Come walk with me

I thought I'd take you on a little walk with me through my neighbourhood. It's just a few shots but you'll get the idea. My apologies to those of you who are already familiar with this. Maybe you can show it to someone who hasn't been here. I confess this is mostly for the benefit of Lynne and Ruth. Let's start at the path just outside my French doors.



Below is a shot of my block heading west towards the street where I go to shop and have coffee.



This is a fairly new sunflower plant in a garden on the next block. It shot up in a matter of days.



Below is the row of Linden trees on the next block - the ones that I say are giving me the human equivalent of a car wash as I walk under them. They're messy but shapely and wonderful, especially when they're in full bloom in June. The scent is exquisite!



I'm not showing you the house in this shot - just the big fig tree. They're late this year. You see these all through this neighbourhood, often covered in blue netting to keep the birds off.



In this one I am showing you the house. It's under renovation - in fact it's being gutted, as are so many others in the neighbourhood. As the house prices climb, more and more people are buying these little stucco post-war houses, of which there are many, and redoing them. The left hand windows have been removed and are boarded over and the right one is open.



This next one, on the way to coffee, is Nori's house. It's on the opposite side and two and a half blocks west of me. The figures on the house are hers and created a great kerfuffle when she put them up as they were seen by some to be lewd and pornographic. We don't do well with anything 'naked' in this part of the world!



You would think the 'seemliness police' would have had a worse time with this next one, but no. This hangs over Nori's front door and was sculpted by her friend Ken, an occasional coffee clutcher.



This one is our gelato emporium on the corner of my street and The Drive where they make the stuff fresh every day in a multitude of yummy flavours. They also sell a mean home-made fruit pie. Very decadent. To the right of the doors is a mural of Italy, hand painted a few summers ago by a young guy.



Right across the street, still on our corner, is Norman's fruit and salad store. They use as much space outside during the day as they do inside. This shot looks south along Commercial Drive, the main drag, towards the Napoli.



And here's the number 20 bus that I take to get downtown to sort library books. It stops right outside the Napoli. They run every ten minutes so you see a lot of them.



You've already seen shots inside the Napoli so I'll return home and show you the house. The Canadian flag over the front porch is Geoff's addition.



In the shot below, my living room window is the one on the lower left. More light comes in on the side where I have french doors onto a small patio that I call my 'poop deck'. Sorry, that picture didn't turn out.



Here's the end of the tour for today. This side of the house is mine. You can see my little patio and the doors are just to the right. The ground floor window is my bedroom. There you have it - my little corner of the world.