88/365 It's wednesday again...

No, not a random picture of a twig - its guess the duck time again! I know you have been waiting patiently for this time of the week to come, I can tell by the massive count of TWO entries last week - you're hungry for more right?
(Well, the winner last week is not allowed to enter til Saturday to give the rest of you a chance, I can't say fairer than that, Dad hold your horses til then.)
(Oh, and I'll add a clue tomorrow if we don't have a winner by then, but lets face it, this ones easy right?)

This photo also represents blue skies, springtime (saw my first crocuses blooming today) and the first Heron of the season (which I missed taking a photo of). Oh and sitting in the sunshine with a good friend, til we were rudely interrupted by first a dog then a woman falling through the ice. All ended well you'll be glad to hear.
Soggy, but well.

Right, enough procrastination, must cook dinner!

87/365 Finally made a monkey out of me....

Back to the Mayfair this evening, for another dose of Planet of the Apes. This time Number 5 - Battle; accompanied by the pilot of the TV series and two episodes of the animation. A mixed bag, but we had bagged a sofa so I may have nodded off through the final minutes anyway.

Oh, while I'm here, a little piccie of sweater Number three. This little number is knitted in laceweight yarn - never again! I started trying to calculate the number of stitches and it made me dizzy. I love it though.

Number five is nearly done, but will be sent off to a little man I've never met. Hopefully photos to follow afterwards...

86/365 Thus far spring is much like winter....

...except that you can see more grass and there are lots more birds about, many of whom are in a frisky mood.

I got a classic case of brain-freeze whilst walking with Paul to work this morning, like an ice-cream overdose but sadly without the ice-cream bit.

Spent the day knitting away on some new stripety socks in a very festive colour combination. I have reassured P that we will be allowed to wear them all year round and not just at Christmas, but whether I get them done by then is a whole other matter.

NB. Contrary to spell-checkers beliefs, stripety is a word and you should endeavor to use it in a sentence today.

85/365 SUGAR!

The perfect cure for waking up after partaking of a tad too much red wine? A wander down to the Maple Sugar Fest in Vanier. Live entertainment, a big plate of breakfast, book sale and Children's crafts. I love community events so much!

I am fast crashing from my maple syrup high so a bullet point summary is called for:

* Breakfast was just what the doctor ordered (apart from the undercooked potatoes, but the delicious maple syrup made up for it).

* Feeding Amy copious amounts of sugary treats is apparently a spectator sport. I was so hyper this morning. There may have been dancing, and there was definitely skipping and giggling. It beggars belief that my friends still come out in public with me. Maybe I just serve to make them look good!



* I was encouraged to participate at the children's craft table - in fact I was the only participant (maybe I scared the children). I now have an authentic maple syrup catcher of my very own, although mine is made out of cardboard not Birch bark so probably not actually useful. Or authentic. But I had fun. We also purchased some Canadian art....go see here.

* We will now be napping for the afternoon, and possibly the evening too. Hooray.

* I leave you with a clip of the live entertainment. This turned out to be the band warming up, but the tap shoe work was most wonderful anyway. And what would a community event be without a man driving round in a tank thingamy to add to the atmosphere? (I am reliably informed that it is in fact an ATV, but it looks like a tank-lite to my girlie eyes).

84/365 Celebrating Earth Hour

Saturday at work, helping with those life-changing decisions like 'what colours should I use to make a Dr.Who scarf?'. Big fat lunch at the diner....then dinner with friend's. Yummy yummy. Great hosting, great grub and even greater company. Tres bon. Tres bon indeed.

83/365 Popsicle lunchbreak

An hour with the Golden Girls, knitting and the first popsicle (ice-lolly!) of the year - a happy lunchbreak indeed!



(Check out the new shorter hair, a very fabidosey time at the hairdressers with M this morning, oh so relaxing and wonderful).

