Good morning from sunny downtown Kitchener. As you might have guessed, not a lot has been going on around here. Only essential stores are open i.e. groceries, drug stores, LCBO! Yes folks, the liquor stores are open! I'm totally surprised at that but who are we to complain. I mean, we can buy beer and wine at some grocery stores, but apparently that's not quite enough to get us through a long wintery January with nothing else to do. So I reiterate my previous question: when this is over, which meeting do I attend first. A.A. or weight watchers? I mean I had planned to take all the leftover Christmas cookies, chocolates, etc to the store and put them on the table in the staffroom. Unfortunately we are not allowed to open. Apparently inexpensive winter boots, hats, mitts and coats are not as essential as a fine bottle of wine! (but on the bright side, look at how much money I'm saving by not being at work!)
But it turns out, even a lockdown can't stop Carle and I from bargain shopping! A small handful of people are still working part time in the back of the store. I dropped by one day last week to have a coffee with Carle and ended up finding a couple of things I needed. No problem. Just write it down on this conveniently placed list outside my office and we can take care of it when the store re-opens! Too easy 😅
I had the pleasure of James' company for a few days over the holidays. There wasn't really anything for us to do except go for a walk in the park and catch up on lots of TV. He's returning to Bordon the last week in January so he has to isolate for 2 weeks before he returns. Fortunately for me he chose to come and stay with me before his quarantine begins.
On one of the bridges in Victoria Park
It's certainly a study in contrasts. The park is in the middle of the city. The streets along the perimeter appear to be home to many stately old houses. But in the background they are overshadowed by towing apartment buildings. Definitely old meets new!
It was a very pleasant day for a walk. The sun was shining all morning, but by the time we got out there, it had clouded over. Of course as we were driving back home, the sun came out again.
I've joined a local Facebook page for the neighbourhood. I don't post things or make any comments but it's interesting to see just what's going on around you. Perhaps it's our close proximity to downtown and it's typical city problems, but every couple of days there's notification of thefts from peoples property or vehicles.
So you can imagine my surprise when I looked out my upstairs window this morning to admire the bright sun, only to see something fairly large and out of place in my back yard. You have to understand that 3 sides of the yard are fenced and the 4th side, which backs onto the house, also has a set of stairs to walk up from the back yard to the driveway. It's actually a walk out basement back there. Seeing as we've not had any wind recently, and even that might have been impossible to deposit this item in my yard, it seemed rather odd. Upon investigation I realized it was a car top carrier, a fairly large one at that. There were also tracks in the snow from the carrier to the back of the yard and I'm assuming, over the back fence.
I called my nephew to make sure it wasn't something they had dropped off, although I know they would have found a place to put it and also would have told me. No, not theirs. Then I called on my next door neighbour, whom I share a driveway with. Nope, not his either. We did take a walk out to his back yard and noticed footprints in his yard leading to all his locked buildings, but nothing out of place.
Having determined that no one in my bubble owned this carrier, I contacted the police. A nice young officer dropped by and checked it out. There was really nothing to be done, but at least they have a report that this was dropped here. I hadn't touched it so he went down and looked at it and determined that it was empty and one of the locks had been popped open. If there was anything of any value inside, it was long gone. But I can't imagine that there would be anything left inside it this time of year. So after checking everything out, there was nothing else for the police to do. Now it's up to me to try to find the owner, unless of course someone reports to the police that it's been stolen,
I've posted the photo on the neighbourhood Facebook page to see if anyone claims it. If not then I guess it's up for grabs amongst the family!
So that's pretty much my excitement for this week. The highlight of my week is when I get a phone call from the island with a cooking question. Makes me feel just a little special and very happy to still have that connection!
Until next time, stay safe everyone.
