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There was consternation when Princess Elizabeth announced her engagement to Prince Philip in 1947 due to his German relations. All of his sisters were married to German men, three of whom had Nazi connections, while his father was a member of the Greek royal family which had been ousted between the world wars. In short, he was foreign, but he also had strong ties to the British Royal Family. His mother was Princess Alice of Battenberg, who had been born at Windsor Castle, named for her grandmother, Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, third child of Queen Victoria.
When the first Princess Alice died in 1878 – the first of the Queen's children to do so – Victoria took up the mantle of offering her grandchildren motherly guidance. They spent considerable time in England and Scotland in their youths, and while two of the siblings would marry Russians, three of them married cousins from the extended BRF. The eldest, Victoria, who would become Philip's grandmother, was one such sibling.
Victoria was born on April 5, 1863 at Windsor Castle less than a year after her parents' marriage when Alice traveled to the UK for an extended visit to attend the wedding of the future Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark. She was Queen Victoria's fourth grandchild and would eventually make up the generation of the monarch's "senior" grandchildren, those closer in age to their younger aunts and uncles than some of their first cousins.
Her early years were spent in Hesse where she shared a room with her younger sister, Ella, and watched her mother champion the cause of nursing through the wars with Prussia of the 1860s and 1870s. By her adolescence she had lost a brother to hemophilia and a sister from diptheria, an outbreak of which cost her her mother at the age of 15. Later, she wrote: "My mother's death was an irreparable loss … My childhood ended with her death, for I became the eldest and most responsible."
It was a cruel twist of fate considering that Alice had been put in the same position at the age of 18 when Prince Albert died in 1861. Victoria became responsible for three younger sisters, Ella, Irene and Alix, as well as a younger brother, Ernest, who was expected to inherit the duchy when their father died.
She was well-acquainted with a cousin from the Hessian side of her family, Prince Louis of Battenberg, in her youth. He, too, grew his own British ties thanks to Princess Alice and he joined the British Royal Navy as an adolescent, becoming a naturalized British citizen at the age of 14 in 1868. He later became acquainted with the Prince and Princess of Wales, even accompanying the former when he traveled to India in 1875-6, and then served his younger brother, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. By the winter of 1882, he took a temporary leave to visit his family in Darmstadt, where he and Victoria became re-acquainted.
By this time Victoria was approaching her 19th birthday and some sort of relationship developed over the course of the next several months and they were engaged the following summer. That September, the Queen appointed Louis on her yacht, HMY Victoria and Albert and on April 30, 1884, he and the Princess were married in Darmstadt in her presence.
Rather amazingly, particularly since the Queen was in residence, Victoria's father, the Duke, chose that same evening to marry his mistress, Countess Alexandrine Hutten-Czapsk. The union shocked the Hessian people and enraged his family, particularly his in-laws. Perhaps thinking that his daughter's wedding would overshadow the event, the reaction was so fierce that he would eventually be forced to seek an annulment.
Within nine months of the wedding, Victoria gave birth to her eldest child, christened Alice after her mother. The couple, who spoke English to one another, lived primarily in England, but occasionally in Germany. Victoria also accompanied Louis to Malta when he was stationed in the Mediterranean, which not-so-ironically is where Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth would spent the first years of the marriage in the late 1940s and early 1950s thanks to Philip's naval career.
In 1889, a second daughter, Louise, was born and in 1892, a son, George. Victoria was a devoted mother who taught her children herself. Always an avid reader, she had a keen interest in science, particularly geology and archaeology. Her youngest son would later say that she was "a walking encyclopedia. All through her life she stored up knowledge on all sorts of subjects, and she had the great gift of being able to make it all interesting when she taught it to me. She was completely methodical; we had time-tables for each subject, and I had to do preparation, and so forth. She taught me to enjoy working hard, and to be thorough. She was outspoken and open-minded to a degree quite unusual in members of the Royal Family. And she was also entirely free from prejudice about politics or colour and things of that kind."
In 1900 she gave birth to her fourth and last child, another son, Louis. Notably, in a time when her siblings and cousins were giving birth every one to two years, Victoria's children spanned 15 years.
Up until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Victoria frequently visited her family in Germany, as well as her sisters, Alix and Ella, in Russia. Indeed, she was one of the many people close to the Tsarina of Russia who pleaded with her to stop associating with Rasputin and questioned the hold he had over her. When the war broke out, Victoria was in Yekaterinburg with her daughter, Louise, before hightailing it back to England via Sweden and Norway.
