"We Are the General Girls"

Regina General Hospital and Nurses Residence

Each year we gather, still standing although our Nurses Residence and Hospital are gone with the tick of the clock. Vanished into a parking lot. Our numbers have gotten smaller with the passing of time but we are still laugh, visit, reminisce, and sing. Family stories have become histories. What once was career, advanced education and travel, is now full of grandchildren and great grandchildren, nephews and nieces ~ ~ and travel. At the end of our gathering each year we sing our school song: “We Are the General Girls!” some voices not quite as strong, but all still full of the joy and hard work of our nursing years.

“Our fingerprints don’t fade from the lives we touch.”

~ Judy Blume, author

Warm Sun, Warm Friends

Over the Hill Orchards and Winery, 
Lumsden, Saskatchewan

On a patio overlooking 

the Qu’Appelle Valley 

in the warm sun, 

we shared a lovely afternoon. 

Cold drinks and fresh desserts

 - saskatoon pie, 

    crepes stuffed with cherries, 

      rhubarb crumble, 

         apple pie kept conversation 

to a minimum for a short time. 

If we didn’t eat quickly 

our ice cream or 

  whipped cream toppings 

would melt!

Discussions ranged from travels 

throughout the world to 

   one member's garden with monarch butterflies 

then it was a walk down to explore  

     Over the Hill Orchards and Winery.

“Friendship is unnecessary, 

like philosophy, and art…It has no survival value; 

rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

~ C.S.Lewis,  The Four Loves

Contact: Over the Hill Orchards and Winery at

   overthehillorchards.ca

The Real Autumn Comes

As autumn settles in 

wasps are sluggish 

yet still annoying; 

fruit flies still hover

and are yet to feel 

the cool of autumn,

playgrounds are quieter

as schools absorb our children, 

golden leaves drift from elms, 

yet to fill the corners and curbs

The air breathes sweater cool.

Calendar dictum remains in summer, 

autumn equinox only days away 

These cool days prepare the world

 for the beauty of real autumn.

“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall.”

~ Oscar Wilde