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Elora

Yesterday the weather was beautiful so we drove up to Elora, it was so warm that we got pestered by a wasp while trying to picnic. 

Last time we were up here I took photos of the Mennonite buggies in the car park, yesterday there was a multitude of horses of the steel variety.

Elora is popular for its picturesque shopping area and historic buildings, its rather like Kirby Lonsdale but with a large abandoned mill.  There is also an impressive gorge and the steps down into it were open so we got down to the river for a walk.

Here's the view down into it first.  I do like a nice industrial looking bridge.

And here's Rose and some of the last bits of good fall colour.

There were lots of hidey holes in the rock faces for things to hide in.  The kids climbed into one and discovered that rock climbing up real rocks is a little more difficult when you don't have coloured rubber hand holds.

Happy Halloween

Well hello there.  Let's gloss over the recent radio silence and get straight on with Halloween.

Jacob decided he's too old to go trick or treating so I got him scary gloves to wear while dishing out sweets to the little kids.

Rose was a ghost bride.  I had a lot of fun making her costume, specially the headdress veil thing.  People kept telling her she looked beautiful which she didn't know quite what to make of as she was trying to be scary.

If anyone's looking to get married and needs bridal accessories on the cheap (plastic spiders included in the very reasonable prices) just give me a call.  I also do make up!

Picture Perfect

This post is purely and simply to showcase another great Rose outfit.  Today I bought her some inline skates as an early birthday gift, of course she had to try them out at the earliest opportunity which happened to be straight after gymnastics class.  So without further ado...

I'm sorry it's a little blurred, I think the auto focus was unable to see her face beside the astonishing body suit and I was laughing so hard I was having trouble keeping my hands from shaking.

Busy Saturday

This weekend has been a veritable emotional roller coaster for Jacob.

On Saturday it was Doors Open Waterloo Region, a daylong event where heritage properties are free and some that are not usually accessible to the public are open.  This year they changed things up and had a technology theme and you could look round a whole bunch of techs offices and parts of the University of Waterloo.  We tried to have a look at the new Google headquarters for Canada but hundreds of people were queueing in the rain to go in and I absolutely do not queue in the rain outside the UK so we went to the Shopify building instead.

I have absolutely no idea what Shopify do, even having toured their building I have no idea who they are.  We chose that one because the Kitchener Post fibbed and said you could try out their virtual reality games (poor Jacob, hopes dashed again) and I was totally not expecting a bunch of techies to have an office that looks like this.

Turns out it is a converted historic distillery and it's amazing.  This side of the building is just for employees to hang out in when they're not busy, lucky them.

Here's a cute library with no books in it.

And here's Rose selfie-ing in front of a still.

As well as a virtual reality room there was a yoga studio and a very nice bar with a pool table.  Perhaps I should find out what they do and try to work there.

On Saturday evening we took the kids over to Grand River Rocks to try to interest Jacob in some form of physical activity.  It worked! He was overheard to say 'I can't wait until next Saturday to do this again' on the way out.

It is an amazing facility with more routes than I could count and a big Boulder in the middle with overhanging bits that you didn't need ropes for, needless to say Rose loved it too.  Here's a couple of pics.

Happy September

You'd think I'd forgotten how to write wouldn't you.  It's not quite true it's just been so hot here that enthusiasm plummeted and I don't think I took a single photograph for 3 weeks.

Here's a quick summary of what we have done...

It was Jacob's birthday and he purchased a new computer with his birthday money.  We went into Best Buy for it and were helped for about an hour by a salesman called Josh who is now Jacob's idol, he even unscrewed the back of the tower so we could see how to change out the power supply.  It was such an amazing experience that it was declared to not only exceed his expectations but also be way better than he hoped.  I will cherish having brought this about, it might not happen again.

We went to Sky Zone trampoline park and Rose jumped so much she looked like this.

Jacob grew some more, he got new shoes for school and is a mans Canadian size 8, they fit me.  We went for a walk at Laurel Creek yesterday and here is the height difference between the kids.

It's even worse if he stands upright.

The school holidays ended (yes!) and school started (double yes)

The new appliances arrived for the kitchen.  They look great but the dishwasher intake connector does not fit the old one so I've been doing a lot of washing up.  I'm not sure if I caused our plumber to have an accident calling him on Friday so we may have a very decorative but useless machine for a while.

So that's all I can remember right now, here's another pic of J and R from yesterday to sign off.

