I'm listening, right now, to a promotional copy of Martin Gore's Counterfeit 2 ! It's not mine, but Stacey has kindly allowed me to borrow it. A friend of hers, living in England, sent it to her. It hasn't been released yet over there, and certainly not here. So, what do I think of it? Arrrummm-num-num ! Delicious. It's got some interesting choices of music on it, and when I say that, I mean that these are all songs written by other artists. At first I was a little disappointed, because Martin's such an excellent songwriter, but I've gotten over it and now find that he's done excellent things with the material. There are a couple of tracks that I could live without, but none of it is bad. He covers songs written by David Bowie/Iggy Pop, and Nick Cave, as well as John Lennon/Yoko Ono, and Hank Thompson ("the king of western swing").

I guess I should probably get back to talking about my weekend in Ottawa. First of all, what you should know about the Balharries is that they all take photographs and, probably since the invention of the camera, they probably always have. My mother's uncle, Ken, was an architect, his brother was an architect as well. I am not sure I know what their father was, other than an unpleasant man, but the arts run strong in their blood, likely from my mother's grandmother who had been a concert vocal soloist until she'd been made to give it up. Anyway, getting back to the photos, there were albums of them, covering, mostly, the last sixty years of family history with the majority of them being of the 1940s-60s. It was very interesting to listen to the cousins discussing the pictures with Ken and Rosemary, sharing laughs over the funny stories and adventures. Photos were being snapped of everyone pouring over the albums, of people taking pictures, of people taking pictures of people while they took pictures... It was fun.

When the daughters with children left, and Ken and Rosemary left some time later, the cousins (Claire, Jayne, Janis, and Julie) remained, along with a couple of of significant others and me. Here, the stories began to change. The rose-tinted glasses were take off leaving the happy world of Ken's youth open for acknowledgement. For the first time, probably in the history of the Balharries, words were not minced, skeletons were not left gathering dust in their respective closets. Now, the truth came out, voiced by three intelligent older women who had a lifetime to analyse and understand, offering the stories behind the stories to Jayne and myself. Depression, affairs, sanitoriums, alcoholism, violence, racism... The narrative was woven together like a braid, different pieces coming together to form the whole, offering unexpected insites. It was the makings of a fantastic novel, or a miniseries, and utterly mind-blowing for the uninitiated.

From years of estrangement, new bonds were created, invitations to futher visits given; relief and enlightenment palpable. The walls of distance, while not destroyed, were left ruined in places with enough room for a few cousins to climb over and visit each other, now and then, should they want to.