Summer is here, at last. We’re having perfect temperate sunny days, cooler in the evenings. The garden is beginning to burst. Fluffy baby sparrows are perched on the planters waiting to be fed. However, problems: earlier today I was looking out at the deck when I saw a woodchuck – yes, a fat contented-looking woodchuck – stroll across and disappear into my bushes. When I went out, I saw two of my lettuce plants in a planter had been decimated. The enemy is everywhere.

I have been taking various webinars, very interesting. One on transcendental meditation, which was so convincing about the huge benefits, both psychological and physiological, that I Googled local places to learn more. I was going to go last Sunday afternoon, but that morning I went into the garden to water and prune and gaze, and realized — I don’t need meditation, I have a garden. Pruning, watering, and appreciating = my meditation.

Today, I heard an online lecture about the importance of breathing through your nose, not your mouth. As animals, we breath through our mouths when stressed or running, he said, so mouth breathing signals danger to our brains. Breathing through the nose signals that we are safe. At the Y or on my bike, I’m often breathing through my mouth, but will try not to. I’ve never thought about that before. Great what you can learn, even at this decrepit age.

Ha ha.

And an article in the Star, that regular “structured exercise” can help prevent the recurrence of colon cancer and possibly other cancers. Now that’s good news, as someone who partakes of regular structured exercise; I’ll be more committed than ever after reading that. Another article, that dancing is very good for you as you age. Been there, done that.

Went to a big protest last Saturday against Thug Ford and his endless destructive plans for Toronto, not to mention what he has done to public education and healthcare. Trump not-so-lite. Wonderful to be in a big crowd with like-minded souls, but really – how many times do we have to chant, “Hey hey ho ho (insert right-wing politician here) has got to go?” Also been there, done that, since the Vietnam War in the mid-Sixties. Why haven’t we fixed things yet?

Sigh.

My dear friend Isabel Huggan came over yesterday afternoon, for a grand old gossip and catch up. I ask her advice about my projects; she’s so smart and sharp and has been in the writing trenches far longer and with far more success than I. Admirable.

Another treat: yesterday morning I went to the AGO for another viewing of the Macca photo exhibition, which ends this week. Wonderful how packed it was, still, not just with old fogie boomers but young people too. Isabel’s granddaughter, who’s ten, is a Beatlemaniac, learning to play “Lady Madonna” on the piano. I gave Isabel All My Loving to give to the girl, although maybe she’s a little bit young. But she’s a reader, and she loves who I love, so I hope my book will be a companion.

Macca’s new record, incidentally, is quite beautiful, a haunting look back at his past, songs about Liverpool, his parents – “my father was a salesman, my mother was a saint” – surviving the war, hitchhiking with John, and much more. The man’s genius for melody is unsurpassed. But he was a damn good photographer too – his empathy and tenderness on display at the AGO in shots of his bandmates and the people around them, including police and workmen. A big heart and a good eye.

Below, melancholy George; my hated mortal enemy the beautiful Jane Asher, Paul’s girlfriend at the time; and what a lovely shot of John.

It makes me sad that All My Loving is not for sale at the AGO, with the other books at the exhibit. If I say so myself, it should be, a Canadian take on discovering the Fab Four in January 1964, for life. However. It’s not, because I was not pushy and hungry enough.

But I’m hungry now, trying to think of ways to make money. One plan, after I turn much of my house into a separate apartment, was to create a small studio space at the end of the garden as an office for myself. But, I thought the other day as I walked to the end of my very long property, why don’t I build it now? It’d be far easier, cheaper, and quicker than the reno, which will take years as I have to divest the house of four decades of stuff before doing anything. But I could get a studio built and rent it out as a writer’s studio or for yoga or – for meditation. Or something. Hmmm. Another impractical idea? Need to talk to someone about the feasibility.

Listening right now to the robin’s goodnight call. It’s nice back there. Even if soon it will be full of woodchuck holes.