Boîte téléphonique anglaise

Photo prise il y a quelques mois, à la fin mars je crois, dans un petit village pas très loin de chez nous. Nous y étions allés à pied. Ce genre de boîtes téléphoniques, si typique de l'Angleterre, on ne les retrouve pas si souvent de nos jours. En fait, elle servent àpour faire joli pour les touristes plus qu'autre chose. Quand même, je partage, justement parce que c'est joli et typique de mon pays d'adoption. Et ça a un charme. Un charme désuet, mais un charme quand même.

"Into The Wild" Mug

 I blogged last Monday about the closure of our local Mountain Warehouse. Which is making me very sad. I buy lots of things there, even though I am not one for outdoor activities. But they have some many nice and/or useful things. Such as their enamel mugs. I buy them for Wolfie and for me, my wife isn't quite so fond of them. Not for hot drinks, because then the metal catches the heat and you end up burning your fingers. No, I only use them for cold drinks. The good thing about them is that they don't break easily. And they often have cool images on them. This is so far my favourite. I find it ironic, as like I said I don't go into the wild all that much. Barely at all, in fact. I don't go deep in the forest or on camping, where I guess this mug would be really useful. All the same, you look at this image and it's as if you're there.

Farewell to the local Mountain Warehouse

 I learned some very sad news last weekend. As we were walking downtown, I saw that there was a closing down sale at the local Mountain Warehouse. Now I know I'm not exactly the natural target customer for Mountain Warehouse. I don't do hiking or much outdoors activities. But I still enjoy their products, especially their clothes. And their enamel mugs, and other things. Anyway, the shop os going to close down permanently at the end of May, so I have time to make a few purchases at a really good price. I guess that's one positive thing. All the same, I wish it didn't have to shut down.

Sunday Roast In the Pub

Two Sundays ago, after a friend informed me that we could walk to a country pub from our house, we did just that. We walked from our home, into the nearby woods and we walked to a country pub in a nearby village. It used to be one of our favourite pubs, before we became parents, but since then it had shut down, had new owners and we hadn't had the chance to go and eat there. Of course I had a Sunday roast. The first one I had in a long while. In fact, I can't remember the last time I ate one. It was long overdue. As you can see on this picture, I didn't stay hungry. And there is not many things as rewarding as talking a walk and then having a hearty meal in a country pub.

New year resolutions (a short list)

 So the new year brings out new resolutions. I have made a short list, which I will hopefully increase in the next few days:

-Read more books

-Read faster (see resolution above)

-Buy less books

-Stick to myTBR list 

-Write more

-Write more often

-Walk more 

 And, well, that's it really. If you are perceptive, you might see a certain pattern.

The Italy Badge

My wife has a Fitbit. I used to have one too, but it had a ridiculously short battery life and I could not sync it, so I stopped using it after a while. But anyway, yesterday she received from her Fitbit a special badge, an "Italy Badge". It means that she has now walked the equivalent of the lenght of Italy. Not sure since when. And sadly, it does not mean that we walked in Italy. I guess it's not the same as being there, but it's a nice milestone all the same. I want to go back to Italy, she wants to go there once, so it's on our list of holiday destinations. Until then, she has the badge.

Poppies in Wallingford

Today is Remembrance Day. I commemorate with a picture I took recently in Wallingford. They had figures like this of soldiers with a poppy at the breast. Simple, beautiful and touching.

Petit loup et les feuilles d'automne

Hier, lors de notre marche en revenant de l'école, petit loup a pris plaisir à marcher dans les feuilles mortes. C'était un moment Kodak que j'ai réussi à prendre en photo. Pas une photo géniale, mais bon. Elle donne un peu une idée de l'ambiance. C'est l'un des nombreux plaisirs de l'automne que j'aime et je suis heureux que mon fils soit adepte. Et un petit rappel, pour ceux qui n'aiment pas novembre: c'est encore l'automne et ça peut vraiment être un beau mois. Dans tous les cas, c'est l'une des raisons pour lesquelles je me suis réconcilié avec le mois: on peut toujours marcher dans les feuilles mortes en novembre.

Fantôme et citrouilles

 Photo prise par mon père lors d'une promenade il y a quelques jours. L'Halloween à Chicoutimi.

Fear the Witch

For today's countdown to Halloween post, another witch, because Halloween is truly their season. You might remember last year, I blogged about a scary witch on a lawn. Well, the witch is back, by a bonfire that has not been lit just yet. There's no cauldron yet either, but I suspect she is preparing the fire to cook something, or... someone. Seriously, there are some great Halloween props that could be used as inspiration for horror stories. This is one of them.

