Happy Canada Day one and all

Happy Canada Day one and all.
 
It was a lovely day, sunny and warm, with a nice breeze to keep people from keeling over from heat exhaustion. I probably say this every year, but I am not a huge fan of these “national holidays” in general. They all seem to have taken on a hidden agenda to the flag-waving, an Orwellian (“if you are not doing it, it must mean something else”)… that never used to be true about Canada Day. It was always a bit of a laugh. People would wear red and have barbecues and drink beer, in general, three of my favourite things. In Ottawa, you’d wander downtown to watch the fireworks or listen to the free concerts on Parliament Hill. Then, of course, the populists got in on the act, appropriated the Canadian flag, held a convoy in the downtown core and changed the whole nature of the city centre and the principal Canadian symbol in a single month, and things have never been the same. So, it has taken on a rather subdued nature, at least in this neck of the woods.
 
For today, Mitch had let us know of the celebration of 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force, which was being honoured with a fly-by of “50 aircraft from the RCAF’s past, present and future” participating in a “parade in the sky”. Quite apart from wanting to find out how they had solved the time issue without Doc Brown’s temporal flux capacitator and managed to get a plane back from the future to the present, I knew of at least one person who would enjoy that immensely (see extras), so we decided to meet up outside the old CMHC orifices on Aviation Parkway and watch. Not only was it a lot of fun (and Ottawacker Jr. was indeed in his element), but Mitch also demonstrated the new Ottawa fashion for pooping and scooping. It makes a lot of sense for the time-pressed Ottawan. You have to do it when you walk your dog, so you may as well do it for yourself (and use the dedicated red bag for the scooping.) Come to think of it, he left that red bag at our house.
 
Once all that had been finished, we went home and I started to cook (ribs, chicken wings, potato salads, salads, a risotto, gourmet burgers). Mitch arrived at 4 and Valentin and Marcel at 5. They are heading back to Germany soon – and will be missed – so it seemed an appropriate way to wish them well.

Slept very badly - first alcohol for seven weeks combined with a lot of heavy cooking.