Our Middle of the Night Adventure : Nuit Blanche 2014

c="http://www.loulou.to/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/cycling-to-see-nuit-blanche-toronto-2014.jpg" alt="cycling-to-see-nuit-blanche-toronto-2014" width="640" height="853" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-25818 blk-brdr">The all-night art festival called Nuit Blanche was this weekend. To quote the booklet it is 'Toronto's nocturnal celebrations of contemporary visual art'. There were a total of 130 projects to be seen between 7 Saturday evening and 7 Sunday morning, throughout the downtown core. Some installations are created by local artists and some are things that have traveled around the world.I've read some complaints about it being too crowded, with a problem of drunken mob behaviour, but we've never seen that at all. That's because we go really late, which is actually really early the next day, and by then, the crowds have thinned, leaving enough night-owls out to make it feel fun and like you're not alone out there, but there's a lot of space and it's quite easy to see what you want to see.Since the festival is in the dark, most of the pieces have something to do with light of some kind.I love Nuit Blanche and look forward to it every year. The 'getting up and going out in the middle of the night' part of this annual event is as fun for me as seeing the art. I love the cool darkness and the nearly traffic free streets, many of which are closed to cars for the night. The experience feels quite surreal.On Saturday we went to sleep around 10:30 and set the alarm for 3. We had a coffee and got dressed in warm clothes that included hats and gloves, because the temperature had dramatically dropped over the past few days. Then out into the night we went.This year we rode our bikes, mostly because my foot is still healing, but also because we remembered how tired our legs were from walking last year. And now we know that bikes will be the way to go from now on. We got to see so much more, starting by riding along Queen Street West, where we saw ...

Hanging Out Back with a Friend

Here are some shots taken when our friend Meghan came over for a visit on Sunday. She and I met nearly 5 years ago, after she began working at the same place I did and we clicked during our very first conversation. She's a kind, clever and calm person, who is into so many different things, so time spent with her is always an interesting pleasure.In case you're having 'deja vu', indeed this scene is very similar to one I posted about last week (here) after another much-loved friend came to visit. Truth is, when you're grounded at home (due to healing after foot surgery), there isn't much room for variety in settings ... or attractive footwear, evidently.At least the great weather we've had has allowed us to take advantage of our favourite room in the house. Something in hindsight that I'm really glad I did this year was to plant a bunch of annual flowers in pots that I can move around the deck. (You can see what I planted in this post.) They've added such nice colour and have been fun and easy to tend to. I'll be doing it again next year for sure.We've also been taking advantage of our flourishing crop of fresh mint and serving up Mojitos.

Crocheted Baby Cardigan and Matching Flower Brooch for Mom

ass="aligncenter size-full wp-image-25744 blk-brdr" src="http://www.loulou.to/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/crocheted-baby-cardigan-and-matching-brooch-for-mom-loulou-downtown.jpg" alt="crocheted-baby-cardigan-and-matching-brooch-for-mom-loulou-downtown" width="640" height="896">My online friend Hollie had a baby girl last month so I made them a little sweater and matching flower brooch.The crocheted baby sweater is a modification of this one, created using a pattern called Picot and Lace.  This version was made with finer yarn than the original one, therefore had to be adapted to make it larger.

Look at Owl the Owls

And dessert was Caramelized Pear Upside Down Cake

In my last post (here) which was about bad inner outdoors we had with a friend on the weekend, I ended with a picture of Nick eating dessert. So this is what he was eating.It is Caramelized Pear Upside Down Cake , which I made by following a recipe over at Fine Cooking dot com. [UPDATE : this site is no longer active and the recipe has sadly been taken down.  I found another one that seems good but I haven’t tried it yet. ]There is a good reason that it has a rating of 5 stars out of 5, given by people who have made it!Not only did I love the way it looked with the caramel sauce bathing the decoratively arranged slices of pear beautifully, it was also really delicious.