#WeekendCoffeeShare – Spring Walk, Paperwork, Breakfasts & More Snow?

Posted on March 25, 2017 by Dale | 27 Comments

Hello my friends and welcome. Please do come in. You’ll have to stamp your feet to remove the snow. Yes. Curse, cuss, swear, sigh. We got more snow last night. Hello? First day of Spring was Monday? Remember, Ma Nature? Oh well, welcome to Spring in Quebec!

So, if we were having coffee, or tea, or some other beverage, we would complain a bit about yesterday’s snowfall. It is what one does when one is done with it. I, for one, am done with it. No, no, don’t try. You can’t convince me how pretty it is. It really is, isn’t? I don’t care. Come back next Winter.

OK… getting ahead of myself.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you what an absolutely beautifully, gorgeous day we had on Monday! Oh my! First day of spring and the sky was blue, the clouds were white, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the snow was melting! Zeke and I were way overdue for one of our super long walks and man… oh man… did we ever take one!

That 10.9 km is 6.8 miles… just sayin’…

I had decided I wanted to make my way to the St. Lawrence River so we could watch the ice pieces float by and hopefully catch some wildlife. We did so and we ended up all the way into the Old Boucherville section. What a walk! Leaving my house, we walked along Industrial Boulevard to Fort St-Louis. Those who are on Instagram got pretty much a play-by-play of my walk!

And there were honest-to-goodness buds on the trees. Really! Considering last Wednesday’s snowstorm, who’d a thunk?

Crossing the tracks, we walked along a road that runs parallel to the highway until we reached the overpass to the river’s edge. I always stop and admire this house. It speaks to me!

We continued on, past the ever-present construction until we reached Marie-Victorin. This street/boulevard goes through at least six towns (I will have to verify that one!) running the length of the St.Lawrence River. Boucherville, Varennes, Verchères each have their special cachet that I shall have to share with you further!

A little Haiku

Reflections

Loons

From my home town, we get to see the various Boucherville Islands that are now a Provincial Park and we can access via mini ferry (holding bicycles and people only) during the summer season.

Dock to the ferry

Visitor

Zeke – I’ll just wait here

I started taking a bunch of pictures of many of the old houses and realised that I shall share them with you on another post. They deserve to be front and centre! However, I do think it worthwhile to share our big Paroisse Ste-Famille, where I was baptised many a moon ago…

Paroisse Ste-Famille

Shining in the sun

We walked around the little streets, snapping pictures of old houses and I was struck by the gold of the hedge that seemed to pop out of nowhere.

By now I’m wishing I had someone I could call to pick us up and take us the rest of the way home! We were both pooped and decided our evening was going to be one of vegging on the couch!

Tuesday was paperwork day. I realised my passport was due to expire by June of this year and decided to bring it in directly to the passport office. I mean, come on, what if someone comes into my life, sweeps me off my feet and wants to take my on a trip of a lifetime! I must be ready! Of course, reading all about Cady Luck Leedy’s story about HER passport woes is what really made me look at mine in the first place! The whole sweeping off my feet thing is more of a, well, okay, I’ll admit it, a girl can dream, right? I was shocked and pleasantly surprised that the whole thing took a mere one hour and fifteen minutes from beginning to end. How do you like them apples? To think I was going to set my alarm at stupid o’clock to wait in line for the doors to open at 7:30 am. Pfft…. I got there at 11:30 and was in my car by 1:00 pm. And that’s because I did some window-shopping on my way back to my car. Pretty darn good, let me tell you!

As I had sold my car for scrap, I also had to go the S.A.A.Q. (DMV for ya’all) to register the transaction to no longer be liable for the hunk-a-junk. And, lucky me, I got $165 back for the registration! Woot!

On Wednesday, I had breakfast with my youngest sister. Always nice to break the fast with her. Actually, am overdue for breakfast with second sister as well… Hmmm… will have to make arrangements. My mom, Yvon and their grandson arrived at 1:00 pm to visit the apartment my sisters had found for them. It was a big moment and we all (sisters) hoped that Mom and Yvon would fall in love with it (or at least in good like) and agree that it was the place to move to. For those of you who read my Friday Fictioneers this week, you will note it was totally based on this happening! They not only liked it, they signed the lease for June 1st! Wonderful. Now we will all be within 15 minutes of each other. It will definitely take a load off my mother’s shoulders. Of course now we have the lovely prospect of moving them from a house to a 3 1/2 apartment. That will be so much fun. Not.

