Doors Open

Yesterday, our town had an Open Doors event. We went early to minimize the heat, but it was darn hot anyway. (At this time in mid-September, we seem to be experiencing the hottest extended spell of summer.) We had seen most of the venues before but wanted to support the initiative, so off we went.

The Grand Hotel, previously the Mississippi Inn and then the Heritage Inn, has just opened under its new name. Much time was spent refurbishing the place, so we were anxious to see it. Unfortunately, not much was made available except for the dining room and the dance hall. We weren't allowed upstairs to see the rooms nor the new pub-style restaurant. They do have a business to run, but it seemed more like Doors Ever So Slightly Ajar rather than Doors Open.

Sue in the lobby

The Dining Room

Shall We Dance?

After hitting a few other places — The Masonic Temple and the Keys Apartments — that we had visited and posted of previously (linked above), we made our way to Town Hall.

Councillor Sean Redmond gave us a very informative tour, including Council Chambers.

Sue was in her element sitting in the mayor's chair and holding the gavel. She likes to bring order into the world.

I had been into the concert hall a number of times to shoot events, but it was empty yesterday, so the shots were a bit different.

The stage is a Rake Stage, which means that it is raised from front to back, the back being 18" higher than the front. This would enable the audience to see the dancers' feet.

Looking out from the stage. The balcony is to be refurnished at some point, I have been up there to shoot events.

There are several nice views of the river from the various windows. This one includes the bridge.

Finally, we headed off to see the Hawthorne Mill. I had been there earlier when they opened the doors for the public, but Sue hadn't seen it yet. I posted here back then, so I won't post much this time around. It is hard to fathom that this will become an upscale condo within two years, and then other buildings will be added in about another two years. It is quite an ambitious undertaking. I should have taken a picture of the the rendering of the concept, but I didn't.

The fourth floor of what will become luxury condos.

We were so hot that we headed home rather than touring several remaining open doors.

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Edit: Eventually, I found an image of the plan online. On the right is the present building, the historical Hawthorne Mill. Other buildings will be built from scratch, including a restaurant on the left.

Tinges

Were a long way from glorious colour yet, but as you've already seen, we have tinges. We decided to grab a shawarma for lunch and munch it by town hall. I took a photo of the tower through the, well I'll call it an awning, but it isn't really that. You can see a bit of yellow tinging here, but that wasn't the intent of the photo. I just liked the composition.

Then we went for a walk in the park. The first thing that I saw after parking was the reflections past the bench. There's no orange here, but you can see that some of the leaves are yellowing.

More tinging just a little upstream from the previous photo: a little bit of orange in this one but more yellow still.

Our community high school backs onto the park, and it looked like a phys-ed class was making use of the river and the weather. A pretty nice playground for a school, eh?

Several pics as we walked along the path.

And some orange across the river from near the end of the path before we turned back.

That Tree

With fall in the air ... well actually it isn't so much in the air, the air being warmer and more summery than for most of the summer ... and drier too.

Well anyway ... with fall in the air, I nipped up the street basically to take a shot that I knew would be there. I knew it would be there because I've seen this tree in other years and I also noticed it the other when we drove across the overpass.

But let's not start with that tree; let's start with the overpass, Well, under the overpass.

I went down there to see if there was any colour. And there wasn't much in this direction (upstream). But if you strain your eyes, you might notice a tinge or two.

You could see a little more colouring in the other direction (downstream). Not much yet but some.

Up on the overpass, I found that tree. It changes early every year, I think probably because it's on the water's edge and its roots are likely saturated. I'm sure that has something to do with it because it's much too early for a tree to look like this. And you can tell that by looking at the other trees.

From that position above, I swivelled to my left and hung over the wall of the overpass a bit and took this shot. You can see the colour there too. I have often walked that boardwalk on the bottom left.

That's all, nothing earth shattering. I just wanted to mark the beginning of the change of seasons.

And So It Begins

I don't think I need to say much more except that I found these fallen maple leaves on my walk on the morning before the ironical cat episode of the previous post. Upon returning home, I put them on the pot of mums by the front door and snapped a quick photo. In hindsight, I would have been better photographically served to put them on a dark background, but the mums also represent autumn, so ...

The Cat Got Me

I am trying to make some effort at beginning to put myself into a routine now that the summer is past and especially since the kids are no longer with us and life moves in a bit of a different cadence.

At the top of the list is to be more faithful about doing some very basic exercise: to wit, a few morning back stretches followed by a bit of a walk. If I can establish that very basic bit of routine, maybe I shall be able to add a bit more.

But the cat.

Oh the cat.

There is something about me doing floor stretches that sends her into nonsensical motion. She's purring and butting me and prancing around and lying in my way. And doing it all over again.

As it eventuated, in an effort to switch from one stretch to another and in my concern to not landing my prodigious corpulence on top or her delicate feline frame, didn't I get myself into an awkward position ... and I Hurt My *&^!$ Back while doing so.

How's that for irony? I hurt my back while attempting beneficial back stretches.

It's not something that would happen to just anybody. But then I am not just anybody. I am he of the weak back. I am he who gets his self into odd predicaments. For I am nothing if not weird.

Oh, I've had worse spasms, and barring further aggravation I should be alright in relatively short order. I mean to say, once I'm up I am reasonably ambulatory, so the sprain  is not too debilitating this time around. This time around. It's just that the getting up and down and bending is a bit of a pain.

But it's the irony or injuring my back while working to ameliorate it. It's kind of delicious, even if it's a bit of a pain in the ... um ... back.

Light Up The Labyrinth Walk

Our community created a labyrinth, I would say 3 or 4 years ago although the way time flies, it could be longer. It has become a tradition to light it up one evening as autumn approaches. It's a rather nice, little event.

The walking circles are lined with paper bags and a candle is placed in each. Volunteers light the candles as evening approaches.

To further celebrate Canada's 150th, the outer perimeter was lined with 150 white bags with red maple leaves attached — our colours and our symbol. You can see writing on the bags from messages inscribed by people from the earlier Solstice Peace Walk that I blogged about in June. Nice connection.

As it darkens, I manage to get the whole labyrinth in one frame, using my wide angle lens. You can see the ghosting effect of the walkers due to long exposure times. I actually wanted this effect, but it didn't turn out as nicely as I had thought it would.

Two more shots.

Some of the walkers ... or runners, as the case may be.

There was a wandering minstrel who blew into an unusual instrument at the very beginning of the walk but wandered around playing her guitar and singing after that.

Both Sue and I took some video, and I spliced some clips together. You can hear the minstrel in most of the clips and see her in some.

It was a very pleasant evening.

Back to School

In previous years I have tried to take some semi decent Back to School pics, but the kids don't come here in the morning anymore, and they were at the wrong house for us to easily drop in and take photos before we all met up at the bus stop.

When we did all get together at the bus stop, there was quite a hodgepodge of people and goings on, but I squeezed off a bunch of shots anyway to try to commemorate the occasion. No thoughtful portraits, but the event is somewhat captured, mostly with lots of cropping because there was a whole lot going on.

Just to clarify: these were all taken on the first day of school last Tuesday, but with many posts already in the queue, I am posting almost a week later.

Our group, including the two stepsisters

She: smiles and makes funny face.
He: a little more anxious on the first day back

The bus arrives: parting hugs.

Line up and take the little one's hand on her first day at this school.

Ready to rock n roll.