Category: Place & Space
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Staring At Blank Walls
I spent the last two days hanging bits and bobs on my dining room walls. And taking most of them down. Seems the thrill of decorating – the implementation vs. the idea of it – is less a thrill and more a sucker-punch to the head. It appears to involve a disproportionate amount of mental… Read more
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Wet Paint
“The cats need to be locked up. They can’t walk on the painted floor or they’ll wreck it,” I said while I painted the entranceway floor (with oil-based paint). Read more
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The Best Place on Earth
The more I travel across this country – and abroad for that matter – the more I am dumbfounded by the human ability to choose just one place to call home. There are a hundred magical villages, towns, cities and regions that strike a frisson of excitement in my gut, triggering the feeling that “I… Read more
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The Paddler
Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk in a torrential downpour and returned home with a kayaker from Florida. Karen has been travelling, paddling and visiting up here since late June. She completed sections of the Trent-Severn Waterway then discovered the Rideau Canal. She parked her car in Ottawa and caught a train back to Kingston,… Read more
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Celebrating Happiness
It seems the entire population came out for the annual summer celebration of village life in Noyers. I took the little ones home around midnight and my eldest wandered in around 1:00am. Apparently there was still a crowd of people in the square until 3:00am, when they shifted to the local after-party. Getting together en… Read more
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Night Wanderings
I’m sweaty, Husband is coughing and hacking, and I can’t sleep. But this is a large house and there are empty beds upstairs. In the blackness of our unfamiliar bedroom I shuffle across the floor, toward the spiral staircase and a sliver of light. The stairs are stone, wedge-shaped, five hundred years old and lack… Read more
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Driving Miss Crazy in Paris
I realize, on Saturday afternoon on the 6th level of the underground parking garage Gare du Nord Paris, that I haven’t driven a standard in three-and-a-half years. Read more
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The View From Here
Waiting for the thunderstorm, which didn’t much materialize. But it did leave us with some gorgeous light and a rainbow. Read more
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Nocturnal Exhibitions
God bless the magic of Twitter. I love to be surprised by what I find and how I find it. Everyday is like following Alice down the rabbit hole. I randomly discovered multidisciplinary artist and musician Lisa Lipton through LOROPR, which called out her upcoming performance art spectacle Window Ballet 2: Electric Boogaloo. The performance piece riffs… Read more
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Adaptive Reuse (and Reuse and Reuse) at the Grey Nuns’ Convent
Not all those who wander are lost. – J.R.R. Tolkien Choosing a mini-adventure over a late afternoon nap, I laced on the mocs and headed across Esplanade Riel to Le Musée de Saint-Boniface. While the museum is filled with fascinating objects, including the half-burnt coffin of Louis Riel, the principal artifact is the building itself.… Read more