But despite their British citizenship and residency, Louis and Victoria were considered German, a fact not helped by their last name, Battenberg. Indeed, the BRF, itself, was known as the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha thanks to descent from Prince Albert. Suddenly, the family's close association with its German heritage, dating back to the 18th century when George I had arrived in England from Hanover, became something of an embarrassment. Louis was forced to resign his position in the Navy and the couple retired to Kent House on the Isle of Wight, which belonged to Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll.
On July 14, 1917 George V formally changed the name of his House to that of Windsor and renounced his German titles. Louis and Victoria followed suit and similarly assumed an anglicized version of their name, Mountbatten (ring a bell?). In November of that year Louis was made Marquess of Milford Haven and Victoria became known as Marchioness. At the time of name change, Louis was staying with his son, George, and wrote in the guest book, "Arrived Prince Hyde, Departed Lord Jekyll."
But within days of the name change, Victoria's younger sisters, Ella and Alix, were assassinated during the Russian revolution. While Ella's body would be recovered four years later and interred, Alix's wasn't discovered in Victoria's lifetime. Indeed, decades later, one of Prince Philip's most memorable quotes is him saying that he would love to visit Russia, "although the bastards murdered half my family."
Financially, the war hit the Mountbatten family hard. Louis was forced to renounce his financial ties to Russia and sell a German castle he had inherited from his father. In 1919, they had to let go of Kent House and they moved back to London. It was there, in September 1921, where Louis suddenly caught ill and died from the influenza outbreak. His funeral was held in Westminster Abbey and his body buried on the Isle of Wight.
After his death, Victoria moved to grace and favor apartments in Kensington Palace. By this time, her children were all grown and married and she spent most of her time worrying about them. In 1903, Alice had married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and had five children, the youngest of whom, born in 1921, was her only son, Philip. In 1930, Alice, who suffered from mental health issues, had a breakdown and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. From that point on, Victoria assumed responsibility for her grandson's education, ensuring he was schooled in the UK and had strong ties with the BRF.
Her daughter, Louise, had several attachments over the 1910s and 1920s, the most notable of which was with a Scottish poet named Alexander Stuart-Hill, to whom she became engaged. Initially her parents approved of the match, however as the relationship progressed, Louis had to sit his daughter down and explain that Stuart-Hill was a homosexual and the marriage wouldn't be successful. The engagement was duly broken. Five years later, in 1923, she married Crown Prince Gustav Adolf of Sweden, the widower of her cousin, Margaret of Connaught (daughter of Queen Victoria's son, Prince Arthur). In 1950 she became queen consort of Sweden and passed away in 1965 in Stockholm.
George married Countess Nadejda Mikhailovna de Torby in 1916, who, though she had Russian heritage, was born and raised in France. They resided in London and had two children together. He died in 1935 of bone marrow cancer and the Queen later called him one of the most brilliant men she had ever known.
Louis, the youngest of the bunch, is probably the most recognizable, which is remarkable given the careers of his elder sisters. After World War II he became the last Viceroy of India and would later became an important father figure to the current Prince of Wales. He was assassinated in 1979 by the IRA, an event which devastated Prince Charles and has the rather morose legacy of bonding his great-nephew to Lady Diana Spencer at the start of their relationship in 1980.
He was married Lady Edwina Ashley and had two daughter, Patrica and Pamela, both of whom have been close to the Queen and the current BRF.
In 1947, Victoria was there to see her grandson, Philip, marry George VI's daughter, Princess Elizabeth, at Westminster Abbey. She also had the chance to meet her great-grandson, Prince Charles, and great-granddaughter, Princess Anne. In the summer of 1950, the year Anne was born, she fell ill with bronchitis and died that September at her home in Kensington Palace. She is buried alongside her husband on the Isle of Wight.


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We were dropping Tania and Fiona off for a 4-day weekend in Radium and so the logical idea was to challenge ourselves with the Kootenay Gravel Grinder route. We were a week late for the race, and we'd be days off the pace, but it was in the right place, and from what I hear, a nice route.
The forecast 35ºC heat sounded a little discouraging.
Fortunately, the very rad Megan "Evil Moose" Dunn was putting on an overnight family bikepacking trip on behalf of bikepack.ca on our "home trail" the Elbow Loop. Though Tadhg was going to be the only teen on board, I didn't want to miss a chance to meet other bikepacking families. I figured Tadhg's babysitting experience would serve him well.