....lots, lots, lots more piccies uploaded to flickr today. I walked home in a happy trance yesterday with the camera on film-grain mode. If you like textures and pavements head over and have a look....if not, go and treat yourself to a cuppa, its the weekend, hooray!)

82/365 Yippee!

The morning rainbows at the waterfall are back in full glory....(which means I have yet again got my camera lens wet from the spray but us hardcore rainbow photographers have to make these sacrifices).





Oops, as I write this the morning posse of birdies have arrived on the windowsill to nag at me for not putting out the breakfast seed. They have colour co-ordinated their outfits today:

81/365 Wednesday is guess the duck day!

For your delectation today - it's Guess the Duck!
(Insert your own duck based theme tune here....if you're struggling, may I suggest the theme from Count Duckula.)

Anyhow, any guesses on the identity of today's duck:


The winner will recieve....erm....a postcard? Which may or may not be duck themed depending on what I can rustle up.

(NB. The sceptical among you may think that this is all a cunning ploy to disguise the fact that I only took rubbish blurry photos today. No comment).

80/365 Hoots!

Sweater Numero 4 is done - hooray! And I only started it last Friday, I love thick yarn!
Anyway, added to the wardrobe is this owly number, which is probably too warm to wear for much longer this year, but I love it anyway.



(photo taken in my porch, complete with fruity wellies!)
(You can't really see the owls in the photo, but trust me, there are 19 cabled owls round the top, one with yellow button eyes).

79/365 The monday after....

....sunny Sunday, it shall snow once more. And it will also be so ridiculously slippy that you shall go skidding on the ice and land flat on your left side - OW! And although it will be clear to you from the pain down that said left side that you have indeed fallen hard, no bruising shall appear so you shall not be able to milk the sympathy angle to its full potential. Boo Hiss.

However, you will ignore this pain like the brave little soldier you are and go forth and make a snowman with your beloved. And name him Mr. Lumpy. For obvious reasons.

78/365 It's hammock time!

Woop Woop!

77/365 Time passes on...

A birthday. And a happy happy day.

Started with a walk in the sunshine with him and him. Blue skies and slippy underfoot. Some skype with family and then off out for deluxe Mac and cheese at Serious Cheese, and a Planet of the Apes double bill (No.s 3 and 4 in the series). Dinner with friends and two tasty homemade desserts (T's yummy carrot cake and Paul's key-lime pie). Fab. Home to bed, Snickett and slumber.



A strange photo for birthday celebrations? The sundial this morning reminded me to turn the clock back on my camera. Nice that the low-tech manages to keep on top of GMT etc. Time is ticking by, and thus far 31 has started off as a nice age to be.

76/365 So sleepy

Fuggy head lead to a rough night. Murder, She Wrote at 2am in an effort to drift off to sleep is never a good sign.
Not much to report other than the arrival of a few more spring birds, and the use of most of a box of tissues....when will this nose stop running?!

My day was spent with knitting, pyjamas and an old faithful book. Some days you just have to accept that wallowing is all you are capable of. Fun planned for tomorrow though so early to bed now. Night all. x

75/365 I love post.

I had a whole lovely post planned about how much I love getting post (mail), and how happy the sound of letters falling on the mat makes me. But sadly this cold is kicking in with a vengeance and I can barely keep my eyes open or my stuffy nose from running so I'm not sure how far I'll get.

The photo shows the selection of stamps on post received this week - fab! Wallace and Gromit, Winnie the Pooh, Stingray, Return to the Forbidden Planet and Me and My Girl. (Oh and her Majesty of course!). I must admit to being very fond of stamps. There is something magical about little bits of sticky paper that give you permission to transport letters/cards/parcels around the world. The trend now seems to be towards the postage-paid stickery thingamys, long live stamps I say!

And long live letter writing too.....which reminds me its my turn to write to almost all my correspondents at the moment - maybe that's what I'll do from under my duvet tomorrow. Apologies if your next letter comes complete with the aroma of lemsip.

(thank you for the cards, I've been playing guess the handwriting, I'll see how good I am at the weekend!)

