Eddie and the Tomato Box

Once a month or so, Nick drives over to a grocery store called No Frills to stock up on basic items. As the name implies, you get no frills at this place, just your kitchen cupboard necessities at very reasonable prices. I never go with him because it's not a place for dawdling, and I'll admit, I tend to do so when faced with many choices to look at, while Nick can grab what we need really quickly.

And at check-out time you pack your things into whatever shipping boxes they have available that day. So, the last time Nick went he came home with a load of groceries for us, and some nice tomato boxes for Eddie the cat.

Food Friday : An Award Ceremony for Firsts, Favourites and Things you Might Like to Try

Welcome to the 'Foods That Were on Our Table This Week' Awards. Without further ado, I'll just dive right in.The award for ________ goes to ...Most Delicious Sandwich : Open-Face Smoked Salmon on a toasted multi-grain bagel, with cream cheese, red onion, capers and lemon juice.

Thrifted Finds

I think I've mentioned before that there are no thrift stores in our neighbourhood, so getting to one requires either driving or taking public transit. So when Nick and I found ourselves in the car with a Value Village Thrift Store nearby, I asked if I could have a quick pop in. He had a book to read, so opted to wait in the car. I said I'd be back in 45 minutes, thinking that this was plenty of time.But when I looked down at my watch and realized I was still perusing the housewares aisles 30 minutes in, I knew I had to get cracking. Although thrifted kitchen things are my favourite finds, I still wanted to have a quick look at the accessories. I nearly never have good luck with thrifted clothing so when in a hurry, that was an area I just decided to bypass, except for a quick look at the skirts. Nothing struck my fancy.I certainly could have shopped longer, but having a time limit is kind of cool as it caused me to really make a beeline for the things I wanted to see most, rather than flitting around the whole store. And also, having a set time to shop also impacts how much you spend. I got all this stuff for under $20 including tax (around 13 pounds for my UK friends), which I thought was pretty good.Here's what I found ...

Somebody’s Been Creeping Round my Back Stairs : Interesting Bird Sighting

I looked out the window the other day to see a mouse running up the tree out there. "Hold it", I thought, "that's not a mouse. It has a beak."

Luckily my camera was nearby so I grabbed it and got these shots.

When I later tried to identify it, I tried 'small brown bird with long pointed beak'. As you can imagine, there were quite a few of those to sift through. So I thought again about the search terms I was using, and recalled my first thoughts when I had seen the animal. 'Bird that looks like a mouse'. Eureka ... bird identified! I was clearly not the first person to think that.

What I had spotted was a bird called a 'Brown Creeper'. They characteristically feed by creeping quickly up the sides of trees, spiraling around the trunk, finding small insects along the way. Then they fly back to the bottom of another tree and do it again.

Since it is springtime, this little bird was just passing through the city while migrating back to the northern forests for the summer.

Although I felt that the perfect shot alluded me, apparently I was lucky to get the photos that I did because, according to a bird photography site I checked out, they play hard to get.

Bits and Pieces : April 2013

Hi. Here is the post where I put the photos I've taken during the previous month, that didn't fit into any other post. I try to be selective when choosing them so that only interesting shots are included. Hope you like them.