kumo and a cathedral

This is the Notre Dame Cathedral Basilica in Ottawa.
It was built in 1846 with the two gothic spires added in 1866. 







They are covered in tin, which is a common feature for French Canadian churches.

In between the spires is a gilded Madonna.

and, for a special Canada 150 event, by special permission of the Archbishop,
a giant spider will spend the night atop the Cathedral

Yeah, Ottawa already has a giant spider, living right across the road at the National Gallery, a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois

but this is a giant mechanical spider. named KUMO.

She 

slept on top of Notre Dame and was awakened on Thursday evening. On Friday morning a giant fire breathing dragon was woken up amid a weekend of traffic snarls around this urban roaming theatre.  You can see a three part video of the awakening (complete with an orchestra suspended in cages and puppeteers rappelling down ropes onto their positions on the spider to make her move. it's a long video, but fast forward and you'll see it's pretty cool!)

All we got in Toronto was a giant duck... and me, an affirmed arachnophobe, I wish I could have been in Ottawa for this.

You can read all about La Machine and the exciting weekend here. But if you want to see this street theatre you need to be in Ottawa from July 27-30th.  The basilica, however will always be there for you to see. On Sussex Drive.

fast forward to around the 9 minute mark

photos of kumo credit ottawa citizen and radio-canada

for InSPIREd Sunday

rubber ducky

Went for a day trip to Midland last week

(not on the day thousands were trapped on the highway when it was closed for 11 hours due to an accident, thank god!)   (photo courtesy of cp24 news)

The harbour has changed a lot since the days in the early 1900s of this postcard

it's on the southern tip of Georgian Bay

but what we were looking for was this

at the foot of King and First Streets

The giant rubber ducky that has garnered so many complaints from those who have no desire for fun and silliness in their lives. This was her first visit to Canada and she made her appearance for the Canada 150 celebrations.  (just google rubber duck toronto and scroll past the newer stories of how spectacularly successful it was to the weeks before she arrived and read all the whining about the cost, what a duck has to do with Canada's sesquicentennial, the cost! ... ad nauseum)

She is big. Six storeys tall. It takes almost 3 hours to inflate.

And it was a LOT less crowded here than in Toronto (hence the 3 hour drive)

Keeping the duck company is this swan sculpture

which celebrates the efforts of those who helped reintroduce the trumpeter swans to Georgian Bay. The swan sculpture is more life size.

We didn't see any swans, though

just a big duck who couldn't hide no matter how hard she tried

Then, we walked round town looking for murals, but that will be another post. I'm reintroducing myself to short walks for Jo's Monday walk