Paul's sister, Deanna is in town with her two sons. Today we had made plans to go to the St Jacob's market and Stratford with Deanna, while Paul's mom did babysitting duty. Of course this is not a task without some risk - I know if I were to care for a 14 month old child for 12 hours I'd run screaming to the hills. Doreen is a better person than I!
We were to pick up Deanna at 6:45 but we were delayed by an u'nfortunate lawn incident' . . . just before we were to leave Paul looked out the window and noticed that something was wrong with the lawn, It would appear that the local raccoons had ripped the crap out of it while digging for grubs last night!
ARGH
I replaced what sod I could and watered it. Then we were off.
We arrived at the market at about 7:45. We showed Deanna around and stocked up on meats, vegetables, fruits, and yes - lots of baked goods!
Leaving the market, we traveled to St Agatha we were had breakfast at our favourite breakfast spot:
Paul treated us to breakfast which made a good thing even better!
About 45 minutes later we were in Stratford. I parked the car near the river and we walked along the river banks, enjoying the ducks and the swans.
It took about an hour to walk along the path. It was a perfect day for walking - sunny, a gentle breeze, and not too warm. With the great company the time flew by.
When we got back to the car we drove to the Erie Street parking lot where I parked ( $ 0.50 for two hours). Our lunch reservations were for 1 pm so this gave us 2 hours to wander about the town.
Paul and I showed Deanna our favourite shopping spots.
Hmmm - I notice that all of our favourite shopping spots involve food! Oh well, we love our food - sue us!
At 1 pm we had reservations for Bijou. Bijou (review to follow at some point) is a wonderful restaurant the serves food from a regularly changing menu made with fresh, local ingredients. Lunch was a treat. Actually, lunch was my treat! *smile*
Toronto Life gave Bijou 2 1/2 stars and had this to say about the restaurant:
A little jewel indeed: nearly every dish focuses on a local or seasonal ingredient, each one dressed up with a creative twist.
After a wonderful lunch we made one more stop at yet another chocolate store and headed home. It was a full but fun day!
Sounds like a great day out. Your area sounds very picturesque - from the parks to the shops and market.
Did not realise that raccoons would grub in the earth for food - I always thought they were an arboreal species? Quite vicious too I have heard.
Posted by: Robert | August 19, 2007 at 04:34 AM
Rob - it is a great area (although I leave my general area to find the really wonderful spots! LOL). It was a good day.
In urban settings raccoons will go after anything amd you are so right about they being viscious!
Posted by: Jerry | August 19, 2007 at 04:47 PM
OMW...those raccoons, in the course of one overnight visit, destroyed our backyard, too...it looked literally like a bulldozer had backed up over and over our beautiful yard...I was sick about it and didn't know what to do to prevent it from happening again. A friend told me that if a coon smelled dog urine, it would stay away, so I had our neighbors walk their dogs repeatedly back and forth at the bottom of the property line by the creek and guess what...those coons NEVER came back...it has been 14 years...and a lot of dog walking by our neighbors, who were btw happy to have a place to walk their dogs...LOL! (Fortunately for us the dog walking takes place far from the house and in the natural growth that runs along the creek...so not sure this would work for you there.)
Posted by: Kayte | August 19, 2007 at 05:04 PM
Kayte - that is an interesting suggestion. I thought that dog urine burned the lawn?
Now if only I had a dog. I don't suppose person urine would do the same trick . . . although that particular deed might get me arrested! *smile*
Posted by: Jerry | August 20, 2007 at 07:27 AM