We decided to take the easy way in so that we could leave the car in a good position to follow Megan's overnighter with another, longer ride.
We always think of the hike up to Elbow Lake as a bit of a slog, but as Tadhg grows, more of it becomes rideable for him. Our 7km ride in to Tombstone campground was done in just under half an hour, I felt like going for an out-and-back ride somewhere just to have been riding my bike for a bit of time.
[click pictures to embiggerate]
We set up our tent, and were just discussing moving it to a more open area to get out of the stench of horse droppings (the campground is used by equestrians, who apparently have no rules or desire to do any cleanup after their horses) when Megan and her gang arrived.
They had made it up the Little Elbow side of the trail in about 5 hours, which sounds slowish but is actually pretty good time for a family. When there are a 4 and 6 year old riding a tandem attachment and their own bike, the speeds drop pretty quickly.
Later in the afternoon another family arrived on foot with their 1-year-old baby in a backpack. This was definitely a hardcore group.
Once the tents were set up in a more open area of the campground, thoughts turned to food (and the kids started playing tag with each other). I had my new "recipe" rice:
- 2 cups instant rice (with salt from rice instructions)
- 1/2 cup roasted cashews
- oil from rice instructions in separate container
- 1/2 cup coconut milk powder
- 1 tbs curry powder
- Add water according to rice instructions and let sit for 5 minutes (10 minutes if above 1500m)
The coconut milk powder really boosts the calorie count and the cashews add some valuable protein to this tasty dish. I plan on adding dehydrated vegetables to future versions.
As we finished dinner, Jeremy and Chris arrived, Chris's 8-year-old was under her own power on a 24″ wheel fatbike while Jeremy had his Surly Big Fat Dummy with his daughter as cargo (and pusher on steep hills). They had experienced some traffic and other delays, and had come up the much harder Big Elbow side. Their 5 hour time was a substantial accomplishment.
I struggle to find adequate words to describe how much I liked this group. I knew Megan was the real thing in a world of phonies. It turned out that her buddy Katrina is pretty much a force of nature. She and Mike's son is the kind of kid I like to be around, energetic, patient, intelligent and fun-loving. Jeremy and Chris were justifiably proud of their daughters. It took a lot of effort for them to ride/push in the harder way. It really is easy for me to like bikepacking parents, I hope to do something with them again soon.
For our second day, Tadhg suggested that we do the 40km loop, and since he had bonded with the younger boys, we opted to escort them out and then giv'er back to the campsite for our second night.
From experience, I can say that the 5 hours it took us to get out to the trailhead was a very decent speed for a group that included a pregnant woman, a dad with trailer and panniers, a 4-year-old on tandem attachment and a 7-year-old. The level of whine was impressively low as well.
Our trip back up the other side with just the two of us (mostly unladen) was just under the 2.5 hour mark, including a stop for second lunch and investigation of the newly refurbished Romulus campground. This was always our favourite of the loop campgrounds, but the new version has a much improved hiker section, so that the equestrian and hiker sides aren't the posh equestrian and the rustic hiker sections. I can't wait for it to open.
Monday's ride back to the car was uphill, so it was slower than the way in, the plan was to move the car to Sawmill, and then ride the High Rockies Trail to Goat Creek trail and then down to the backcountry campground near Banff town.
I had heard on Friday an interview with the designer of the High Rockies trail in which they discussed how beginner-friendly it was. There was also discussion of how much flow it had. There was even mention of bikepacking, though I was dubious. Previous sections I had ridden were fairly smooth, so I was a little surprised when it became clear how much climbing we were doing.
The reality is that the trail is designed to follow contours and drain well, so it isn't quite as beginner as I was expecting. Tadhg has no pump track experience, so the constant dips sucked his speed away rather than giving him a chance to pump. The trail flow is also at faster speeds than he could manage with a loaded bike.
Since we had the car option, I decided that we needn't suffer quite so much and so we turned around after 45 minutes or so to return to the Sawmill Parking lot. Conveniently, we may have missed a bear closure on the trail just ahead of where we were. The more downhill ride back to the car was much easier than the ride out.
