Today I was delighted to hear from the doll collector who now has my old doll, Nurse Nan. I had written about the doll in a previous blog post and explained how I came to donate her to a local doll collectors’ club. After she had been picked up from my home, Nurse Nan was […]
Suddenly today the temperature went up to 14C and nearly all the snow disappeared within a few hours. The sun was shining and the sky was blue as my eldest son and I went for a walk in Whitemud Park in Edmonton. The river still has a frozen surface, but everywhere else we saw bare […]
As my Covid-19 and winter hibernation has continued, a stalagmite outside the door to my suite has evolved. In the absence of anything else to look at, I have been noticing how it has changed. This ice tower grows beneath the vent from the furnace to my home. As the hot air leaves the house, […]
My eldest son introduced me to yet another wonderful park in Edmonton today. Rundle Park is huge and provides lots of amenities for families to enjoy. I was very impressed by the IceWay which is a wide pathway of ice that meanders around trees and alongside picnic sites. It was getting a lot of use […]
There are many ways in which you might obscure a message that you are trying to send. One of them is by burying the main idea somewhere in the middle of a body of text instead of at the beginning or at the end. Another is by providing too much background information. Similarly, being too […]
Edmonton has lots of great parks and yesterday I visited one that is a popular site for festivals, walks, skiing, skating, and picnics. Hawrelak Park has hosted ice castles, Shakespeare festivals, Heritage Days, and the International Food Festival. It is named for a popular Mayor; William Hawrelak who was quite a character. He was mayor […]
It is always pleasing to see the public engaging with art, and when the public displays a sense of humour in their engagement it feels as though all is right with the world. Back in November, I shared some photos of a new art installation near my home. I think of the work as Red […]
The moon seemed larger and brighter than usual this evening. Here are a few pictures and a little Bing Crosby.
After several days of bitterly cold weather, today was a balmy 4 C (39F). The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the North Saskatchewan River was white. It was a perfect day for a walk, and I took lots of pictures. Here are some of them.
In August 2019 I took some photos of graffiti murals that I didn’t understand. At first I thought it was a sentence, but I decided eventually that I was looking at a series of names. This week I noticed that all but one of those names have been painted over. The new murals are bright […]
A few days ago I wanted to go for a walk somewhere that had the snow shovelled from the sidewalks. My son recommended the Alberta Legislature grounds, and it was a good suggestion. Most of the sidewalks were clear and it felt safe to walk around there. As we were about to leave, we passed […]
When this art installation first appeared on 118 Avenue in Edmonton, there was quite a bit of delighted chatter on the NextDoor app. The local people were both intrigued and amused. Some were a little bewildered asking “Have you seen the giant beans?” and “What are they?” and “What are they for?”. One of the […]
There is a stretch of road near my home that doesn’t seem to know what to do with itself. It is near the football stadium and borders several residential neighbourhoods, so you would think this location would give it all kinds of reasons to be a real going concern. In fact, though, it doesn’t seem […]
The Rossdale Brewery building was originally the Edmonton Brewing and Malting Company. It was built in 1905 by the owner of the Strathcona Hotel, W.H. Shephard. He was so successful at making and selling the product that the company moved to a bigger location in 1913. The Rossdale Brewery building was then taken over by […]
The North Saskatchewan River valley in Edmonton, a couple of weeks before Hallowe’en, with Van Morrison’s Autumn Song.
