Av. Laurier

Today I walked down Laurier. Laurier borders the Plateau and Outremont parts of Montreal, but its essence is all Outremont.
By which I mean, it reeks of luxury. It is also very, very French. As a shopping street then, it makes for great window shopping.
For posh goods, Laurier can't be beaten and the shops are mostly clothes, furniture, toys, linens and cookery utensils. Everything is high end and very beautiful. Strangely, the restaurants are not all high end, though they retain a strong french feel. There are also some superb delicatessens and bakeries.
I should point out that in fact, Laurier, being a long street, is not ALL posh. The further from the mountain you go, in fact, the more hum-drum and regular it gets. In fact, once you pass St. Laurent, forget it, you are effectively back in the Plateau. So I am talking really about the stretch between St. Laurent and Mont Royale itself (a.k.a. 'the mountain').
One of my favourite shops is Verte Camapgne. They stock some fabulous chandeliers (What do you call an irish man hanging from the ceiling? Answer: Sean de Laer..[is that funny to people who aren't Irish? There are a good few irish surnames with 'de xxxx'- a hangover from Norman times, though many have dropped the 'de' such as the once-famous De Laceys, who are now just 'Lacey'])

Anyway, the chandaliers...if you go to the Verte Campagne website, click on 'Fixtures' and then 'Mechini' where they show two amazing examples. (Yours for approx. CAD $1800.) Other, shoddy examples are shown here..

Backgarden Bandit!!

A handsome but evil tabby was apprehended on the neighbours' shed today and was arrested for alleged stalking.
The alarm was raised by 18 sparrows whose calls of distress were heard by yours truly.
Despite being able to temporarily getting Mr. T. Cat to move on, he persisted in returning to the cold and snowy roof, seemingly fascinated by the teepee activities that were taking place. While Mr. Cat (4) did not actually approach any birds or attempt to communicate with them in any way, sparrow spokesman, John Twitter, believes it is only a matter of time. "Maurading wild beasts must not be allowed to perambulate at will; they should be rounded up and sent to Siberia." He added that the sparrow community is in now all of a flutter and concerned for the safety of their children.

Sunday on the Mountain

Alan and I just went for a walk on the mountain. An absolutely beautiful day; perfect for taking photos. Towards the end we saw a couple of squirrels playing/fighting and I got some action shots. Not that they look that active in the final pictures but still.


Then we went for breakfast at Le Vieux St Laurent on Blvd St.Laurent; fabulous big breakfasts and the final bill for the two of us was CAD$11.25...now there's value. Never mind the bacon and eggs, the highlight for me was, as always, the Toast and Honey....curiously had to pay 50c extra for the honey, but sure, you'd hardly grudge them! Anyway, photos, photos...
The top 3 photos are self-explanatory though they might look a little small since I cropped them a bit. The photo directly above I really like, though perhaps it is too small to appreciate here. To the right is a bench and there's a squirrel who's head and tail are just visible. I like the way the trees are sort of leaning in the direction of the squirrel too; he was a slap-dash, busy sort of guy so it could be he has that effect on trees.
I always find it difficult to pin the photos to exactly where I want in the blog but I'll try now to get one below this text....just a nice snow shot...














Done! I hope, anyway. Edit HTML is the way forward... Finally, Alan, who is obsessed with dogs but owns none, took an award-winning photo of a pug, outside a cafe. Here it is...

Teepee Update

The photo on the top shows the teepee in full use this morning. The weather has been really very mild and we've had big thaws. I throw bird seed into and around the base of the teepee, in the hopes that the snow that does come, won't cover up ALL the food. However, the favourite feeding ground, when there is no precipitation, is the top of the fence at the back of the garden. You can see in the photo that there is a dip in the middle of the fence. The fence is made out of two layers of planks and in between, there is a little ledge, not too deep. I pour birdseed along the shallowest part (the dip) and a common sight in the morning is to see the sparrows lined up for their breakfast.
The photo on the bottom was taken only two hours later, during a big snow storm. It's difficult to see but the sparrows had all bunkered down in the teepee. They dont sleep there, they just hang out during the day. The larger bird is one of about half a dozen starlings that come by for grub every now and then. They were attracted by some elderly blueberries I had put out and they stayed for the snow. Although it was snowing, it was quite warm and the starlings, who also like to frequent "Twig Towers" (seen in foreground of photos), had great fun dive bombing into the fresh snow, having "snow baths".
Twig Towers is actually a garden stow-away area but last autumn, I stuffed it with twigs and leaves, for bird shelter during the winter. Curiously, although the sparrows loved Twig Towers during late autumn, once the snow came, they became very leery of it, and only check out the roof buffet when they can find nothing else. The squirrels and the starlings have no such inhibitions, and use Twig Towers as a sort of drive-thru snacking ground.

Happy New Year

And we're back! Happy New Year to all. Apologies in the delay between blogs, but it's hard this time of year to wake up at all. Hibernation and all that. Christmas is so over, so we can skip right ahead. The good news is that the birds are using the garden teepee thing, especially since I've been putting seeds out for them. Also, on the back fence, there is a handy ledge for putting in more seed. Sort of like a trough, I suppose.
However, squirrels tend to hog this trough somewhat- face buried in the seeds, hoovering them all up.
This picture, by the way, was taken of a pretty cool statue on St. Denis. Probably not the best shot possible but it looks good in the snow. The two 'guys' are actually in suits and carrying briefcases.
Apart from that, no real news. Heffly and Bunny Bear are wisely staying indoors due to the inclement weather. Yesterday, the footpaths were lethal following freezing rain. Proper rain fell on top, adding the excitement of aquaplaning into the equation. Lucky I have 4 paws.