So Lisa tells me she's reading The Three Musketeers, based on my recommendation... Cool, I know you'll enjoy it! I happened to be reading it during my trip down East last fall, and as it turns out, there's an odd set of connections that surrounds that occasion, as I'll explain.

Late in the book (don't worry, it's not a major spoiler), the action moves to the town of Béthune, near the Belgian border. Now, at the time I was staying in my mother's house, she had a neighbour -- originally from France, now residing in Ireland, but visiting Cape Breton on a musical exchange -- whose name was Nina Watrelot (= Waterloo, get it?). I didn't happen to mention to her at the time that I was hastening to the end of a classic of French literature; indeed, she might have been more impressed had I been reading it in the original. Be that as it may, I was struck by the coincidence when she mentioned the name of her home town... Béthune!

But wait, there's more. As it turns out, following the Norman conquest of 1066, many people from northern France crossed the Channel and settled in Britain. The name of Béthune followed some of them as far north as Scotland, where it morphed over the centuries into its modern-day cognate: Beaton!

It all means something, I know it...