Rosa sericea ssp omiensis var pteracantha 18 April 2026

 

Back Lane Garden - Rosa sericea, etc on far right 18 April 2026

Rosa sericea ssp omiensis var pteracantha April 24 2025 

It may be an old fashioned expression of mine that is sexist when I say that roses like women are full of surprises.

Today 18 April 2026 my Rosa sericea ssp omiensis f. pteracantha is in bloom. Like clockwork, this species rose which is the only one that has only four petals, always bloomed on May 1^st then it all began to change.

Could it be global warming?

I live on 7th ave almost this corner

Michael Stephen & Sam Sullivan

I will associate the above with a lovely lunch I had (and distinguished guests) at the Terminal City Club yesterday hosted by former mayor Sam Sullivan and his wife Lynn Zanatta. Sullivan and a few important friends have started an organization called Kumtuks (and Indigenous word that means wisdom/knowledge). Its purpose it to find a middle road between extremes that argue as to who is right and or saying the real truth. The plan is to make videos to promote the ideas in social media and relevant media.

 

John Bonnett

 The speakers were Michael Stephen, John Bonnett,Yuta Shimizu,Margareta Dogval,Geoff Russs and Mark Milke. The first two caught my interest and in particular Michael Stephen. He read from many books, quotes that Joseph Trutch, 1st Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, in office 5 July 1871 – 27 June 1876 was not the villainous man we have been led to believe. It seems that all those bad things happened after he was out of office and then dead. Stephen peaked my interest, as I live in Kits on 7th Avenue almost corner with what was formerly called Trutch. I asked my neighbours about the name change. Because my neighbour friends all live on 7th they all told me, “Alex we are lucky that we live on 7th as the name change will affect the property documents of all those who used to live on Trutch.

 

Yuta Shimizu will bring his expertise in the making of the Videos

 The second speaker", John Bonnet is a teacher and instructor and his attempts to teach truths are sometimes most unpopular. His motto from George Gershwin is “It ain’t necessarily so.”

 I spoke with him and told him of my problems teaching at an American High School in Mexico City in the early 70s. In one class, Ancient History, one day I told my class that the Israelites since they had lived by force in Egypt for some years, Herodotus had revealed that perhaps the Israelites had adopted the Egyptian custom of circumcision. I then asked a Jewish student to stand up and to give us a clinical definition of the term. On the next day I was summoned to the office of the female principal who was a member of the right-wing organization Daughters of the American Revolution. She told me that she had heard that I was teaching sex in my Ancient History Class. I was told to stop and to no longer include Herodotus in my course.

I will not go here to all the stuff circulating in Canada and in our province that is really not all that true. But I would like to add how it is that in Latin America we deal with the “Columbus Problem”. Columbus Day South of the Río Bravo is called El Día de la Raza. October 12 celebrates the fact that the intermarriage between Spaniards and Indigenous Peoples produced a new race – the mestizos. But now Columbus statues are being torn down.

Few know why Frida Kahlo had a moustache. The Indigenous Peoples of Mexico don’t usually have body hair except on their head and down there. Kahlo wanted to show off that she had lots of Spanish blood. While in Mexico in the 50s and 60s I saw women with lovely legs in fishnets. Their legs were unshaved. They were boasting.

 I wish Sam Sullivan’s organization lots of luck in order for them to set the records straight. In our age of extreme polarization this is a necessary task.

For me the new Patullo Bridge will be the New Pattullo Bridge. This is because I am old fashioned. The Cambie Street Bridge for me will always be the Connaught Bridge.

Rosa ' Fru Dagmar Hastrup'  17 April 2026

Rosa ' Fru Dagmar Hastrup' 1 September 2 025

Rugose is an adjective meaning wrinkled, creased, or covered in ridges, often used in biology to describe surfaces like leaves, shells, or skin. It indicates a rough, uneven texture, such as the leaves of a Rosa rugosa plant or the exterior of certain corals. Its etymology is from the Latin adjective rūgōsus, meaning "wrinkled" or "shrivelled". Wikipedia

My roses will not bloom until June except for this one which blooms in very early May.

Rosa sericea subsp. omeiensis f. pteracantha.

Today I looked at the rugose leaves of Rosa ‘ Fru Dagmar Hastrup’ and saw lots of beauty. In my youth I would have never noticed. It was my Rosemary who taught me to look at the small details of plants. She wore contact lenses and then had her eyes fixed but she always got very close to her plants.

What all the above means is that I cannot escape, nor do I want to, the ever present presence of my Rosemary in my house and garden.

As I read of all the problems in the world I live in, I thank her for making us move from Mexico City with our daughters to Vancouver.          

Rosemary Elizabeth Healey Waterhouse-Hayward - Mexico City 1969

 

When I don’t have much to do (almost every day) I like to fiddle in my oficina with negatives and my scanner. Today I went through files Family 1968-1975.That is the period between my marrying Rosemary in Mexico City on February 8, 1968 until we were about to leave for Vancouver.

I had never ever printed these four b+w negatives. I suddenly had the idea of cutting them from their strip and laying them on my scanner. I think that the results are a refreshing change with my usual placement in my blogs of individual portraits of Rosemary looking devastatingly beautiful.

As I go through my files I have become aware that I shot a lot film of the family. I have every birthday cake photo, etc. But these for me are special. I had never ever printed them in my darkroom. To see them now is to see them with that former excitement to go to my darkroom to find out what I had taken.

And as I often repeat here this is a Borgesian first time. Looking at these four exposures, Rosemary is looking at my camera, or not as I prepare to press the shutter.