HELLO AGAIN

I’m back after a quickish trip to Ontario. We attended a wedding in Toronto, visited with Martha’s family for a few days and then headed about as far south as you can go in Canada for three days of glorious communing with nature in Point Pelee National Park.

While I was still an MLA, one of the things I looked forward to about becoming a retired MLA was ditching the necktie. I hate wearing a tie so much that I wonder whether I was hanged in a past life for not genuflecting in front of royalty. I spent a long and fulfilling career in radio rarely having to wear a tie to work. Truth be known, not having to wear a tie to work was one of the things that attracted me to radio in the first place.

So a few months ago, I caught myself thinking that I might just be able to carve out a life as a private citizen that involved never again putting on a necktie except for weddings and funerals – neither of which, at that point, was imminent. I suspected I might at least get through the spring and summer of 2012 with my collar open and my neck liberated!

Alas, ’twas not to be. Why, there I was, on Election Night, on Global, wearing a tie! And five days later, I’m in Toronto at a wedding, wearing another tie. But it was well worth it in both cases. Covering the election with the crew from Global was, for me, great fun.And the wedding? Well, that was the first time in a long time that Martha and I could go to a big party dressed to the nines and be just Martha and Dave, friends of the bride’s family with no official role to play whatsoever. It had been many years – just about as long as I’d been in office, I think – since we danced like we did that night.

If you become a regular visitor to this website, you will from time to time be subjected to my hobby of birdwatching. (The purists prefer to call it “birding”. I prefer watching the birds to getting into smugness contests with the purists.)

If you dig the hobby or are persuaded to try it because I make it sound intriguing, I’m flattered. But I’m not trying to recruit you into the cult and I don’t see it as my mission to teach you the difference between a robin and a red-headed woodpecker. I have no idea why I prefer being in the middle of the woods with binoculars around my neck to standing in hip waders in the middle of the Bow with a fishing rod in my hand. But I know that both those hobbies – and many others – connect a person with nature. I know this to be good for the soul.

Being connected with nature is also vital to our collective future.

I see that Alison Redford says that one of the three priorities for her new government is “advancing world-leading resource stewardship.” I will have some thoughts on what she should mean by that – if she’s serious – in my next rant.