The lawn dragon

 

This lawn dragon always presents himself, or is it herself, in just the right way for the season. With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I see hearts in this dragon's future.

The law of induced demand

Londoners get around by car. Oh, there's a bus service and there was a discussion for a Light Rapid Transit system. The LRT idea never took flight. Very early on it was replaced with the promise of an almost as good, but a some what less expensive, Bus Rapid Transit system.

On the drawing board, the BRT system was going to serve the entire city. But before a penny was spent, two big segments of the BRT system were scrapped. Then funding became a question.

What I don't understand is why, when a heavily traveled street like Southdale Rd. W., shown, is upgraded, some thing is not done to widen the roadway with the goal of providing for even a crude BRT system. But the road is widen for cars and cars fill the new, wide road. It is the law of induced demand.

Building roads alone does not solve traffic congestion problems in the long term. Build it, widen it, add more lanes and drivers will be attracted to the new open roadway. The result? Traffic will increase. The British government did a study showing that increasing traffic capacity coaxes people to drive more – a lot more. Fully half of any driving-time savings resulting from the opening of a new roadway is quickly lost. The oh-so-costly benefits will all be negated within a decade.

The story in the footprints

The footprints in the freshly fallen snow once said Canadian footwear of high quality construction made by a small, successful Canadian company.

The company was Kaufman Rubber Co. of Kitchener, the Southwestern Ontario city an hour east of London.

And the boots were Sorels. They were big, clunky, warm and oh-so-protective. My favourite winter boots remain my Sorels purchased two decades ago. A tag, still visible inside, reads Made in Canada. Those original Sorels would last almost forever.

And that was one of the problems. The damn boots would last and last. Two decades ago the Kaufman company closed.

But that's not the end of the story. The name and trademark were picked up by the American company Columbia Sportswear. The line was expanded and in 2017 the Sorel brand had a net income of $228.8 million.

Needing a pair of less well-worn boots, something suitable for more than digging out the drive and trudging about the local ski hill, I bought some new Sorels last fall. The boots are big, bulky, well-made and good to -40 degrees. And oh, these boots have a tag inside too. It reads Made in Veitnam.

The ice pad may soon be open

Our neighbourhood ice pad, like so many ice pads scattered about London, Ontario, is still without ice and here it is January 20th. But the temperature is dropping, it is not only below freezing at night, it is now below freezing during the day. Since ice pads like this one do not have refrigeration pipes, the cold air temperature is needed.

The maintenance staff at the nearby school will be running a hose to the pad and it will be watered daily. I would not be surprised to see kids skating or even playing a pick-up game of hockey on the pad by mid-week.

The ski hill in London has an interesting past

The land around London is essentially flat. It was left smooth by the slow passing of a massive glacier thousands of years ago. When the ice sheet retreated, it left a large deposit of rock.

That rock, some ground into fine sand while trapped in the glacier, is why my London home was once surrounded by gravel and sand pits. The last quarry is going through the closure process today.

Some experts say my London suburb, Byron, is the place where a number of moraines converged. The Byron Bump, Boler Mountain, is the wonderful result and hundreds of skiers enjoy the benefit of its presence today.

And those slopes today, the result of the retreating ice, are often only snow-covered because of immense snow-making machines.

Irish Ferguson left his mark on London

On the back of the chair in the middle of the pictures it says, 'In Memory of "Irish Ferguson" '. Irish Ferguson was one of the most alive old men I've ever known. He had a youthful love of life that stayed with him right into his senior years.

The story of the London ski hill starts way back to the late '40s. At that time it was only one run at the end of gravel road. I cannot say for sure when exactly Irish got involved but it may have been right at the beginning or shortly thereafter. Irish was a dreamer and a man who liked to make dreams a reality.

I knew Irish from my sailing days on Lake Huron. We both kept our sailboats in the marina at Bayfield. The sailing club owes a lot ot Irish as does the former London Ski Club, now known as Boler Mountain.

Today the little hill that could has three quad chairlifts serving 16 runs. Some like to call the place the Byron Bump but everyone calls it a success. It provides a wonderful opportunity for children to enjoy skiing in an area not known for its winter sports. The hill may be small but its lifts are efficient and skiers not only come down fast but are returned to the top quickly.

Whenever I see the lift with Irish's name on the back, I have to smile. Irish was an example to all of us.

A friendly neighbourhood with caring people

It looks like an average suburban neighbourhood and it is. But don't for a moment think it is filled with uncaring folk living without a thought for their neighbours. I doubt that there are many suburban spots that answer to that cliched view of what are often referred to disparagingly as a bedroom communities.

I have a bad heart. I lose my breath when I do stuff outside with my grandkids. Neighbours have noticed. At the first sign of snow, I often have a neighbour show up unannounced to clear my driveway and my front walk. I appreciate it but my how it underlines the fact that I am getting old.

The photo, by the way, does not show my home but illustrates how snow can tie a scene together visually. I find winter, thanks to the snow, one of the easiest times for taking beautiful images. (At least, when the now is fresh. If snow gets too old, all bets are off.)

Snow, finally

The date is January 16th and this morning the grass in London was green and bare. There hasn't been a decent snowfall since possibly late November. And it hasn't even been cold enough to make snow. Last weekend the neighbourhood ski hill was closed.

Finally, it is snowing and with luck it will snow all night. Drivers may not see it as lucky, they may see it as their luck having finally run out, but the skiers in the area will be delighted. And not only is it snowing but it's cold. It's dropping below zero.

Snow making equipment is roaring into action and it does roar. People living a full mile from the ski hill hear the big snow-making guns pumping out very localized, very intense blizzards. Winter is back. Cold has returned. Snow blankets the land. All is right with the world.