A perfect autumn evening

 I don't care what people say, we are in autumn, even though the equinox is stil a week and a half away. Our family had the opportunity to appreciate it during our evening walk. It was, in fact, a perfectly perfect autumn evening. It was a little bit after six o'clock, sunny, but the air was chilly enough so we needed warm clothes. It felt and smelled autumnal around us. Comfy clothes, comfy weather, the sun about to set... I just felt great.

First autumnal walk

As it is today the first day of September, which I consider the first day of autumn (see my post from earlier on, and in the meantime enjoy a gorgeous seasonal picture), I made a point of going out today after work for a quick walk. I finish work early, so it allow me to have more fun and more active end of afternoons. Wolfie went out with me. We did not walk very far, just to the nearest corner shop and back, but it was a long enough walk to last fifteen minutes and back. Enough to get a feel of the atmosphere. It was not cold, but we put on light coats to be comfortable. It was a really lovely moment.

A new "secret passage"

There's something I noticed recently when we were walking home from our last family gathering in London: we have a new "secret passage" nearby. Let me explain: there's an alleyway nearby, there's a wooden fence on one side separating it from the road and on the other side some trees. Now the branches have reached the wooden fence, so it's like there is a natural, live roof over our head when we walk there. It looks kind of mysterious. So yeah, it's a new secret passage. I did not have the opportunity to take a picture of it yet, but I will try to do it soon.

Les promenades au Parc Urbain

Photo prise par mon père au Parc de la Rivière-du-Moulin,communément appelé le Parc Urbain. À regarder les photos qu'il m'a envoyées, je me suis rappelé les nombreuses fois où j'y allais en famille. C'était vraiment comme avoir une forêt en ville et ça nourissait mon imagination fertile. Mais j'écrirai plus en détials sur le sujet un jour sans doute.

La rivière au Parc Urbain

 Je partage une autre fois une photo du Parc de la Rivière-du-Moulin, en fait de la rivière du Parc Urbain, donnons-lui le nom que je lui donne depuis l'enfance. Détails ici  sur les circonstances où elle a été prise par mon père.

Le Parc Urbain après la pluie

Mon père a pris cette photo au Parc Urbain (ou Parc de la Rivière-du-Moulin qui est son nom officiel) à Chicoutimi. Il a plu des cordes récemment, quasiment un déluge(et je sais de quoi je parle). Je m'ennuie des moments passés au Parc Urbain d'ailleurs. Je ne l'ai pas vu depuis des années. À Chicoutimi, c'est peut-être mon parc préféré pour marcher.

Les promenades pascales

Une redécouverte ces temps-ci, avec les vacances de Pâques de petit loup: les longues promenades. Nous en faisons tous les jours (je vous donnerai plus de détails sur le lieu). Marcher pendant des heures est un plaisir que je veux pratiquer une fois les vacances terminées. 

Stopping at the Travelodge

 Yesterday, our family went to a walk. As we were on our way back home, we stopped at the local Travelodge. We had only seen it from the outside before. Wolfie wanted to stop to a hotel for a drink, for some reason he finds this very fancy and very exciting. Travelodge hotels are far from posh, in fact they are as functional and bland as hotels can get, devoid of any personality or atmosphere, but they still have a bar/bistro/restaurant. And sometimes, even a bland place can have its sort of charm, paradoxically because of its lack of it. Especially for a young child. I used to see it this way when I was a child, in any case, when the blandest café seemed so special just because it was a place to stop by. I suspect this is how Wolfie sees things. So we stopped there. There was nobody, except one staff member, a young person who might have been a dummy. She never once acknowledged us. In the end, we decided to walk back home and get a drink there. I felt guilty for Wolfie, as if I had let him down.

Les promenades en forêt...

Photo prise en... janvier 2023. Je la partage ici car elle sert mon propos, même s'il se peut que je l'ai déjà mise sur le blogue. Il y a un boispas loin de chez nous. Du temps de la pandémie, nous allions y marcher assez souvent, en famille, ça nous faisait quelque chose à faire. Même si c'était parfois boueux, c'était assez plaisant: de chez nous à travers le bois, en s'arrêtant à un hôtel, puis de l'hôtel à travers le bois, ou simplement à travers le voisinage jusqu'à chez nous. Parfois, je n'étais pas d'humeur à marcher, à cause de la boue justement. Mais ces temps-ci, je crois que ça nous ferait du bien de faire revivre cette tradition familiale.

Porc-épic flou

Photo prise par mon père en juillet 2023 lors d'une promenade. Un porc-épic, qui ici a l'air flou. J'ai retrouvé les photos dans des archives et j'ai pensé à en partager une.