Breugel-Boche Bus 2

 Some details of the Breugel-Boche bus....

There's a video about this marvellous bus, please have a look ----

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQdOu0kqswE

Breugel-Boche Bus

The Bruegel-Boche Bus.... an amazing mindboggling piece of art displayed in it's own room at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario.  The artist started with an old 1960 VW bus, just like the one I had many years ago, and started elaborating on it.  He started in 1996 and the construction is still continuing. 

It's a marveroolus (love that new word, I just made it up by accident) piece of imagination. The bus appears to pull a post-industrial universe displaying a cornucopia of fantastic and seductive worlds, and I wonder if it will ever be finished!

More photos to come......

The Big Bad City

I hardly ever get to go to big bad Downtown Toronto any more, and I certainly NEVER drive there. I can take a bus or train very cheaply and with far less mental stress.  But it's good to have a wander around the city once in a while.... so that's what I did when I went to see SIX - The Musical.  Too bad it was such a grey day.

SIX

 SIX... The Musical.  You would think that it would be difficult task to compose a musical entertainment about King Henry VIII's six wives. After all, it was a sad story for most of them. Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. It was a short musical as musicals go.... only 80 minutes with no intermission... but the six wives sang and danced and were absolutely marvellous and full of delicious energy for the whole show.  I loved it!

The Royal Alexandra Theatre, commonly known as the Royal Alex, is an historic performing arts theatre located at 260 King Street West, in the downtown Toronto Entertainment District. There are 1,244 seats across three levels. Built in 1907, it's the oldest continuously operating legitimate theatre in North America.

Halifax Harbour

It was a grey day but no rain when I wandered along the Halifax waterfront.  The last time I was here was in 2000, the year that the Tall Ships Festival came to Halifax, and the waterfront was very different then, with tall ships from all over the world tied up at it's wharves.

Halifax Harbour is a large natural harbour on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, located in the Halifax Regional Municipality. Halifax largely owes its existence to the harbour, being one of the largest and deepest ice-free natural harbours in the world.

HMCS Sackville - Canada's Oldest Warship

HMCS Sackville is a Flower-class corvette that served in the Royal Canadian Navy and later served as a civilian research vessel. She is now a museum ship located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the last surviving Flower-class corvette.

The ship was transferred to the Canadian Naval Corvette Trust in 1983 and restored to her 1944 appearance. She currently serves the summer months as a museum ship moored beside the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax.  

In September 2003, Sackville broke loose during Hurricane Juan and struck the schooner Larinda moored beside her.  

Sackville is towed by a naval tugboat from HMC Dockyard to a location off Point Pleasant Park on the first Sunday in May to participate in the Commemoration of the Battle of the Atlantic ceremonies held at a memorial in the park overlooking the entrance to Halifax Harbour. 

Sackville typically hosts several dozen Royal Canadian Navy veterans on this day and has also participated in several burials at sea for dispersing the ashes of Royal Canadian Navy veterans of the Battle of the Atlantic at this location. In 2018, the ship underwent CAN$3.5 million in repairs at CFB Halifax.

Vimy Ridge Memorial

The Canadian National Vimy Memorial is a war memorial site in France dedicated to the memory of Canadian Expeditionary Force members killed during the First World War. It also serves as the place of commemoration for Canadian soldiers of the First World War killed or presumed dead in France who have no known grave. The monument is the centrepiece of a 100-hectare (250-acre) preserved battlefield park that encompasses a portion of the ground over which the Canadian Corps made their assault during the initial Battle of Vimy Ridge offensive of the Battle of Arras.

This is a model of the Memorial site and is located in the Military Museum at the Citadel in Halifax.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

 I spent a couple of days in Halifax visiting relatives. There was a pretty good view of the big cruise ship in the harbour from the 17th floor of the hotel. 

Lights, Camera.... Action!

 

A TV show being filmed in the park at Port Perry, Ontario. They were filming all week.... this was their last day. The TV show was called...  sorry, I've forgotten already!

Badlands

 What is it?  A sea of mud? Sleeping elephants? A Mammoth graveyard?

It's the Cheltenham Badlands.  You can read all about the geology of the site here.

On the road....

 

The road to the Cheltenham Badlands.

Road Closed

 

Massive water main break on Main Street. Corrosion of the 80 year old water mains. No water for any of the businesses. No parking for a whole day. School buses being diverted. I think it's fixed now. But that fix must have cost a lot. There have been plans to reconstruct this portion of Main Street for a number of years, Time to get it done before it costs even more.

