Shadow

My living room window used to look out on an empty lot overgrown with wild cherry trees... so pretty in the spring.... but the land was sold for a new house to be built about six years ago, and since then, this has been my view.

Another reason to be glad I am moving.

What I've Been Up To

I haven't been a very good blogger over the past couple of months.
And I have a really good excuse.
I've been house hunting. I've looked at big, small, old, new, detached, semi-detached, town houses, condos.
But I've finally got myself a new home and I move in a couple of weeks.
So now I'm doing this.

And this.

And since I last posted, this happened. Yes, I had a birthday. A significant one too. I can't imagine how I got to be this old (not telling just HOW old) but it's better than the alternative!

So the whole family got together and we went for a birthday dinner at the Mandarin Chinese Buffet. Mmmm... buffet style Chinese food, and if that doesn't suit you, there's pizza, or roast beef, or spare ribs or sushi.... I love the baked salmon and the spicy shrimp, and the hot and sour soup, and the mango salad... it's all so good!
And then home for a cuppa and fancy birthday cupcakes.
And finally both my grandboys. It's hard to get a picture of them both at the same time, they move so fast.

We've had a couple of new family additions in UK recently. William (baby brother to Oliver) arrived 4 weeks ago and baby Charlie arrived last week, cousins to each other and new second cousins for Callum and Isaac. That makes 5 little boys born in the last 3 years in our family.
And in The Bride's family there are 4 more little boys all under 4 years old.

We're aiming for our very own football team!

Jungle Creatures on the Loose!

That's it, folks! Hallowe'en is over and done for another year.
I spent the evening shelling out at YoungerSon's house, and there were only about 10 doorbell rings. Probably because it was a cold night, and it's in an older neighbourhood with not many young families.
Oh well, that means more chocolate for us!

Here's Mr Pumpkinhead before he got wrestled yelling and screaming dressed into his costume.

But once inside the cosy tiger outfit, Isaac was a happy boy. Although he didn't really get what was going on. Next year will be different!

Meanwhile, Callum went out trick-or-treating with his cousins, he was "the elephant in the room".

Watch out for wild animals!
It can be downright dangerous out there!

It's Pumpkin Time

Isaac took his Mummy and Daddy and Nana on a trip to the local pumpkin patch."I want this one..... no, this one..... or maybe this one..... I just can't decide! Too many to choose from."

" Let's go home and carve a scary face. Daddy, will you help me?"

Happy Hallowe'en to everyone out there in Blogland!

Flying Lessons

He flies through the air with the greatest of ease,
That daring young man on the flying trapeze.......

... and Daddy is providing the safety net.

Forest Trail

I've been given the very important job of puppysitting for the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Tessa is three years old now, but she's convinced that she's still a puppy. It was a perfect blue sky morning so I took Tessa for a walk er, I mean top speed doggy romp, frolic, gallop, run ten times further than anyone else, through York Regional Forest to tire her out. She's less trouble that way!

The colours are glorious with the sun lighting up the leaves. One more wind and rainstorm and they'll all be gone.
A couple of weeks ago EG Wow posted a picture of this strange tipi made of sticks in the middle of the forest. It seems to have more sticks now.... maybe passers by add a stick to it and make a wish to the forest fairies?

I tried to pose Tessa in front of it and asked her to smile nicely for the camera but she wouldn't cooperate.

There were lots of walkers with their dogs, horses and riders, and even a mountain biker taking advantage of the lovely October weather. And lots of people leaving the trails and carrying large buckets. I wondered what they were doing....

.... and then I met a group of Italians who proudly showed me their harvest, courtesy of Mother Nature.
They'll be eating well tonight!

Vroom Vroom

More pictures from the adventures at the Rally Cross at Bancroft last weekend.

YoungerSon and his Dad-in-Law were competing with the 1992 Suzuki Swift that OlderSon and YoungerSon used for Rally competition about 10 years ago. They were competing in Class 1 - front wheel drive. Other classes are rear wheel drive, four wheel drive and turbo.

First task... get the car off the trailer.

When the 1992 Suzuki Swift was new, it was prepared for Rally competition by Four Star Motorsports, fitted with racing seats, roll cage, racing harnesses, fire extinguisher, navigation computer etc, all the bells and whistles needed for competitive rallying.

But the car is outdated now and no longer conforms to all the current North American Rally rules, so after spending 5 years collecting dust in my garage, and then another 3 or 4 in OlderSon's garage, YoungerSon had it towed to his house, cleaned it up, gave it a new coat of paint (you can hardly see the brush strokes), replaced whatever needed to be replaced and it's back in RallyCross action.

YoungerSon and his D-in-L wait anxiously at the start line. First time for D-in-L, he was feeling nervous and rightly so. Sliding round those curves at top speed can be a little scary.

Many of these crazy rally cross drivers use their every day cars to race round the track. And they take off their licence plates in case someone takes a picture and posts it on the internet and their insurance company notices!

The track was pretty dry, but that didn't stop the car getting filthy... but that's what racing against the clock on a dirt track's all about isn't it?

While the car was stored in OlderSon's garage, it became home to a thriving family of mice who lived in mouse nest luxury surrounded by fiberglass insulation. Nice and warm during a Canadian winter. Every time the car zoomed round another corner, more mouse nest material appeared from the nether regions of the car accompanied by lots of mousiepoo. Luckily for the mice they had already been evicted by the new landlord.

During YoungerSon's last run, the Suzuki popped a tire and lost it's transmssion fluid, so D-in-L wasn't able to have his turn to finish, but there's always the next time.... October 17!

For a video of the track, see the previous post.