a week after actual Fathers’ Day which is typically how we manage conventional holidays. On actual Fathers’ Day Mumtaz and I drove to Queenston Heights Park (home of Brock Monument). It is a terrific place, prized by organizations that throw big picnic parties and it has a bandstand. Speaking of the bandstand, we were there to hear the Niagara Youth Orchestra play an extra concert in the outdoors. They did very well and to my surprise the sound in the outdoors was very good indeed.

The End of CHU

CHU is a short wave radio station that was operated by Canada’s National Research Council. It broadcasted time signals on short wave frequencies for generations. Often CHU was the first channel a short wave enthusiast tunes at the start of their time pursuing the hobby. Of course, I was a short wave enthusiast of moderate diligence for many years. Sadly, internet technologies have over taken shortwave radio although I understand that there is still quite a bit of activity out there. Clearly, there is no need for official time signals anymore so I cannot fault the National Research Council for decommissioning CHU but it is a sad moment nonetheless.