We are soaking up the ocean breezes at our bungalow in Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island, which I named Palm Tree Cottage. We bought this place mainly because I fell in love with the palm tree in the back yard. Yes, we do have palm trees growing in Canada! Our Beloved Palm Tree Cottage […]
The Davenport Hotel in Spokane, Washington was the destination for my May birthday, where my husband whisked me away for three days because he knows how much I love historic hotels. Every room features one of these lovely, comfortable beds. You can actually buy one through the hotel and have it shipped to your home! […]
Our youngest daughter Melinda left home ten years ago, and we finally got around to redecorating her hot pink teenage lair and turning it into a welcoming guest bedroom. Here’s the finished result of our blood (I cut my finger), sweat (moving furniture is hard work), and tears (of nostalgia). Over the past ten years, […]
In my long career as a journalist, I collected memorabilia ranging from hundreds of newspapers clippings and photographs to pieces of historic wooden type like this big E — for Elinor, of course!
Dear Friends: My mother’s estate has wrapped up and her house has been sold, so I’m disposing of her furniture and possessions, which carry many family memories. And that means dragging home no fewer than 25 cardboard cartons filled with photographs, letters, china, books, and keepsakes. In a box of old knitting patterns, I found […]
Dear Friends: Happy St. Patrick’s Day! In my novel Wildwood, my Irish heroine Mary Margaret receives this Belleek shamrock tea set from her grandmother as a wedding gift when she emigrates to northern Alberta in 1923. Later, my contemporary heroine Molly finds the tea set and other vintage items in the old farmhouse kitchen — many of which came from my […]
I’m enjoying life in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and feeling nothing but sympathy for my fellow Canadians, who are suffering under an icy white blanket. The sunsets here aren’t as lovely as those on the prairies, but since we never see the sun set at our home in the mountains, the evening sky looks darned good […]
Welcome to your very first Letters From Windermere, an old-fashioned letter from my house to yours, a collection of news, notes, and nostalgia where I chat about History, Writing, and Books. From 2013 to 2018, I wrote more than 100 wartime stories, and you can find them all under the category called Lest We Forget. […]
Let the bells ring out and the veteran banners fly! After seeing this program in Ontario, I pitched the idea of honouring our local veterans with individual banners. It meant months of hard work by my partner Sandi Jones and me, but the banners are now hanging downtown in our dear little town of Invermere, […]
As a child, I used to lie in bed at night and imagine the air force ghosts all around me. That’s because the farm in Saskatchewan where I grew up is a former airfield, one of hundreds created during the Second World War through the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