A look at the map and a car ride took us a bit further up the trail. Buller mountain seemed a reasonable place to start and be able to get into the campground by nightfall. The trail was still difficult, but Tadhg was getting the hang of the wavy trail and keeping some of his momentum. After nearly 18km, we came out to a spot near the road and had a good look up the valley. We saw virtually nothing. The smoke was getting quite thick and was obscuring our views of the mountains. We then made the decision to pull the plug on the adventure. Neither of us were in the mood to ride through a smoky mess with the accompanying dry throat and stinging eyes.
On the way back, we did shortcut a section of the trail by taking the road, but the dusty gravel held little appeal, and we were soon back on the trail. All total, we rode roughly 60km for the day which isn't a bad number for the types of trails.
I do not want to seem like I'm disparaging the High Rockies Trail, it is extremely well-designed, especially given the difficult area it travels through. My main issue with the High Rockies Trail is its lack of campgrounds. There are essentially no campgrounds (a couple of car campgrounds at the south end) for the entire 80km of trail. Since few people (and no beginners) have it in them to ride 160km of the trail as an out-and-back trail in a single day, the lack of campgrounds is a significant oversight. If there were campgrounds at the North end and two other places along the trail, they would go a long way to making the trail bikepacking friendly. I've heard that I wouldn't have this issue if I didn't have my family to slow me down, but realistically my family don't move much slower than the average adult, and approximately no hikers will go 80km between campsites.
As it sits, the High Rockies Trail is a great collection of day rides. I might one day ride it as a very long day, but as a hiking or bikepacking trail, it fails miserably until some campgrounds are built along its length. Perhaps making the Mt Rummel campground year-round would be a good start.


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For a custom maple cabinet kitchen it's the grain and detailing that matters.
It's rare to come across a maple kitchen with a vintage American furniture look and not find it just a trifle staid. But when the cabinets are exquisitely made, proportioned and glazed, the result is as timeless and as classic as this custom wormy maple kitchen in Chicago.
Perhaps most surprising is the lack of contrast. From the honey-glazed maple cabinets to the granite counters and the tumbled marble backsplash it's much the same tone. Even the stone-tile floor blends in. For me, the most-handsome area is the SubZero refrigerator and freezer armoire [top] with arched paneled doors that close against an intricately detailed refrigeration cabinet. That cabinet goes to the ceiling in one piece and the usual soffit cabinet space is opened up for display. A matched pair of tall, library style cabinets feature wire-mesh inserts backed by shirred fabric with drawers below and additional, larger display openings on top. At each end of the island there is space to sit down.
The island is a bi-level affair with a raised, granite-topped sideboard-style cabinet facing the dining area. It blocks the view of the main stainless steel sink behind it.
Across the aisle, a 60-inch Wolf dual fuel range is built into a niche that conceals a vent hood and is backed by tumbled marble tile inset with a trio of raised grape cluster motif decorative tiles and a matching smaller scale border. The area also provides raised spice storage shelves and narrow ledges for setting down bottles and utensils.
The mix of materials travels a bit at the secondary sink where a panel of glass mosaic tile is framed with the grape cluster relief behind a stunning marble panel-front apron sink. The panel reminds me of a Roman bath floor (and the sink is definitely tub size) while the surrounding cabinets feel like Philadelphia Main Line. Yet it's a mixed marriage that works.
Kitchen corners that sit between two doors are notoriously tough. Designer Pauline Laner finessed this one by linking cabinets above the doorway within the kitchen area and having two adjacent cabinets built like co-joined hutches with elegant closed, curved side panels that finish them exquisitely. This becomes the breakfast bar with a handy plate rack, coffee maker and toaster oven contained in a charming space.
(Source: BH&G Kitchen and Bath Ideas)
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Expanding Hope for Justice's Shine Career School in Cambodia
The Shine Career School is an educational career center, part of Hope for Justice's rehabilitation program for young girls rescued from sex trafficking in Cambodia.
Most victims of trafficking stop attending school once their exploitation begins, so many of the girls we work with have missed years of education and need special opportunities to make up for it.
For this reason our staff has worked with the Cambodian Ministry of Education to approve an educational program that would enable our students to complete their first years of primary education in an accelerated manner, thus enabling them to advance to high school much quicker than a traditional setting.
On April 22nd, this new program was officially launched and a new chapter for Hope for Justice's Shine Career School began. The students, teachers, and Hope for Justice staff welcomed representatives from the Cambodian Ministry of Education to celebrate the commencement of the Shine Career School's education equivalency program.