Nothing much I feel the need to share for Thursday but Friday – yesterday. Well. We’ve come full circle to the beginning of this tale. I must repeat. What in the name of hell is up with Mother Nature? Oh man! That snow is pretty. To be sure. If it were elsewhere. I will admit that Zeke and I enjoyed taking a walk in it and of course I had to take a couple of pictures. Cool the different effects of no flash and flash and a little fun with PicMonkey…

No flash but street light

Flash

I would have sent this out earlier but this afternoon we all went bowling for my niece’s volleyball team. What is it about bowling that is so much fun? Almost the whole family participated and a good laugh was had by all. Now, I’m not one to toot my own horn but I did have to ask for a printout of my scores because man oh man… I was on fire!

Action shots

Uh huh… yeah…

I think I have gone on long enough. We must have gone from coffee to water to wine by now, eh? I hope you enjoyed my little tour of Boucherville and my sharing of my week’s stuff. Now, it’s your turn. Tell me how your week was!

Thank you to our lovely hostess Emily of Nerd in the Brain for hosting this weekly coffee gig. You can click on her name to make your way to her blog where you can find the link to add your coffee talk, should you like! (I haven’t figure out yet how to get the link working on my blog as yet. Mostly because I’ve not really tried!)

Have a marvellous week and see ya’all next week!

Lotsa love,

Dale

Walktober – Old Boucherville, A Second Look

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Dale | 58 Comments

Robin, over at Breezes at Dawn, celebrates October with a Walktober. Lucky for me, she decided to extend the dates so that I and a few others could join in. I was positive I’d be able to write my post by October 25, the official deadline, but no, I have been living in my kitchen. Got a few busy days ahead of me so I figured it’s now or never!

Here’s where I admit to being even later than planned but lucky enough to be included on this November 2nd post!!

I truly enjoy walking around, with my ever-present, dog, Zeke, my hometown of Boucherville, a suburb of Montreal with a population of a little less than 41,000. I’ve lived here my whole life (minus about five years when I foolishly left) and have trouble believing I’d ever live anywhere else. Well, except Tuscany, as I keep threatening my family. But that’s a whole ‘nother story!

Most days will find me walking about Boucherville, either towards “my” river, or to “Teletubbie Park”, or to the industrial park, or to the Parc des Coutances, way over on the other side where, if I’m lucky and early enough, I run into the ladies and their dogs and can stand around chitchatting whilst the dogs chase each other. This is an unofficial dog park to us and only when the cranky old broad comes by do we re-leash the dogs!

Last year I actually did a post on my walk in Old Boucherville and was going to choose another of my walks or a mish-mash of the ones done in October, but by the time I had sorted the pictures, I realised that Old Boucherville would win again!

This particular walk was actually on October 1st, which explains the lack of fall foliage colours! All walks start from my front stoop…. The roses were still blooming beautifully and I just had to snap one more!

As I turned the corner, I was struck by one single leaf in a bush that had decided to stand out.

Walking along Industrial Boulevard, there were just a few trees showing off.

By the end of the boulevard, I decided to walk down to the special pathway that brings me directly into Old Boucherville and was pleasantly surprised by a family of Canada Geese.

Unfortunately, Zeke also noticed them and decided he would like to join them. They disagreed with the idea and hightailed it down the stream!

Before arriving at Louis-H. Lafontaine’s house (if you want to learn more about that, click here), there are lovely trees aligning the stream. This one in particular called me.

Couldn’t resist Zeke as he posed so prettily in the old Fort ruins.

We decided to cross Marie-Victorin Blvd. and walk along the St. Lawrence River’s edge and were treated to a few mallards swimming by.

I got all excited because I thought I saw an eagle! Thanks my Facebook friends for setting me straight by pointing out it was not a majestic eagle but a huge turkey vulture! It was teasing me by swooping around and around… I was impressed, anyway…

A little further on, there seemed to be a party going on in which the seagull was a little shy in joining the ducks…

Crossing back over, I noticed two lovely old houses that I had never paid attention to, and each had a plaque explaining their original inhabitants.

The first one, called La Chaumière was built around 1742, as a dependent to the Seigneurial Manor. At the end of the 19th century, it was transformed into a summer residence and it was at the time that the “oeil de boeuf” (small round window) was created.

The Seigneurial Manor was built around 1740 for the third Seigneur (Lord), François-Pierre Boucher of Boucherville, descendants of the founder, Pierre Boucher.

I foolishly cut across at this point, on my return home and did not get close to the grand church. How, oh how, did I think I could do a walk in Old Boucherville, skipping a whole section?

Guess I’ll just have to go back and continue!

I hope you have enjoyed my walk around a section of Old Boucherville.

Just Stop and Look

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Dale | 27 Comments

I spent the morning helping out at the school with the Grade 9 vaccinations. They were a good group this year! Only one near-fainter and a couple of pale faces and not one talk-back about going back to class. Last year’s bunch, well, a little more lippy!

