Sunday mornings are special in our home.  I know you may say.  How can any day be different for retired people?  Well for one thing I do not have to get up to go pick up a newspaper, because there is nothing available Sunday morning.  Every other day I drive to the clubhouse and buy a paper (we do not get home delivery in Paradise)  I may pick it up on the way to the fitness club or just pick it up and return home for breakfast.  Regardless, Pat is in bed sleeping and I read the paper while having my bran flakes.

Sunday is different.  I sleep in, wake and read a book until Pat arises.  Watch some TV as she prepares to head to church.  Then I have my weekly ritual.  What do I prepare for her brunch when she returns?  Most of the time it may be omelettes, but it might be eggs Benedict, pancakes or nested eggs.

A couple of years ago I learned how to make a nice quiche.  I know what you are saying. But I am still the guy that can fix plumbing and electrical and look buff (well in my mind) and love a person of the female species, but yes I like to make a quiche.

This month our Fine Cooking magazine arrived with 50 variations of quiche.  I often use bacon pieces or ham or even salmon but the article said if you are serious you have to use Pancetta (an Italian variation of bacon)   So yesterday I went off and bought a slab of Pancetta and this morning made a quiche with Pancetta and broccoli and 3 kinds of cheeses.

Not bad but let me tell you.  The Pancetta slab cost me 3 times as much as bacon and it was not worth the extra cost.

So guys here is what you do.  Buy some thick sliced bacon, cut into 1/4 inch chunks and saute it.  Steam some broccoli pieces, cook a quiche and welcome your wife when she comes in the house, serve a great brunch and say you used Pancetta and she will never know.

As a result in the evening I can write my blog while Pat does all the dishes and cleans the kitchen.  Pretty good trade-off

I attach a picture below of the place where I was born.  Actually I was not born in Tregarva, Mother went into Regina to the hospital for the actual birthing of Blaine and I, but this is where we lived.  This is an aerial photograph post card taken in about 1955.   I had a copy of the card for years but it has somehow gone astray.  Delighted to see it posted but not in the graphic detail I would like.

We had moved out of Tregarva in the summer of 1952.  Where you see the trees is where our house was located.  Dad moved the house into Regina.

The building to the right was the Co-op store that Dad and Mom ran until there was no money.  In the background you can see the farm of Uncle Ken and Aunt Grace plus the many friends that our parents had.

The major features of the picture are the grain elevators which are now long gone and the rail siding where the cars would be parked for loading grain.  If you heard the story about Mom and Dad trying to wave down a train to take Mom into Regina when she was starting to deliver Blaine, that took place in the lower right corner.

The long shed is a unique feature of the hamlet (not sure of what you refer to a town of less than 20 people)  It is a one sheet, natural ice curling rink.  Built in the 40s by the local farmers in the style that they would use to make their sheds.  Barn boards on the side, shingles on the roof.  Unheated rink but lit with a series of bulbs along the length.  High tech for the time.

There was an attached shack at the end separated with a door and window so they could have a heated area to watch the curling.

Mom and Dad ran the store and the local train depot and managed the small bonspiels that took place.

I remember one Saturday evening where I was at the rink.   Mother told me that normally they had someone sit with us in the house when there was curling going on but for some reason I was there that evening.  I would have been 4 years old.  Lets say January 1952.

It was dreadfully cold outside but the wood stove was glowing red (actually that is a literary embellishment)  On top of the stove was a copper pot with water.  This hot water was used for pebbling the ice surface before and half way through the game.

I remember the curlers coming in at half time to warm up and a man loading up a tank with a wand to go out on the ice.  I followed him out and watched as he went to the far end and danced his way back waving the wand pebbling the ice surface.  Someone must have noticed through the window that I was out and Dad came out to grab me and bring be back into the shack.  It was probably 0° F in the rink

To this day I can still close my eyes and remember that evening, the coppery smell of the kettle on the stove and the hot pies that my mother was serving on a side counter and the guy waving his wand.  Strange detail of memory but brought back by the photo.

There are many more memories of the grain elevator to the left where I often drove with Uncle Ken to deliver grain but that could be a separate blog