Wysteria Wreath

One of the plants we inherited with the garden when we moved into our home was a massive Wysteria Bush. This plant does very well in Toronto and, when in bloom, I gaze at a neighbours' with envy. So many gorgeous drooping purple flowers like giant clusters of grapes. But not on mine. Oh no, nary a flower in sight. Instead mine sends off shoots of new growth like nobody's business. Throughout the summer I am forever out there with my pruning sheers cutting it back. This has been going on for a decade. I thought that eventually I could get it to flower but by now I've given up!

I had a little TIFF today

Today was the final day of the Toronto International Film Festival so I popped on over to the main site of the goings on, to see how many stars I could spot. lol. I didn't see a single one but didn't really expect to. Really I wanted to get some shots of the new building called The Lightbox, that as of this year is the home of the annual festival.

I like movies but am not so into them that I get tickets for this festival. From what I've heard they are very hard to get and the line-ups are really long. Apparently many fans of the festival actually book their vacation time so they can see as many of the movies as possible during the week and a half event.

This year, 33 films from around the world were screened for the first time, and there were a whole bunch of superstars in town, including Brad and Angelina, George, Madonna, Bono, among many more. (First names only required .. saves typing time!)

The Lightbox, where many (but not all) of the movies were screened is located on King Street West, at John St. For countless years this site had been a gravel parking lot. The background story goes something like this: the plot of land had been owned by an elderly man who bought it when he first immigrated to Toronto 35+ years ago. At the time, this was considered the outer edge of the downtown core, so he didn't pay much for it.

In recent years, his son who is a filmmaker (GhostBusters and Animal House) and his sisters offered to sell the sight to The TIFF Group and a developer. Needless to say, his family made a lot when they decided to sell it. While I can't say exactly how much, the total project (including the building etc) required funds of $196 million, so it must have been quite a bit. I remember reading about the sale back when it happened and having a "wouldn't it be nice if ..." moment!

That’s No Peck of Peppers

Last Monday night saw the rising of The Harvest Moon. This is the full moon closest to the autumn equinox and is called so, because it's brightness allowed farmers to harvest their crops later into the night as they were provided with the extra light that it cast. I got some shots of it, one of which I'll post at the bottom of this entry. But the real purpose for my writing about that day is that this was when I harvested my own crop.

This year I grew a hot pepper plant, which I described here. It certainly looked very promising back in early July with it's multitude of buds which would (could!) become fruit. I watched and watered that baby all summer long and Monday was the day to harvest the fruit of my labour. One tiny pepper was all I got! Nonetheless, I was able to contribute to the food on our table!

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Themed Thursday : Red, Black and Shiny

I wore this black and red outfit out for a walk to Kensington Market with Nick today. It seems I am forever talking about going to the market but when you're carrying home your things on foot, you have to go often!