A Day at the Museum

Yesterday we went to Waterloo Region Museum.  I really like this museum because it's one of those ones like Beamish in England where they've rescued old buildings and made a little village dating from around 1914.  You can visit all the little businesses and houses and all the staff are in period costume, even the blacksmith who doesn't wear plastic safety goggles.

I wondered how long I'd manage to keep the kids engaged but there were different activities to do every half hour so in the end we were there pretty much there all day.

To keep it short, here is a pictorial list of what we did.

Bought train tickets to Toronto for a train that never moves.  I can never get over how massive theses trains are, imagine seeing one for the first time roaring over the plains when you'd never come across anything bigger than a bison before, it must have been terrifying.

Made paper pinwheels which apparently were used instead of scarecrows as well as as toys.

Tried on costumes, Jacob declined but Rose tried on a few.  Looks like she's on the naughty chair for wearing gold sandals to school.

Made indigenous pots out of play dough.

Pretended to be a lady doing the lady walk.

Took rubbish selfies.

We also ate lunch and ice creams, learned about the naming of Kitchener and also how to do the Charleston, Shim Sham and the Hustle.  Jacob has a video of Rose and I doing the hustle, I'm not posting it, I'll just say that John Travolta has nothing to worry about.

We didn't make bread, butter, ice cream, steel poppies or scarecrows or help with the laundry or the farm chores.  If we get bored next week we might go again to try and finish it all up!

Ottawa

For the last couple of days we've been 'doing' Ottawa.  I can't decide if I like it best with numb hands in the rain in November or in the melting heat of 34 degrees in August.  I'm wondering about trying to come here sometime when the weather is normal.

Here's what we've done.

We went to the National Art Gallery, the buildings are amazing, this is the ramp up to the first floor.

And this is the atrium roof and some weird child with several chins.

I really enjoyed the collection of Picasso etchings although they were a bit disturbing, and the indigenous gallery, and also the Chris Cran exhibit, especially the self portrait series.  However, I won't say that seeing Tom Thompson's The Jack Pine was my only reason for coming to Ottawa but I was gutted to discover that the Canadian Art section was closed for refurb ready for the confederation celebrations next year. I guess we're visiting again.

We viewed the parliament buildings from the outside.

It's quite neat right now as they are renewing some of the copper roofing so large parts of it look like they're covered in shiny new pennies.

We watched part of the daily parade up to parliament hill, I do like a good marching band.  Even at 10am the humidity has been making it feel like the high 20s, I think they should have military sombreros for this weather.

And finally, last night we went to the free Thursday night version of the Museum of Nature.  It was good but nothing special really.  Jacob saw a narwhal tusk thing...

And a moose tried to lick his head.

We've also done some shopping (well Rose and I did while the men stood around looking bored), got hot, walked a lot, got hot, eaten some good food (too much of it), got hot, and have been swimming a hundred times.

Today we are going halfway home, the heat is finally set to break and we may have some good storms.  Glad I'm not driving!

Gatineau Park

Today we crossed the river to visit Gatineau Park.  I believe (although there is a good possibility that I am mistaken in this) that we drove through French speaking Hull (or should that be 'ull) which is the name of the part of Ottawa across the river in Quebec.  We (Jacob) noted that the electricity pylons look different and the traffic lights are sideways, perhaps they are tired or just a bit more laid back.

We took a walk around Pink Lake which is not pink but a truly mesmerizing shade of green.  The lake is surrounded by quite steep cliff faces in many areas so there is a trail of boardwalks and I'm going to guess at maybe 800 wooden steps.  Arghh, I pretended to be fit at the time as Gary was bounding up and down them like a spring chicken on caffeine energy drinks but I will pay tomorrow.  Here he is running ahead with the kids.

Pink Lake is a meromictic lake which is apparently a rare phenomenon where a lake is very deep and in this case, very sheltered so the bottom layers of water never mix with those at the top.  This means that a special sort of green weed lives here that helps to give the lake it's amazing colour.  Here are another couple of attempts to capture it.

I don't think the kids noticed much but we saw turtles, frogs a chipmunk and I think a distant loon, the feathered sort and my first.  No wolves and bears which wasn't surprising given that our children were not the noisiest there.  Now that was a nice change of pace.

Jones Falls

So I'm just going to try to slip in another post while the menfolk sleep and the wifi is working (touch wood!).

