A Walk in 6 Snapshots

What does a 30 minute morning walking commute look like? I can't tell you...but I can SHOW you!!!

BAM! ZAM! (Imagine smoke and fireworks).

5 minutes: at about the five minute mark from my house (or Margot's school if I drop Margot off) I'm on the edge of my neighborhood. Walk around this corner and you're essentially out of Hintonburg.*

Leaving the Shire

*Wikipedia lists Hintonburg's borders as slightly larger. I'm sure that's correct but the "feel" of Hintonburg changes in this direction (west) once you past a street called Bayswater.

10 minutes: the 10-minute mark is kindof in a no-man's land between Hintonburg and another neighborhood, little Italy. It's around this point that I go up a small hill and I get the only "view" on my trip - a glimpse of downtown Ottawa. It's not much but the morning light hits the buildings at the right spots so I like it.

The Big City

15 minutes: well that was a bit of a jip! In between the 10 and 15 minute mark was littly Italy, which I was hoping to talk about. But I'm  not going to because by 15 minutes I've passed that 'hood....

...well almost. Continuing my westward journey I run smack into St. Anthony of Padua Church, which played an important part of the local Italian community in Ottawa...or so Wikipedia tells me. Personal tidbit: I have a friend who got married here.

20 minutes: ah now we're hitting the action -  the intersection of Bronson and Gladstone. At 7:50 am it's still relatively quiet but give in another 30 minutes and it's jammed packed.

Instant cure for the blues if you're a walker : walk by a gridlocked intersection.

25 minutes: just past Bronson is the neighborhood of Centretown. When I was a student a lot of my friends live here but it's more diverse than I remember. I see lots of families and retirees as well as students in the morning.

A quiet oasis

A quirky thing about this neighbourhood is that its actually very hard to get to by car. Most of the roads are one way pointing out of the neighbourhood. As a walker, I like that because it means there's very little traffic on the streets and it's very calm.

30 minutes: the 30-minute mark is almost the end of the journey. I'm at the border of Centretown at this point and only a few minutes to my office. It's not a particularly nice area (there's a bus station nearby, which doesn't exactly add a cosmopolitan flair) but hey that's the route.

So there you go! Now you know what its like to walk to work in Ottawa.

Magic :)

Parkdale Pumpkins

One of the great things about living in this area is that we're a short walk away from the Parkdale farmers' market. Unlike other farmers' markets in Ottawa, the Parkdale market is devoted almost exclusively to fruits and veggies. The exceptions are in spring, when its mostly flowers, and around Christmas time when its, surprise surprise, Christmas trees.

I like the focus on food because it means the market serves a practical purpose and helps make this area more livable. Although there are some re-sellers (vendors who buy stuff from other people but don't grow it themselves) there are a lot of actual farmers selling their products there, which is nice.

It would be pretty hard  to live off solely off the stuff sold at the Parkdale farmers' market (until they invent a Sour-cream-and-Onion-potato-chip-tree) but its definitely become part of our routine to check out the market for anything in season.

Last Saturday was gorgeously sunny and Margot and I headed over to the market to buy our Halloween pumpkins.

It was tough deciding which one to buy.

Buy 1...or 20?

But eventually we settled on two round fatties. Margot was super tough and carried hers all by herself...

 ...with only a few sketchy moments where she thought she might drop the pumpkin along the way.

Eventually we made it home.

Job done right? WRONG. There are 3 people in our family. So back we walked to the market to buy one last pumpkin. Luckily, the best thing about the Parkdale market (from Margot's perspective) is that that there's a playground behind it.

Grocery shopping can be such a slog!

Past the Invisible Wall

My new home in Ottawa, Ontario, is just 5 km from the Quebec provincial border but for some people it could be 1000 km away. For many, there is an invisible wall running through the middle of the Ottawa river that prevents them from imagining a life on the other side.

Yes, people are willing to work wherever their job takes them. But when it comes to living (buying a house, going to school, raising kids, even going out) doing so in the "other" province is a challenge that many people in this area struggle with.

I have first hand knowledge of this because I used to think like that! When I first moved to Ottawa I couldn't fathom living in Quebec (I'm from small-ish town Newmarket, Ontario). However, cheap rent and housing prices eventually had me take a good look at Quebec (having a cute Quebec wife doesn't hurt either). I ended up living in Quebec for 9 years.

Language was a bit part of why I was so reluctant. I didn't like the idea of living as a minority language speaker within my own country. Plus there was the whole Quebec separatist political scene, which annoyed me (and still does).

Eventually though, with Glosette Girl's help, I got over my jitters. And I'm glad I did. Although I love urban Ottawa living, geographically and culturally, Quebec is just a beautiful province. You are on the doorstep of nature.

This past weekend, with my sister and her family in tow, we re-visited the Mont-Ste Marie festival of colours. Glosette Girl, Margot and I discovered this a few years ago and we loved sharing the experience with my sister's gang. It was a colour explosion!

This place is only about an hour from my home in rural Quebec.  We started the morning with coffee shops and sidewalks and in the time it takes to watch one Broadchurch episode we were amongst the trees.

A very relaxing way to spend Thanksgiving. I really enjoy discovering these places - wherever they may be.

p.s there was Poutine at the bottom of the hill waiting for us as a reward. That didn't hurt either!

Blessing of the Animals

Yesterday was October 4th. That makes it a special day. Do you know why?

No, it's not because it's the date when Sweden beat Ferdinand III at the Battle at Wittstock. No, it's not because on this date in 1873 Toronto Argonaut Football Club formed. Those are important milestones of course but what I want to talk about is the fact that October 4th is the feast of St Francis of Assisi, which means it's a time of year when many churches invite people's pets to come to mass for special "blessing of the animals" celebrations. 

Funnily enough, I first heard about this event on a British TV comedy called the Vicar of Dibley (yay British comedies!) I thought the whole thing was made up for TV until I realized that my church, All Saints Westboro, holds an annual blessing of the animal celebration. This is the same church that I discussed years ago on my old blog. I still take Margot once a month and the same jolly old priest is still in charge.

The blessing of the animals ceremony

Margot was super excited to go to this year's blessing of the animals because we have a new cat, Marshmallow, whose birthday is on October 2nd - the same day our church was celebrating the blessing of the animals. Margot goes to church school and brought Marshmallow with her. Most of the other kids in church school left their pets with their parents in church so Marshmallow really stood out. That meant Margot got to be the centre of attention and tell the other kids all the interesting facts about him. Many of the kids mentioned how soft and cute Marshmallow was. Margot was literally BEAMING with pride.

Later, after Margot told some random woman that it was Marshmallow's birthday, the entire church sang happy birthday to him (I kid you not!). 

Singing Happy Birthday

The birthday crew

These sorts of celebrations are really memorable and fun. There are a couple of closer churches to our new home in Hintonburg than All Saints Westboro but I'm inclined to stay put for now. Going to this church has been part of the routine of our lives for the last six years and I'm not ready to change it just yet.

It was all worth it

Especially when one of those things involves over a hundred people singing to your pet!