It ended just in time for lunch with Armen at the Barbú where we hardly spoke about the business ~ still so much to discuss and iron out but not now ~ and mostly spoke about life without Mick and Siran (his sister). It sure isn’t easy, and like me, he misses the little things: impromptu lunches with Mick (I am not quite the same thing!), going to Siran’s for dinner; joining his sisters to visit their mother; phone calls about nothing; working on week-ends. To this last one I told him to take it as a sign. Maybe his inability to work on the week-ends was the Universe telling him to spend more time with your family and less time at the shop! We each have our moments and are still struck with disbelief at our month of December. Losing a sister is not the same as losing a spouse. I could not even imagine losing one of my sisters and he cannot imagine losing his wife. He had a double-whammy with Mick/Siran and I cannot imagine what he’s going through!

So, once we had commiserated enough, we then chose to talk about other things. Things that make us smile. Things that make us laugh. Planning our next camping trips ~ am I REALLY going to drive that Beast and haul that big-ass trailer and join them? I mean seriously, look at the length of that whole thing!!

Anyway, bellies full it was back to work for him and back home for me to go through paperwork… ugh… with maybe a heavy dose of procrastination on The Facebook and The Google and The Twitter and… well, you get the point!

At 4:45 pm with just 15 minutes to get in and get out, I remembered I wanted to pick up bread at Weston (wholesaler) so I hopped into the car. It is to be noted that it is a mere 2 km drive at best! Found what I wanted and stepped out.

The sky was just amazing! Having only my phone on me, right there in the parking lot I snapped a few pics, freezing my hands in the process.

As I crossed the overpass, I actually fleetingly considered stopping (and causing quite the traffic jam) to snap a couple more because by now the colours were splendiferous! No, I did not take the chance of snapping whilst driving (not that I’ve never done that…ahem.) So now I’m racing home, hoping I will be able to capture that sky in all it’s splendour. This time I did stop on the side of my cross-street ~ not completely blocking it… to capture this one.

I parked my car and stepped out onto my driveway to take one last one…

How gorgeous is that? I did not enhance a thing. This is all “natch!” All I did was crop the last one as there were too many cars and yucky snow in the way…

Sometimes, you just have to stop and look at the beauty around you, don’t you think?

Winter’s Delights

Posted on January 26, 2015 by Dale | 32 Comments

Waves of reflections

Here on the South Shore of Montreal we seem to be exempt from the snowfall planned for the North-Eastern States. However, the cold is definitely here! I decided to make like a kid and dress up in my full snowsuit and get some air. Brrr! -22ºC (-8ºF) with a windchill of -27ºC (-17ºF). Let’s just say Zeke was NOT getting the two-hour walk!

We decided on going behind the Industrial area as that is not too far and there are still fields for Zeke to run around in. But then again, there are fields where the wind gets a chance to blow too! To get to the fields, there are two tiny wooded areas on either side of the street leading to one of the businesses.

Into the woods

While walking through, my phone rang and it was my friend Karen. Surprisingly, I was able to actually hold the phone barehanded, while sitting just past the woods and into the field ~ in the sun, where there was no wind, facing a third section of woods.

Shades of Blues and yellows

Zeke was a very patient boy as I sat there slowly feeling my toes freeze ~ not moving in this weather is a definite no-no! Time to hang up and go!

Patience

We ran around a bit, I snapped a few more pics and off to home and warmth!

Cattails

Wild grass

Oh Happy Day

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Dale | 17 Comments

Not that I’m religious or anything (and I don’t have anything against anyone who is) but as I was walking in today’s sunshine, I kept singing Oh Happy Day! Well, I couldn’t sing much of it besides the title as I don’t even know the words but I sure did have the tune in my head!

The day was clear, the sun was high, the heat was… well, the heat was nowhere to be found! I was texting back and forth with my cousin and finally had to tell her that was it. My fingers were frozen!

That said, there was a definite spring in my step and in Zeke’s too! We ended up walking around for a good two hours. (How in the hell did I NOT get my 10,000 steps in? Whatever.) I knew I had a tonne of work waiting for me at home so I wanted to get in as much fresh air as possible.

Blink!

We decided to go way to the other side where there is park after park and pathway after pathway. They wind and connect and bring you to all sorts of places. I am so happy to have discovered just how much Boucherville takes care of its pedestrians!

Winding

Along the path

And to finally see proof that there is growth!

On our way back towards home, I could not help but notice this poor birdhouse all askance. Wonder if it gets any visitors willing to risk sliding right out?

And then. Oh joy! What do I spy but a beautiful Mallard, enjoying a little pond in a park. He just sat there, allowing me to get closer and closer and snap away. Wasn’t easy holding Zeke back but I did manage a few nice clicks. So, so, so pleased am I! The satisfaction I felt is probably a tad over-exaggerated but there it is. I accept it. I embrace it. And, I share it!