Chillin' with Connie

I spent a large part of the last couple days before I headed back to the UK hanging out with Connie. We went for a walk the one morning, down her "street", and were delighted to see so many songbirds, as well as a couple of evil geese, out and about, especially around the marsh that lives at the intersection down the road. Even if a couple of them did try to kill us (I mean, Connie said they were probably just chasing each other and we just happened to be there, but I maintain that they were trying to kill us). 

It really is a gorgeous little bit of land, I took a lot of pictures of this corner from the car while staying with Connie and Brad, but it was nice to walk down there and get some really clear ones.

It certainly didn't hurt that it was such a gorgeous morning.

I love the fence posts in the water. One of my favourite things about being in the country in all these farms is seeing all the places where nature has taken back over from human attempts to tame it, whether that be the rather small fact of marshland taking back over drained land as in these fences, or all the flooded bits beside Stony Trail, or the more obvious sight of decaying barns and sheds that slowly list over and eventually succumb to gravity (there was a shed on the corner leading into Christine's farm that slowly, over the course of my childhood, went from standing mostly upright to leaning over and then disappearing entirely).

The redwing blackbirds were one of the most populous species of birds that morning - the red flash as they fly is so beautiful.

This guy was being very nice about posing for me (but refused to do the same for Connie - hahah).

Mum and I also ended up taking a couple of trips into the city - after I got home, my mum put me on a wait list for the dentist for the couple of days before I left back to the UK, and I ended up getting in due to a cancellation, which mum was *extremely* excited about.

(so of course I had to counter that by continuing to drink as many slushees as humanly possible before heading back to the land of no slushees).

The same day that we went in to the dentist, we stopped by to see Grandma Jones, as well as Lorraine, which was really nice to see them one more time before I hopped back across the pond. We also stopped into the mall and went into Sephora where I cried over the fact that they don't have it in the UK (just kidding I didn't actually cry... much). Mum bought me a Stila liquid eyeliner for my birthday, and I also used my reward points to get a really nice Clinique mascara, AND got my birthday treat from Sephora. So it was a pretty awesome trip. Mum also bought me a book for my birthday. It was awesome.

Then we went to COSTCO. Nothing quite like that big box shopping experience. Plus we hit it at a really awesome time - all the samples were out so we got to try loads of different things. Except the fruit liquorice. The lady serving that didn't seem to actually want to serve it to anyone.

We stopped at the dome briefly on the way home, and I lamented again that I was leaving before there were actually any strawberries.

Sun & A Surprise Park

The week between London and Majorca was largely spent doing school work, interspersed with going to see Captain America The Winter Soldier for a second time with Keira (seriously, its so good), hanging out with Maya and Jordan having scrambled eggs and sparkling wine (a winning combination), getting bubble tea with some other pub people, reading in the sunshine outside Starbucks, and going for a wonderful walk.

(As I said to Shanni, my baristas know my name. They may not know how to spell my name, but they know my name).

I knew there was a rather large park about 10-15 min walk from my house, but the last time I was up there it was freezing and I didn't get far (the walk there was brisk enough, much less going up the hill). However, I really wanted to participate in the Art Assignment's fifth assignment, the quietest space, which challenged viewers to take a walk from their place of residence and find the quietest place. I figured that park would be my best bet, and headed up there. It was absolutely gorgeous out.

It was kind of amazing, because there were so many song birds around, and bees, and all these flowers blossoming… but there were also a ton of people out enjoying the sunshine as well, but there wasn’t any real people noise. Like me, everyone who was out seemed to be content to just wander along silently, soaking up the sunlight and the sounds of nature.

I took a bunch of videos on my phone, which I may edit into something at some point, and which you can really hear all the birds on. It was really funny, because I just kind of spontaneously decided to do this, I was up there in my jeans and nice shirt, converse, big purse... and I passed so many people wearing like, proper hiking clothes with water bottles and stuff. Which was mostly funny because I was like dude, if you think this is an actual hike and not just a nice walk up a hill, you really shouldn't ever go to Canada.

I also discovered a massive community garden that I didn't know existed, that looked rather like some strange shanty town. When I was up here in the winter I thought it was maybe some sort of science station, as there was no one there, but on this day there were loads of people in there working on their gardens.

Arthur's seat looks really intimidating in the distance... I still haven't gotten around to walking up there, but now that its nicer out, I will hopefully do that soon.

In other news, I did my nails for the beach yesterday, and had some trauma over the latest episode of game of thrones (don't scroll past the nail picture if you want to avoid spoilers). 

Connie was not helpful.