Yesterday we took the scenic route from Kingston to Ottawa through cottage country and stopped off at Jones Falls Locks which is part of the Rideau Canal that links Ottawa and Kingston. Before I get into any boring history I'm just going to say that it was very cool and quite beautiful.

I'm having a bit of trouble with this as the literature says that 'The Rideau Canal is the best-preserved 'slackwater' canal in North America' and I'm unable to find an adequate definition of slackwater.  Basically I think that it's a river where all the rapids and waterfalls and other dangerous, unnavigable bits have been replaced with locks so you end up with a stretch of water with no excessive currents that is accessible to shipping.  It is very different on the map to a quintessential British canal as it just looks like a river with all the wiggles and lakes in tact.

Anyway, as it is still in use as a recreational waterway it's looked after by Parks Canada.  At Jones Falls there were footpaths and bathrooms and a tiny interpretation centre and as it is a bit out of the way there was nobody there apart from the people with boats going through the locks, it was lovely.  My words are getting boring so here's a few pictures.

These locks were built between 1827 and 1832 and all the Victorian technology is still intact and in use.  Parks Canada even supply 2 strapping young men to do all the muscle work with this ginormous winding equipment, how considerate!

We also found some fake wildlife.  Don't be fooled by the smiley face, the incessant moaning by both children made me wish we didn't have to bring them.

Kingston

We are on our way to Ottawa for an interesting and educational summer break.  In order to break up the journey and save me from inevitable insanity sitting in the back of the car all day with the kids we stopped off in Kingston.

Kingston was established in 1673 and is therefore the oldest European settlement in Ontario.  There are some beautiful old buildings (which I did not take pictures of) and with the lake view and fountains and all the patio seating outside the restaurants it was a lovely place for wandering around on a warm summer evening.

There was a surprising amount of wildlife, first we spotted a bear...

Then a moose...

We went on a cruise around the harbour and some of the islands, it wasn't up to the Georgian bay cruise as the scenery was not half as spectacular.  Rose got bored and took about 50 selfies.  Here are a couple of the best.

Made by Me Monday

Last week Rose and I went to Fabricland for some bits and pieces.  I had no particular intention of getting anything for Rose but was somehow coerced into a dressmaking  project for her, to be honest it didn't take much as I like sewing and she always chooses good colours.

She chose McCalls pattern M7343 and some rather fabulous fabrics.

It's a remarkably easy pattern, the worst part was hand finishing the hem as the circle skirt went on for ever and I didn't want to make a mess of it with the machine.  I have to say that I think ours looks better than the models, the trainers and animal print socks really set it off.

It's a shame we've not been invited to any garden parties.

And to prove that Jacob is still with us after a week of camp here he is assisting in provoking a fight while we were at Guelph Arboretum this afternoon.

Pink Hair and Flowers

What's going on with techno Thursday? This week Jacob was at a pool party again.  Probably for the best as he had been at camp everyday learning to animate things.

While he was away Rose and I did some girls things, we bought fabric for a summer dress (coming soon), painted toe nails with flower patterns (thank you for the invaluable advice Sara's beauty corner) and Rose had her hair done.

The pink streaks aren't permenant.

The relentless heat has let up a bit and we've actually had a couple of nights of rain.  The grass is still yellow but the sunflowers are now officially taller than Rose.

My cone flowers are coming out, you can just see one behind Rose's head, and the Black Eyed Susans are starting too.

Yesterday we went for a walk by the Grand River (it's name not a description).  I wished I had a canoe as it would have been a lovely day for a paddle and I might not have been able to hear the kids moaning back on the river bank.  We were right in the middle of a city with a population of 500,000 and look how busy it was.

We walked through a couple of lovely flower glades to get there.  I don't know if  you can tell but there were hundreds of Black Eyed Susans here, bit more impressive than my 4 that are currently out.

Techno Tuesday

Or is it Made by Me Muesday?  You choose.

Jacob was at his station last Thursday but unfortunately I was not so here's the Tuesday version.

I know it's July and we're in the middle of a heatwave but I've been looking ahead and getting some knitting done for the fall.  This time I took Jacob with me to buy the yarn in order to get tried and tested non-itchy, for modelling purposes we are good, I guess time will tell for the actual wearing.

Its 'based on' (I say this because I bought the wrong weight yarn and mis-read the pattern so it's not quite the same) a free pattern I found on Ravelry called Wurm by Katharina Nopp, it's pretty easy and very versatile.

And here's Rose with our first ripe beefsteak tomato and a profusion of borage flowers