fall delight

It was an odd sort of day yesterday. It had started in a pale, soft misty slightly out of focus way, the views reminiscent of those pink-ish hued pictures from the 80s. Around 2pm I headed out to the market (so I could be first in line for the pie and soup stall) taking only my small point and shoot camera since I figured there would not be much to see in the overcast sky and fog. There is, between the green where the market is held and the church, a cemetery I wanted to explore and I thought the lack of sun would be beneficial. Then, magically, as I drove up the escarpment (or The Mountain as the locals call it) the sky turned a brilliant blue and the sun shone and it became 20 degrees warmer. Maybe a little less, but it was a significant change. The pavement and the grass was so damp however that I thought it must have rained there earlier, though I found out it hadn't. I wandered around the cemetery for a bit, until my feet were soaked and cold from the dew, then had a refreshing pint at a secluded patio with the sun beating down on my car with all those frozen pies in it. Then I headed home. Down the mountain, admiring the fall colours that we were warned may not be spectacular because of the long, dry, hot summer. (There really should be some safe spots to pull over for photographers, because the best views are often from the highway). Down into the distant fog. By the time I got to the lake it looked like this

there is a big bridge beyond these boats

The thick fog had stuck around parts of the city that were not Ancaster. Or, as the Spectator enthusiastically reported: "...fog slowly slithered into town Wednesday, throwing an increasingly thick and slick blanket of damp air across the city. While there may have been some irritated by the lack of sunlight or the amount of moisture in the suddenly thick air, for the visually inclined it was a delight." Apparently, this was a result of something called advection. I had to look it up, because the newspaper didn't bother to fully explain. It means:

(meteorology) the horizontal transfer of heat or other atmospheric properties

Advection fog Fog which forms in the lower part of a warm moist air mass moving over a colder surface (land or water).

There you are. Your word of the day.

it was hotter than texas*

This might be our new catch-phrase, to replace the more cumbersome "it is hotter than the last time it was this hot at Thanksgiving" (which was about 3 years ago). It was also more humid than any October weekend should be. A friend of mine described how she spent all day Saturday scooping the leaves out of the pool instead of draining it. She did this while in the pool. As we sat outside, watching the thermometer and waiting for that magic number that would break the records (it got up to 28C) and as we ate our turkey and stuffing and roasted vegetables, I thought, this must be almost what it is like at Christmas in Australia and New Zealand. If you squinted against the bright sunlight you could almost imagine that the bright yellow leaves of the maples were instead, big blossoms.

All in all, it was a perfect weekend for walking through the forest or
driving around the countryside looking for fall colours and taking in the studio tour seeking out interesting artisans. Or getting lost finding the poorly signed studios. Not lost, really, I was familiar with the area having lived there for a time, but the signs on these long country concession roads were a little confusing and I ended up a little disoriented. And looking at the brochure, I discovered that GPS co-ordinates were provided in place of addresses! At one point, I just gave up and had some ice cream.

Later, while the turkey was merrily roasting and before the rest of the clan arrived, I decided to go sailing. Last year Orillia had the guitars, this year the street art was sails. Sixty of them. They had been up all summer, but this was my first opportunity to get a chance to find them all, or most of them.

some of them had different designs on the other side

sail on over to my other blog here for more pics

* the news kept making a big deal out of the fact that some cities here were hotter than Dallas, like that was a benchmark of some sort.

SundayStills - barns

One of my favourite shows of the real estate / reality genres on tv comes out of the UK, called Dream Home Abroad. It deals with the trials and tribulations of people who have big dreams and invade the picturesque countryside of France and Italy, buying up ruins abandonned buildings and turning them into gorgeous homes.



Sometimes, I can see the potential in the falling down, rock strewn, property.



Though, most of the time, I am simply transfixed by the outcome.



And wonder why the French and Italians have not bought up the ancient piles themselves to transform them and sell at inflated prices to those enchanted but less adventurous (foolhardy?) Brits.



We don't have any centuries old ruins waiting to be made habitable again.
I would dream of a barn conversion, with a view of the countryside...
but these old barns will soon disappear to make way for a development of large, expensive townhomes.
For more barns, from the many, many Sunday Stills participants who actually live on farms and use their barns, see here

weekends away

For a successful wild women weekend at a cottage, there are a few things that can make the time truly memorable. It helps if one of you actually owns a cottage that you can use. It also helps if one of you should be an excellent cook who absolutely loves to feed the five thousand. You should all love to laugh about life and have a cache of stories to share. And be willing to just lounge around and drink coffee or wine or water or whatever. Indoor plumbing is a good thing to have. As is a fire at the end of the day.

You should travel far enough away that it feels like a true escape from the life you have without these friends nearby.

You find yourself a little dream car

and leave the big city behind

and drive until you cannot drive any further

then you venture a little.

then you stop.