The celebration ceremony began with two speeches given by our Country Director, Kathryn Moorehead, and our Career and Education Director, Elizabeth Hollingsworth, who provided an overview of Hope for Justice and the Shine Career School. Afterward, respecting the Khmer tradition, the students at the Shine Career School sang one of their favorite songs, "Yesterday Once More'' by The Carpenters. The ceremony ended with a speech by the Minister Kouch Kou Lam Or, who thanked Hope for Justice for its contribution to the development of Cambodia.
This is an incredible milestone for providing quality care to the girls we serve in Cambodia, giving them even more opportunities to learn, advance, and pursue their own dreams.


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The lesser known scooter from Milan, like their local rivals Innocenti (producers of the Lambretta), ISO also had small cars and commercial vehicles rolling off their production lines. Also like Innocenti, before WW2 ISO were not involved in the automotive industry either, in their case it was refrigerators (as Isothermos).
Arguable one of the prettiest alternatives to a Lambretta or Vespa, this ISO (there were earlier models) was visually a bit of a mixture of both, its 4-speed 150cc engine pretty good too, but sadly the ISO scooters didn't last the distance and eventually the company gave up on two-wheelers.
Ironically, the ISO Grifo sports car was later imported into the UK by Lambretta Concessionaires, although the scooters in 1960 were imported by Stuart & Payne Ltd of London, EC2.
We have a photo of the ISO factory on our main website here.


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Welcome to mpelectric.ca (MP Electric).
Welcome to MP Electric
Qualified, Licensed & Insured Toronto Electricians
MP Electric is an experienced electrical contracting company located in Toronto, Ontario, serving the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), including Scarborough, Markham, Pickering, Ajax, Whitby, North York, Vaughan and surrounding areas.
Our services include LED retrofitting, electrical panel replacements, knob & tube rewiring, electrical service upgrades (from 100 to 200 amps), receptacle installation & replacement, faulty wire trace and troubleshooting, air conditioning installations and smoke alarm installations, just to name a few.
Neighborhoods we regularly service include Downtown Toronto, Roncesvalles, Parkdale, Little Portugal, Trinity-Bellwoods, The Annex, Yorkville, The Entertainmet District, Old Toronto, Rosedale, York, Leaside, Leslieville, Don Mills, Riverdale, The Beaches, Upper Beaches, Woodbine, Birch Cliff and Guildwood, among others.
At MP Electric, we're on a mission to provide the highest quality of service and establish lasting professional relationships with our clients. No matter what the electrical project is, our team will provide valuable insights from years of experience and can apply best practices and effective electrical solutions at your job site. On time and on budget, the team at MP Electric is dedicated to providing quality workmanship with a vigilant focus on safety for all those involved.
LED Retrofitting LED Retrofitting options provide functional benefits including better lighting quality for your home or business.
Update your home or business's outdated knob and tube wiring setup with a safe, efficient, and modern wiring system.
MP Electric offers modern electrical systems that are highly efficient, using less power and draining less of your money.
MP Electric offers a full selection of receptacle installation options for residential and commercial building types.
At MP Electric we know how important it is to have a professionally installed smoke alarm system for you building.
Air Conditioning InstallationA properly and professionally installed air conditioning system provides comfort and a consistent temperature.
If your building is still using a fuse panel, it's time to upgrade to a an effective, modern circuit breaker panel.
Installing a breaker panel for your building is an effective power management solution.
Technology is changing the world of transportation. MP Electric professionally installs electric vehicle charging stations.
If you are in need of Infloor Heating Installation service, then the professionals here at MP Electric can help!
Landscape lighting Installation
If you are in need of Landscape lighting Installation service, then the professionals here at MP Electric can help!
If you are in need of Hot Tub Installation service, then the professionals here at MP Electric can help! We offer hot tub installation services for many different property types, big or small.


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Regular price
Origins: Peru
Bloom: Short, simple pink inflorescence with small flowers that are purple at the margins and white on the face of the petals
Light: Strong indirect, filtered, and/or partial direct light
Ideal for: Outdoors
Water: Spray or dunk twice a week, allow to dry within 6-8 hours. Soaking likely won't be necessary for this dry climate species
This species is part of the tectorum family and produces fun little balls of fuzz over multiple generations. Can handle strong light including direct light and likes good air flow. A must have for collectors and fans of xeric species