A casual lifestyle

It is reported that I have adjusted to the north a bit more. I seem to have adopted the casual mode of dress here. Fashion is not important ... keeping warm dominates what to wear. My phone rang at 7:30 on Saturday morning. I was not impressed until I heard it was my neighbour Marc ( of Gladys and Marc) saying the quiche would be coming out of the oven in 20 minutes. Just enough time to wash my face, tie back my hair, find my boots and run next door. I did not dress for breakfast. I wear my pajamas out and about more than Huge Heffner. They are not the silky Victoria's secret type but good ole Nova Scotia flanelette. It spoils the fun of a lovely lazy breakfast if I have to get dressed. Besides when I come home I have housework etc to do , then I bathe and get ready for the downtown shopping in our two little stores.

My class and I were praised last week by an official up from head office in Montreal. I do dislike sudden inspections. The kids were little angels while we were getting the once over. Things were going so goooooooood that I asked if anyone would recite " In Flanders Fields" . Luccassie volunteered and did a good job. My buttons were bursting with pride. I have to say that when it is important the kids really knuckle down and produce. I was very generous with the chocolate once we were on our own. It is good for them to hear praise from someone other than me.

Winter has settled in here in Salluit. For the second Saturday in a row it was too stormy to go out to the shoppes. I have outside duty today.. not a treat at all. The sidebar of the blog gives the daily weather for Sallulit. When it is not windy it does not seem cold. The planes are not flying to schedule .. if there are not two open airports nearby they don't fly in. Of course that makes all the teachers nervous for our Christmas flight out.. but then we were storm stayed one June.
We are busy in the school preparing for the Christmas concert. It is a real trial for any teacher. We are going to do the hymn Away in a Manger, singing as well as doing in American sign language as I have one student who cannot speak. My classroom assistant is wonderful and helps a great deal with such projects. My Dad has thought up a great idea for a play that I would love to do with the kids later in the year. Like all his ideas they are full of magic and great difficulties for a producer.
My phone rang off its ringer this past week-end. Great conversations with cousin Cheryl in Calgary and her crazy husband. I also heard from a couple who I met in Lake Louise in 1969. I was their waitress. God.. I love to talk, then as now. How many of you still keep in touch with a waitress you once met? We have been able to get together every few years.

Leslie's youngest child, Jacques, was baptized on Sunday. One of the problems of being up here is missing the big family events. When Elias was all dressed up he thought he looked like a piraate in a jacket with brass buttons. I guess he has some of the imagination of his great-grandfather.

Later.........the afternoon duty was not so bad since the wind had died down. Recess is still the same... the girls like to skip, the boys like to disrupt the girls' fun. The students do race around and I do too.. a good way of staying warm. Not easy to run in my big northern boots.

It seems like Canada is in for federal election in the winter. I will have to vote up here. The Inuit have traditionally voted for Liberal candidates.. perhaps I should run for the NDP up here. That would liven up things.
Have a good day.
P