SundayStills - fences

I thought I had more photos of fences that I could just whip one out at will. Apparently not. I have lots of gates and stone walls and a few hedges. And I have quite a few railings, which are sometimes like fences. So I looked up the difference between fences and railings to see if there was any more to the basic one that fences are designed to keep people out whereas railings are designed to keep people in. Then I drove around this morning, early, soas not to arouse too much suspicion, and I peered into various backyards...

A fence is a structure that serves as an enclosure, a railing is a structure with a horizontal bar across the top for support.

Some fences are very basic, but can be prettied up by turning them into a trellis.

Other fences are just basic and need a pretty chicken to make it photogenic.

Then there are the old, old fences that will be torn down when this land is expropriated for another subdivision redevelopment.


I'm not particularly fond of these wooden structures surrounding a house
I don't need that much privacy.

Although, this one at least looks interesting

a variety of decks

and some areas have fencing already installed to separate the yards, but they are usually rather utilitarian and not always enough...

For me, I prefer the wrought iron look.

and even a wee bit flamboyant.

where I visit Ottawa ... part 1

So, first off, let's get this business with the big hair out in the open.
When one goes out to meet people, especially people who have extended an invitation to meet, one usually takes a little trouble with their appearance. I usually opt for the clean clothes, freshly scrubbed skin and neat hair. Neat and relatively flat [ironed] hair. Now, sometimes that look doesn't always stay in place, and after a 6 hour drive on an wide highway with the sunroof open, my nicely flatttened hair ended up looking a little ... dishevelled. A bit windblown. The following day, a half-hearted effort at restraightening it was made - half-hearted because I knew it was only going to become very unstraightened once the many, many, droplets of the best rain that Ottawa had to offer poured down on my head. At one point during the weekend, I was told by the ever encouraging XUP that my hair looked better in this au natural state. Fine, sure. Knowing that I would go home and politely ignore this advice, given with the best of intentions of a true heart. But, by the time I did get home, (where I immediately went into work) after more lashings of rain fell upon my head, and another long drive with the sunroof open, I was met by no less that three people, who did a double take and exclaim such things as "your hair looks really nice" "it suits you", "you've changed your hair, I like it". What is with this liking of big, frizzy hair??? Please, we are not returning to the 80s big hair? dear god, noooo!

Then again, it will save a lot of time...

It didn't rain the WHOLE time I was in Ottawa, but I think we managed to be outside for all of the worst of the heaviest downfalls. Or at least I did, as XUP returned to a nice dry office on Monday, while I ran dripping into various museums to dry off.

XUP gave a first rate personal tour of her city (and a posting complete with all the appropriate linkages) and we saw her local haunts, traipsed around market stalls, looked for wet cats, drank a few glasses of things alcoholic, ate great food, looked at coffee table books with photos of our future dream home in the South of France...
I took photos of many colourful fruits and veg.



After asking politely if it was okay to take a photo, this display was enthusiastically rearranged to add more colour and a bemused customer was left waiting until the photo shoot was complete before being able to select her delicate baby carrots.
This customer (XUP) didn't wait, and got her bag of plums right in the photo


I was treated to tea with XUP* and another Ottawa blogger - Alison* of Party of 3

and once the sun came out, wine with Robin* of Watawa Life
but other stray cats were nowhere to be found.

* not a true likeness

meeting blogfriends from the screen to real life is pretty neat. but right now, I need my beauty sleep. my hair is exhausted. more will follow later...

SundayStills - water towers and silos

Water towers just didn't seem exciting enough to take a photo of (at least the ones here seem boring to me, maybe once I see some of the others, I'll change my mind) and if this is to be a challenge then a silo would be more challenging. Definitely.

I was working for a friend last night and part of his route is in an area where there is still some farming. I'd only ever been up that way in the dark, so I rearranged the deliveries to do that area later, when the sun had risen. I got up to Burnhamthorpe Rd and looked left, then right, then off in the middle distance - not a silo in sight. There were barns and stables. I even saw some horses and cows in a field and to my delight, a chicken! Chickens still make me smile, so I grabbed a photo of a chicken dancing in the driveway and wondered why this farm did not have a silo.

Then on my second last stop before crossing the border back into the urban part of town I found one trying to hide.
And because I missed a previous week's theme with hydro wires getting in the way of a good photo, I got a twofer:

Then, off in the far distance, about a kilometre down the road, I caught sight of some monstrosity. I drove around to get a better view, then closer to try to get a close up but the angles and elevation were all wrong.

Somewhere in this mess over the hill is a maybe a silo?

So we might have another twofer?
The watertower looks much closer to the farm property in the above photo.
And, because of all this exta farting driving around I did, I was a bit later than usual finishing. But that was good, as then the bakery would be open to buy some fresh bread and maybe a danish to go with the free coffee they offer as a treat. My heart skipped a beat when I drove past and saw a tent in the parking lot ... yes, a BBQ! I paid for three raffle tickets and bought a peameal bacon on a bun to aid MS.

All in all my Sunday has been good so far.
See how sunny it was at 7:10am?
Hope everyone else is enjoying their Sunday.

For more SundayStills photos go here