Super Bunny

 

This brave bunny was visiting my neighbours little patio, munching on some juicy grass. He was definitely keeping an eye on me, just in case I was an evil bunny predator, but didn't object to having his photo taken.

Nasturtium

 

So bright and jolly, and edible too. I bought a packet of seeds about 6 years ago, and each year I save the seed crop, and plant new ones. 

Cabbage number 2.

 

This red cabbage didn't quite make it to supercabbage status, but I love this dusty purple colour. 

Super Monarch

The king of the butterfly world?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarch_butterfly

He's enjoying the nectar from my scarlet runner flowers.
 

Super catalpa tree.

This is the biggest catalpa I have seen.
 

Common Name	Northern catalpa, catalpa, hardy catalpa, cigar tree
Botanical Name	Catalpa speciosa
Family	Bignoniaceae
Plant Type	Deciduous tree
Mature Size	40-70 ft. high, 20-50 ft. wide
Sun Exposure	Full, partial
Soil Type	Moist, well-drained
Soil pH	Acidic to neutral (5.5-7.0)
Bloom Time	Late spring/Early summer
Flower Color	White
Hardiness Zones	4-8 (USDA
Native Area	North America (U.S. Midwest)

Super Sunflower.

 

Super Iris

Trails End Iris Gardens.... my grandson's summer job weeding and transplanting iris plants.
 

Super Doggo.

 Her name is Millie. She's still a baby. But very hairy.

Super apple.

The first apples from the baby apple tree. This little apple tree has been trying very hard to produce an apple and it's finally successful. Well done, little tree.
 

Super Cabbage.

 

SuperMoon

 

Not a very super photo.

2022 books

Canadian Authors in RED, British Authors in BLUE, American Authors in GREEN. 
Books read in 2022, and some I didn't quite finish. 

For previous years' reading lists go here: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010. That's a lot of books.... but I'm not going to count them.

January

Bone and Bread - Saleema Nawaz (good)

The Red Lotus - Chris Bohjalian (good)

The Rehearsal - Annette Christie (DNF got halfway through and pffft!)

Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doerr (loved this book)

Bewilderment - Richard Power 

February

The Fortune Men - Nadifa Mohamed (well worth reading!)

Trees in Canada - John Laird Farrar (super detailed)

The Sense of an Ending - Julian Barnes

The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

March

The Queen's Secret - Karen Harper (DNF, boring)

The Vision of Emma Blau - Ursula Hegi (good)

Polar Vortex - Shani Mootoo

Here the Dark - David Bergen 

Ridgerunner - Gil Adamson

April

We'll All be Burnt in Our Beds Some Day - Joel Thomas Hynes (brutal, savage and wonderful)

The Greatest Hits of Wanda Jaynes - Bridget Canning

The Hush Sisters - Gerard Collins (DNF)

The Help Line - Katherine Collette

May

Dark Roads - Chevy Stevens

Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

Great Circle - Maggie Shipstead (good book)

June

The Overstory - Richard Powers

Out of the Sun - Esi Edugyan

The Promise - Damon Galgut (enjoyed this book)

July

Moving Forward Sideways like a Crab - Shani Mootoo

Most Anything You Please - Trudy J Morgan-Cole

The Art Detectives - Philip Mould

Big Sky - Kate Atkinson

Leaving van Gogh - Carole Wallace

The Colour Purple - Alice Walker

The Teacher's Daughter - Richard B Wright

August

Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard - Richard B Wright

The Art of the Con - Anthony M Amore

The Lady of the Rivers - Phillipa Gregory

Arthur and Sherlock - Michael Sims

September

Clara Callan - Richard B Wright

Talking to a Portrait - Tales of an Art Curator - Rosalind M Pepall

Everyone Brave is Forgiven - Chris Cleave (loved this book)

Black Cake - Charmaine Wilkerson

October

The House of Wives - Simon Choa-Johnston

Incendiary - Chris Cleave (second time reading this, I had forgotten many details)

The High Mountains of Portugal - Yann Martel

The Last Train to London - Meg Waite Clayton

The Man Without a Shadow - Joyce Carol Oates

November

Utopia Avenue - David Mitchell (2nd time reading this)

The Ghost Keeper - Natalie Morrill (good book)

State of Terror - Louise Penny and Hilary Rodham Clinton (ho hum)

December

Nora Webster - Colm Toibin

The Parking Lot Attendant - Nafkote Tamirat

The Woman in the Window - A.J.Finn

Brooklyn - Colm Toibin

Happy New Year to all readers, may you find lots and lots of good books to enjoy in 2023. I've already made a long list of books that I will be looking for at the Library.