74/365 Mission accomplished.

I wanted red shoes, I made red slippers. Happy is a girl with red slippers.






Particularly home made snuggly woolen red slippers with funky square buttons from her Mum.

73/365 I do....

....like a man with a pair of binoculars.



Particularly one that can't answer back!

In other news, I rediscovered Wagon Wheels today. Not quite as I remember them, but a satisfying accompaniment to a cup of tea nonetheless.

72/365 Skis and knitting

Not a whole lot to report today, the dreaded sore-throat is kicking in - agh. After an early morning jaunt to the rapids, we collected the skis (yay) and Paul went off to work. I spent the day knitting a present for a special someone, so this evening we rewarded ourselves with a delve into a present from someone else....yummy chocolates.



Happy happy happy. They are medicinal don't you know. Well they've made me feel better anyway.

71/365 Happy Pi Day

Once a maths geek, always a maths geek. And proud.



Happy pi day one and all.

(It was tastier than it looks).

70/365 The thaw is on...

Spring is definitely on its way. Woken up by a Canada Goose flying over (very noisily), and saw my first Goldeneyes of the season on the river this morning.

To celebrate we hit the ski-sales and now have our very own X-country skis to play with - sadly not any suitable snow, but we'll be poised when winter comes round again.

The river and waterfall are almost back to full pelt, but the stray ice on the left side has formed an icy cavern. Simultaneously beautiful and oh so slightly menacing .

An aside....

According to the stats-buster-gizmo on this blog, thus far this week I have had:

48 hits in Canada (unsurprising, I live here)

35 hits from the United Kingdom (again, not a shocker, frankly I nag my family to read and am surprised this isn't higher!)

but then also.....
11 from United States
8 from Japan
3 from Italy
2 from the United Arab Emirates
and 1 each from Switzerland, Germany and the Isle of Man.

I would just like to say hello to these people, and hope they found what they were looking for....

Further investigation tells me that in the past people have wandered onto this blog as a result of searching for:
"estonia", "hot diamonds", "urban knitting" "dr. quinn" and "wellies in bed".

Now, I realise that in reality these were probably different people, but I do like to imagine that somewhere (almost definitely the Isle of Man) there is a diamond smuggler who disguises themselves as Jane Seymour and counts their ill gotten gains in bed whilst wearing funky knitted wellies.

Maybe I should just get out more.

69/365 What do you call....

....a girl with a cockatiel on her head?

Answers on a postcard please.....

(honestly, I have no idea, I know a man with a seagull is Cliff, woman with holly is Carol.....but failing to find a suitable punchline for for this situation).

68/365 Soggy wet nights

A very grainy photo, my night-time photography isn't really up to par. Especially not when I'm ankle deep in icy water and trying not to slip over.

A soggy day but a good one. Another yoga-art session which I loved, and that was it really. Apart from work and more sitting with the Cockatiel, not a whole lot to report. He seemed to be singing the tune from the Disney version of Robin Hood. But maybe that was just my wishful thinking.

67/365 A musical Wednesday

Off to a free concert at City hall at lunchtime, put on by the NAC orchestra to launch their awareness week. It turned out to be very popular, and we perched ourselves on the floor - which gave us a nice clear view of the proceedings. Obviously not good enough for one budding photographer, who snuck in pretty close to get her souvenir shots of the event:



Not content with a spot of Mozart and prize trumpet playing, to top off my musical afternoon I spent some time with my new BBF (Best Birdie Friend) Hobbes, who serenaded me with the Colonel Bogey March. Sadly he is a little camera shy and didn't want to duet with me on film, I love him anyway though.



(NB. Jasper obviously feels the need to punish me for flirting with other pets, and chose this evenings blizzardy conditions for a 40+ spinner.)

66/365 Pancake Day!

