Markham Fair - Part 1 - and Wedding Update

If it's the last weekend in September, it must be Markham Fair.
We spent Friday at the Fair. A typical Ontario Fall Fair, this one has been in existence for the past 163 years.

Somehow I missed visiting the cow barn, so no pics of cows, but here's one of the alpacas. This fellow's name is Jingle.


And the baby piggies.... bacon sandwich, anyone?

A Lincoln Longwool..... aptly named. Handsome, isn't he?

Prizewinning pigeon. Lot's of colourful birds of all kinds, chickens, bantams, pigeons, and also rabbits...

... and of course, displays of farm machinery both old and new. The Space Cadet tries his hand at tree planting.

Wedding Update

Scroll down to the bottom of the blog page and you'll see the countdown to The Wedding. 13 days to go! The Bride's getting nervous. The Groom seems to be reasonably calm so far, but there's plenty of time for that to change

.

Of course, there are a million last-minute tasks:

• Calligraphy for seating chart for the reception. DONE
• Sew buttons on Mother-of-the-Groom outfit. DONE
• Decide on jewellery to match Mother-of-the-Groom outfit.DONE
• Sew wrap to match Wedding Dress for the Bride. DONE
• Deliver the 3 tiers of Wedding cake to the cake icing lady Oct 9. DONE, pick the completed cake up on Thursday
• Order food for Wedding rehearsal dinner Oct 12. DONE
• Hair do. DONE
• Confirm hotel reservations. DONE
• Clean house ready for visiting wedding guests. NEVER ENDING JOB.
• Meet rellies from UK and Newfoundland at the Airport Oct 9. DONE
• Canadian Thanksgiving dinner with The Space Cadet's family Oct 8. DONE
• Canadian Thanksgiving dinner with my family Oct 10. DONE
• probably lots more stuff I haven't even thought of yet.......

Colours of Autumn

I think Autumn in Canada must be Mother Nature's way of apologising in advance for the harsh winter to come.

Wild asters, sometimes known as Michaelmas Daisy.

Sedum in my garden.

The sunny colours of Golden Rod. This isn't the one that makes you sneeze, that's Ragweed.

I look out of my front window and I see this glorious red maple.

And of course, fruit and veggies are abundant at this time of year. Bacon and tomato sandwiches for lunch, my favourite. A teeny weeny sprinkle of salt, some mayo, toasted homemade 12 grain bread.... need I say more?

P.S. Getting close to that magic number of 10,000 blog visitors! If you are Number 10,000, leave me a message, there will be a little prize in the mail for you.

Update on Thursday at 8:00pm: Nobody has admitted to being Blogger number 10,000, and I know there was somebody, as now we are at 10.008, so I'll keep the prize and try again on my One Year Blogiversary which will be in November.

Marking Time

Christ Church Anglican has just finished building a modern addition, and last Sunday a vertical Sundial was installed on the south wall.

The only other vertical Sundial on a church in Canada is on the wall of Christ Church Anglican in Victoria, British Columbia, the other side of the country.

The tradition of a Sundial on the wall of a church dates back hundreds of years. People would know when it was time to attend mass, and could keep track of time.

Perhaps there were a lot of people late to church on cloudy days.

We were there at just after 2:30pm... the sundial reads just after 1:30, then add an hour for Daylight Savings.

Installing a sundial and reading the time accurately is obviously a very complicated process. Instructions for use are posted on the wall.

Men at Work - Part 2

Just to clarify the previous post a little bit to those of you without benefit of a British background..... here's the "Hole in the Ground" video.... visuals are poor but at least you can hear the song. It was a huge comedy hit in 1960s Britain. Typical British workmen. Click here.

And Sue of Vintage to Victorian reminded me of Bernard Cribbins' other comedy song "Right Said Fred". Thanks Sue! Click here for a video, this is delightful!

Sorry, I haven't figured out how to upload a video to Blogger yet. I probably need to get the nearest ten year old to help me.

Men at Work - Part 1

Anyone remember Bernard Cribbins and "Hole in the Ground"?
Perhaps you have to be British and of A Certain Age for this to be familiar.......

"Don't dig there, dig it elsewhere

Your digging it round and it ought to be square

The shape of it's wrong, it's much too long

And you can't put a hole where a hole don't belong."

Victorian doorway

The elegant front entrance of a Victorian home in my neighbourhood.

This is a red brick house built in 1884 by Abraham Pipher, a local carpenter. He must have been a skilled carpenter as there's lots of decorative woodwork on this home. Enlarge the picture to see the detail around the door frame. The house has been painted white for as long as I can remember.

Saying Goodbye

A fluffy three month old golden retriever puppy came to live with us thirteen years ago.

She had already made her TV debut as a Christmas puppy with a big red bow on a Black’s Cameras ad.

She had a big back yard to run in, and two boys who took her everywhere.
She loved to swim in the town reservoir.

She chased those pesky squirrels. She never caught one.
She spent four (or was it five?) summers at Camp Bellaleo with YoungerSon.

When OlderSon and The Equestrienne moved to their two acre “country estate” she moved with them.

She was gentle and patient even when small rambunctious nieces and nephews climbed all over her.

She had a good life.
She was a good dog.
She was the very best.

Wendydog

August 1 1994 – September 17 2007.