Monday 29 September 2014

Geese

Aren't you all lucky, another quick post to try to make September look busy.

As you know I had Sunday night insomnia yesterday, I eventually fell asleep at about 1 am which isn't so bad as there's still 6 hours left before I am roused by Tom's alarm clock and Rose's fairy footsteps on the stair.  However, at the moment we have some fall migrants inhabiting the storm retention pond (or whatever it is) at the back of the house.  Look at all the little blighters looking smug and picturesque this morning.
 Honestly the amount of noise they make all night is astonishing, it's worse than having children.  I can't wait for them to b****r off back to Florida.

Sunday 28 September 2014

A Little September Catch Up...

While it's still September.

Well long time no see, this could be a very poor month for blogging clocking up a mighty 2 posts (or is it 3?, must check and edit) and the only reason you're getting this one is because I've got Sunday night insomnia.  I'm not sure why I'm still afflicted by this as it's a good few years since I've had paid employment to get up for on Monday morning, old habits die hard I guess.

School is in full swing now and everyone has pretty much settled into the way of it again and I have 2 weekends to report so here goes.

The weekend before last (no idea what date that was) we visited Coronation Park in Oakville and I took some fabulous photos of the Toronto skyline from the waterfront.

What do you mean you can't see it? its obvious behind Jacob's right shoulder, and Rose found an unusually large stick insect on an unusually burled tree.
We've had fabulous weather over the past week with everyone back in t-shirts and shorts but the trees have decided that fall is on it's way and are starting to turn.  This afternoon we went to a big park on 16 Mile Creek to find some colour and I remembered to bring my camera (actually I forgot all about it until we arrived in the car park but my luck was in and I unearthed it in the bottom of my bag in amongst the broken hair clips, just-in-case sweets, tissues, shopping bags, plasters etc etc).

Perhaps I'll pop into Bronte Creek this week and see what our local ravine is looking like, maybe I could even attempt another Time Lapse Tuesday.  Possibly not, I seem to be a tad less organised this year (you may have noticed) as a result of which there are no photos of the sound and light installation we went to in Town last weekend or the trip we had to Grand Bend or the visit from our friends this weekend or anything else we've done recently.  C-, Kirstin shows promise in this subject but must stop mucking about and TRY HARDER.

Wednesday 17 September 2014

Oh No, not that time of year again

So there it is, 42.  I won't dwell on it, just a couple of happy birthdays going out to Miranda Hart, Gwyneth Paltrow, Bubbles and all the other people with birthdays around this time.  They may look better than me but I bet they didn't have such an exciting weekend!  In fact, it was so exciting that I only took 3 photos.

On Saturday (after I took everyone to brunch and had the single worst dining experience I've had since we arrived in Canada) we went off to Hamilton to look around Dundurn Castle.  When it was built in the 1830s Dundurn Castle was the largest house in Western Canada, or what is now Ontario and I think that the single most interesting thing was how small it is, you could have fitted the entire house including the servants quarters into one of the larger ballrooms/assembly rooms in Blenheim Palace.  It was lovely and rather grand but small enough that you could imagine living in it.

Anyway, I forgot to remove my camera from my bag until we got to the military museum where Rose had a little sleep in a campaign tent.
And Jacob showed remarkable natural aptitude for playing the accordian, must be his gypsy blood.
We also took in an Art Quilt exhibition which I'd already visited and had dinner in Shoeless Joe's, which was considerably better than brunch, and ate delicious store bought cake.  Hurray for a day of no cooking - here's to many more.

On Sunday we went to Oakville to visit Lakeside Park on the historic waterfront.  It was the most perfect, quiet, hazy September morning, not even any traffic noise and standing with you back to the historic buildings looking out at the Toronto skyline was beautiful.  I didn't bother trying, my camera wouldn't have captured it.

On the way home we called in at the 50 Shades of Black exhibition which Rose and I loved and the boys were not the least impressed by.  It was 50 antique black dresses from around Ontario and Rose got so excited that she went on a bit of an overdrive and didn't calm down for hours.  Here she is with her favorite collection.  It's no surprise that she chose the sparkly ones.

Monday 8 September 2014

Unusual weather and resulting consequences

I have 10 minutes to catch up on a very short blog before I have to fetch the horrors from school so here goes...

There was a tornado in Grand Bend at the end of July that ripped right through our old neighbourhood, it was only an EF1 but it wreaked havoc in Ontario where we're not used to that sort of thing.  When we visited Gary at the end of August I took a couple of photos of the pile of debris that's been collected so far.

So we spent Jacob's birthday in Grand Bend where we visited with people, bbq'd, went to the beach and didn't take any photos.  Jacob had a swanky new camera that he picked out himself but he didn't take any photos either, not sure what his excuse was.

This weekend September arrived properly after a late summer heatwave, it hit 32 degrees in some parts on Friday and the humid X was over 40, yuck.  Anyway, with September comes clear air, this is the kids on the waterfront at Burlington yesterday, it was so clear you could see right across to Stoney Creek and Grimsby and we watched a tanker going into Hamilton Harbour, you can see it on this photo just disappearing into Jacob's shoulder.

Even though it's September it's still about 22 degrees but Rose has a mildly inflamed ear so she had to accessorize apres ski style.
Right, got to dash, sorry about the spelling mistakes I've not noticed yet.