The party was a success, well I enjoyed it anyway - and obviously that's the most important thing!
There were pancakes with a variety of filling options: leeks in smoked cheese sauce, Betsy's apples in Brandy, Kate's ginger and vanilla pears, Paul's lemon and cinnamon bananas, a variety of lovely lovely fruit sauces from the far corners of Canada, lemon and sugar, chocolate spread, Jamaican rum sauce......so much yummy!

The day as a whole was an eventful one. I finished sweater number two while at work this afternoon (Whoop Whoop! Photo's to follow later in the week), almost adopted a dog on the way home and had my hand kissed by a very drunken man who told me I was beautiful (and obviously would have thought the same if sober!)

.....and the morning was spent introducing a friend to Murder, She Wrote. Sadly no conversion occurred so I'll go back to watching it alone. Apparently the choice of episode - set in England with cor-blimey English accents, Angela Lansbury playing both herself and her music-hall singing cousin - was not enough to sway her. Ho hum!

65/365 Housework and hanging out

Sadly, there are consequences to a lazy weekend. The main one being the backlog of jobs to do on Monday. And for once I can't put them off as we're hosting a pancake day party tomorrow so the house has to look at least semi-presentable.

I am not fond of housework, lets face it - who is? And so today I relied on "The colander of chores" to make my decisions and motivate me. All tasks were written on pieces of paper, folded up and put in the colander, then drawn out one by one.....sadly this did mean that "clean the bathroom" was the first job of the day, but at least its done now.

And now I'm free, last thing drawn out was "catch up on the blog and photos" (I didn't say all the tasks were nasty!), so here I am.

I treated Jasper and I to walk in the sunshine for tidying the house (he helped by ensuring I knew when the hoover was switched on by running out of the room). The snow is still quite deep, although it took me quite a few arm-length shots to get a photo to share.....here's the series:





And also a little video of Jasper and I in the snow. Walking in the summer will seem so easy after all this snow-stomping:

64/365 Followed by lazy Sundays.

My recipe for a lazy Sunday?

Brunch and sitting. That accounted for much of our morning. Very nice brunch, and very relaxing sitting.

Then off to the Jazz again in the evening, en route to which we spent time snapping away at the vivid pink sunset. Lovely Jubbly.

Then every lazy Sunday should be finished hanging out with your best friend and a good cheese sandwich.

63/365 Lazy Saturday afternoons

Rain. Rain. And yet more rain.

So stoke the fire and settle down with knitting/book/gameboy and the duvet. Life is still good.



Oops, smoke alarm has just gone off, the apple pie is nearly ready. Hooray!

(Yes, that is the duck that used to be by the fireplace in Hucknall. He now resides on the log Paul gave me for Christmas in 2009, which is waiting for a special occasion. And for when I want to do impressions of the log lady from twin peaks).

62/365 Intruder alert

A strange man has been spotted in the neighbourhood.

Current reports describe him as wearing a brown earflap hat, white linen scarf, courdoroy jacket (with elbow patches), and sunglasses.

He sports a rather fetching moustache.

Please approach with caution.

61/365 Brrrrr....

Last week it got up to 10 degrees here. Remarkably warm.
Today it's -20 again. Jasper is not a fan of -20. Last night he refused to go out, and this morning he made it very clear that he feels the bootie wearing season should be over already.

Which is a shame as he looks so dapper in his cold weather outfit.

60/365 Some days...

...you spend the afternoon teaching someone to crochet, accompanied by a friendly cockatiel.

But as there aren't any photos of that, heres the cheeky squirrel I stopped to stare at on the way there.

59/365 Kaboom!

I finally made it out to watch the dynamiting today, the apartment floor has been vibrating at intervals since Sunday morning but they always seem to be on a tea-break when I go out to watch.....anyway, they were letting off three or four batches at once and the snow was flying.



All in all a fab day. Great fun with a Skype conference call with the family (I chose not to share any of the photos from that as it may have led to being disowned by the sisters!). And to end the day (far too spicy for me) Korean food with friends. Hooray for Tuesdays.