Last Barbeque of Summer

When we spotted some light on the horizon in the form of a forecast indicating that Saturday was going to be nice, we decided it would be a good day to cook and eat outside. Our friend Andrea joined us, and true to the meteorologist's word, it was lovely out for this last Saturday of summer based on the calendar.(What's more about the weather, is that while summer might be officially over, we are now expecting a spell of very good days ahead.)We began with drinks on the patio ... white wine, nice and cold, and Mojitos made with the fresh Orange Mint that is plentiful in our herb garden.The Orange Mint was a new variety for us this year, previously discussed here. It ended up growing really really well and I'd recommend it those looking to grow mint next year.

I See Faces (Part iii)

c="http://www.loulou.to/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/door-face.jpg" alt="door-face" width="640" height="425" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-25637 blk-brdr">I thought it was a good time to dig into my file of 'Inanimate Objects that Have Faces' after hearing that an award had been won by a team of researchers, lead by Kang Lee, from the University of Toronto on Thursday. These scientists looked into this phenomena, called 'pareidolia', and won an IG Nobel Prize for their work. That's a prize that parodies the Nobel Prize and are given out to 10 people from around the world each year for their research in unusual or trivial achievements in scientific research. (You can read more about this year's honorees in this article at BBC News.)So, it has now been proven that humans are hard-wired to see order in randomness. They analyzed brain scans and determined that the same parts of the brain lights up when we see faces in inanimate objects as when we see real ones.And it's not only people who see faces ... chimps see them too.Without further talk, here are some of the faces I have spotted during the past several months ...

Waiter, There’s a Flower in my Salad

A plant that I've never grown before, that I tried out this summer, is Nasturtium.Throughout the season it looked healthy and interesting with its unique round variegated leaves, but it took its sweet time with any flowers. There was a single bloom in July and then nothing. That is until September ... now it has quite a few.

Nick at the Queen West Art Crawl

Being unable to walk right now *, something going on in the city this past weekend really had me wishing I could get out there - it was the annual Queen West Art Crawl, held in one of my favourite places, Trinity Bellwoods Park.

On Sunday, while having breakfast, after I noted that the weather was perfect for the art show, and after hearing me lament that the rainy Saturday the day before would not have been good for the artists in the park, Nick looked at me and asked, 'Are you trying to tell me something? Do you want me to go to the art show and take some pictures for you?'. My response, 'Yes I would!'.

So off he went, looking cool in his denim vest, an old jean jacket gotten in Glasgow with the sleeves cut off, and the hat we got at Goorin's while out on this date.

[* I had a foot operation a few weeks ago so can't walk much, but it's getting better.]

Here are the pictures of the Art Crawl that Nick took ...

Embroidering on Felt to Make a Lavender Sachet

c="http://www.loulou.to/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/hand-embroidery-on-felt-making-a-lavender-sachet.jpg" alt="hand-embroidery-on-felt-making-a-lavender-sachet" width="640" height="457" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-25530 blk-brdr">Hello and happy Monday to you! I hope you had a good weekend. Things were quiet around here, as I still can't walk any distance after my foot surgery, but it is getting better and if all goes as hoped I'll be able to get back into regular shoes after my appointment on Friday. It has been a haul but my foot feels so much better than it did, so I'm happy.Being forced to spend all my time sitting around has resulted in lots of making of things, one such thing being this Lavender Sachet, made with felt that I embroidered on.The extraordinarily cold winter last year left my lavender patch looking like it had died. These were plants that I've been tending for ten years, after seeing lavender grown in Nick's Aunt Lucy's garden in Edinburgh. Mine had done well over the years and was lush and beautiful, and gave me plenty of divine smelling buds to make things with each year, (like these lavender body oils, bath bags, bath salts).The patch did manage to rally a bit, and I added a new plant that will take a couple of years to really get going, so I did get a small number of buds to play with, which I used to fill this sachet.