A Weekend in London

On a pleasant spring Saturday morning, we dropped Vincent at Noah's Ark and set off for a weekend adventure in London-town. We took the quiet and scenic backroads, stopping first to visit Dave at his nursing home for a nice lunch, two puzzles, and part of a spring-training Jays game.

Heading on to London, we checked in to the Guest House on the Mount, an old nunnery situated at the forks of the Thames and near Western campus. After securing our room, we headed downtown....after driving very slowly through several blocks of emerald-clad students bearing mysterious vessels of green liquid. The St. Patrick's Day festivities were in full swing in the Broughdale district.

Once downtown, we parked the car and walked up to scope out Covent Garden Market. After wandering the aisles and alleys, we walked uptown a few blocks for a nice dinner at Spaghetti Eddy's, home of the quaint ambience and generous portion. We walked off our dinner and conveyed our ample leftovers back to the car, their garlic-infused contents sure to improve the general aroma of the Bronco's interior. 

After a nice coffee at the board game cafe across from the venue, we trekked back uptown and east a few blocks for a few pints of Tennent's at The Scots Corner. This authentic pub experience sent us straight back to last year's trip to Glasgow and Edinburgh, complete with passionate football fans cheering on West Ham to upset Man City and stave off relegation.  

It was time for the main event. We walked back to Canada Life Place, formerly Bud Gardens and The JLC, where we had tickets to the Rock Orchestra. With front row balcony seats, we settled in for two awesome sets of classic rock and 90's grunge performed by a killer orchestra with a gothic backdrop. With 5 strings, 4 horns, 2 drummers and 3 vocalists - 1 extremely energetic and 2 extremely operatic - they rocked their way through a wicked setlist including (among others) Zeppelin, AC/DC, Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, Metallica, GNR, Linkin Park, the Cranberries and Evanescence.

It was a great show, and we would highly recommend if they are touring in your vicinity.

After the show, we headed back to The Mount for a quiet night. A light snowfall made the morning trek to a nearby Starbucks a little more interesting, though the prying wind was truly the eye-watering part. After waking up, we met John and Julie for a nice lunch at the Union Pub in Komoka on our way home to warmer climes. A very windy Monday morning even saw me climbing down into the DEEP ditch to retrieve our garbage bin, as Jane "helped" - i.e. took pictures of my struggles!

What a memorable weekend!

Covent Garden Market

Spaghetti Eddy's

Pints at the Scots Corner

Rock Orchestra!

Fishing the garbage bin out of the ditch

R.I.P. Mama

Sadly, we had to say farewell to Mama in mid-March. She was a tough old gal and had been hanging in there for longer than we would have thought, and still showing joy in her daily routines in spite of her advance age. She had gotten quite thin despite her ravenous appetite, and though we didn't know her age we guessed her to be around 18 years old.

She arrived on our property in February 2011, looking for warmth and safety. Her leg had been ripped open fairly badly, so we locked her in our garage to give her somewhere safe to eat, drink, sleep and heal. Lo and behold, she up and had three kittens one day in the garage, and our little family swelled by four, Mama and her Nugs. We had planned to give the kittens away, but of course we fell in love and could not break up the family.

She loved socializing with us outside, whether it was stealing my chair at the fire pit, hanging out in the hammock as I read a book, our crawling into our tent when we camped in the yard. 

We named her Pooka. In time she healed and stuck around, living mainly outside except on the coldest winter nights. In her later years, she spent more time inside cuddling and enjoying the warmth. She even started to sleep between our pillows and purr softly in our ears. 

She continued to rule over her three babies and also tried to rule the other cats as well. She had real attitude, and her one nickname "Crankenpuss" was well-earned. Mama was matriarch of the property, and the name stuck early on. Even in her declining years, she was a large presence in the house that is already sorely missed.

Farewell sweet baby girl - Mama, aka Pooka, Mama Pook, Crankenpuss, Crankers, Jim/Jimmy/Jimsy, James T. Mifflesmiff, The Smiffler, Tabby Thunder, Stumblebum, and in her chunkier days, both Two-Pants and "The Nuclear Football".    

Bring on Spring!

Spring finally sprung here in the sunny south, after about six weeks of "real" winter. We got a lot of snow for here, but nothing compared to what the rest of Ontario got. Thankfully, we have a very nice neighbour with a tractor, because the drifting was quite bad - he did our driveway three times in a little over a week.

We watched a lot of Olympics from Italy whilst snowbound in February, including the two nailbiters in men's and women's hockey, in which we lost both games in overtime to the Americans. We'll get 'em back in four years.

Late February brought a few concerts of note to raise our spirits. We headed to Chatham and enjoyed a delicious dinner at Korean Fusion before heading over to the Capitol Theatre to catch the Sam Roberts Band from our front-row balcony vantage. He/they did not disappoint, bringing all the hits and his usual cool vibe. He also made me slightly regret our delicious dinner when he announced that the band hung out and had drinks with the locals at the bar we usually go to before shows, the Elephant's Nest.

About a week later, the venue was Caesar's in Windsor. We enjoyed a nice dinner at Legends before heading to the Colosseum for a double shot of Crown Lands followed by The Trews, as they wrapped up their Bloody Light tour. Eschewing our usual nosebleed seats in the mezzanine, this time we opted for second row on the floor.

The boys brought their A-Game and wowed the crowd with all their hits plus a few new offerings, rendered in Colin's unfaltering vocals. They even threw in a few mashup covers with nods to Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and The Who. The band also came out into the crowd twice, having to pass right by our seats each time. 

Any day now we will break the van out of winter torpor and repopulate the deck with furniture - bring on spring!

Beef bulgogi - Spicy pork - Sweet and Sour chicken

Two kinds of kimchi at Korean Fusion

Balcony seats at Chatham Capitol Theatre

Sam Roberts Band bringing the love!

Released from winter's icy grasp by late February

Crown Lands - crazy sound from just two dudes!

The Trews rock the Colosseum at Caesar's!

John-Angus lays it down

The hardest working band in the land!

Colin in the crowd for Ishmael and Maggie

The boys passing by our seats in the second row