Ornge serves London

The air ambulance service in Ontario is called Ornge and the aircraft, both helicopters and airplanes, are painted bright orange. Cute, right? The service also operates a number of traditional ambulances.

To learn more about this service, here is a link: Ornge.

Presentation is so important

The old railroad station in Guelph is a good example of why the presentation of a heritage building is so important. The station is a handsome building but one can be forgive for not noticing. Surrounded by concrete, asphalt, a clutter of posts and signs, it doesn't, as a real estate agents would say, show well.

I didn't get a chance to go inside but my wife did and she says the inside is surprisingly  intact. Nice.

Train traffic is on the rise in the Guelph area. The Toronto GO Train system is reaching out farther and farther from the city. What will happen to the old Guelph station as it encounters increased use in the future is an open  question.

London lost its Guelph-style station decades ago. In the '30s, I believe. The replacement was actually quite nice. Some Londoners compared the '30s replacement to Union Station in Toronto. That London station didn't last thirty years before it was replaced with a larger, workhorse of a station  located on the first floor of a small, modern, glass and steel highrise tower.

That one only last a few decades before it too was demolished. The present London station is another workhorse building but with a bit of modern pizzaz mixed with a mild retro look. Hopefully Guelph will not follow the London example.

Another Guelph Heritage Streetscape Photo

The heritage streetscape in downtown Guelph, Onatrio, is both sad and oh-so-very hopeful. The buildings have aged a lot over the years and not always gracefully. Note the application of a thin coat of concrete to the first floor stone of the building on the right. The maintenance of these old structures has not always been in keeping with the architecture. In fact, the repairs have often been downright destructive.

But, and it is a big but, the buildings are intact to the point that these places can be restored with far less effort than is often necessary. It does seem clear that there is more interest in saving these buildings than in demolishing them. It is not hard to envision a day when the magic wand of restoration will have touched many of these buildings, leaving the downtown with many sparkling, architectural jewels.

Guelph City Hall

With just moments to spend in the downtown core of Guelph, one might think it would be difficult taking more than one quick shot for my blog. It wasn't. I didn't have to leave the intersection where I parked my car. Each corner contained a delightful hertitage building.

Shown is the 1856 Guelph City Hall constructed of Guelph stone like so many of the heritage structures in town. For the first hundred years the city hall had a clock tower but it was removed in 1961. But the remainder of the front portion of the building is true to its original look.

In 2009 its use as the city hall ended and it became the Provincial Offences Courthouse handling small legal violation such as traffic tickets.

Heritage buildings in Guelph, east of London

Yesterday my wife and I had to drive to Guelph, a small city about an hour east of London. I haven't been in Guelph in years and was pleasantly surprised to find the core of the city featured many well maintained heritage buildings.

The friend that we met in Guelph knew very little about the plethora of heritage structures and so I hit Google on getting home. The first think I learned was if you think downtown Guelph is striking today, you should have seen it a hundred years ago. To think such a wonderful place, constructed with such love, an urban core that once showcased beautiful, heritage architecture, to think such a site wasn't cherished leaves me numb.

Shown today is the Kelly Building at the corner of Wyndham and Macdonnell Streets in Guelph. The building to the left of the Kelly Building is Petrie Building which still boasts its original stamped galvanized full sheet-metal facade—one of only three such buildings remaining in Canada. The fact that these two structures are standing today is the result of the concerted effort by many area residents willing to fight hard to save the area's heritage.

For more info on these two buildings please click the links:
Petrie and Kelly Buildings.
Downtown Guelph

New suburbs are the place to find rows of similar looking homes: a myth

There's a myth that new subdivisions are the place to find rows of similar looking homes. Not true. Building like-looking homes, sometimes identical, either side by side or here and there throughout a region, has a long and honourable record.

London's Oldest Movie Theatre

I've mentioned the Hyland before. This is London's oldest movie theatre still showing films. Opened in the '30s, the single screen, neighbourhood cinema seats a little more than four hundred. At one time its small size was a drawback. Not today. A film like Fantastic Fungi showing at two thirty in the afternoon on a Thursday hasn't got a chance of filling even four hundred seats.

That said, the little theatre was possibly a third filled with folk eager to see the quirky little film. Why anyone would applaud a movie is beyond me but when Fantastic Fungi ended there was a lot of appreciative clapping. On the plus side, it did not get a standing ovation from anyone.

The Hyland Cinema reminds me of what we called a second run theatre back in the '60s and '70s. Like those old theatres from a bygone time, if one has a membership one gets a discount on the ticket price. Non-GMO popcorn with real butter is available, if you ask.

Lately, the local owners have even been experimenting with midnight shows on weekends but I doubt Rocky Horror will be ever be shown. The oh-so-animated audiance at a Rocky Horror showing can be very hard on a movie theatre. But I wouldn't be surprised if Harold and Maude made a midnight appearance. I might even go.  ;-)

London neighbourhoods still sport some Christmas sparkle

It is the second week of January and most of the holiday decorations have been taken down. Naked Christmas trees litter the street awaiting pickup by the city. Yet a few homes retain their Christmas sparkle, like this place with its front yard tree festooned with a garland of the colourful glass balls often associated with the season.

Note the white ears on this grey squirrel

It's not the best angle but I wanted to show the white ears on this eastern grey squirrel. The other day I posted a shot of a black squirrel saying it was a colour variation of the eastern grey squirrel. It was a black-furred grey squirrel, so to speak.

North of London, there's a small town, Exeter, famous for its white squirrels. These are a white-furred variety of the eastern grey squirrel, not albinos.

If one googles eastern grey squirrel, one learns grey appearing fur is actually composed of a number of fur colours. Among those colours are white, black and tan. It is not unknown for an eastern grey squirrel to look black for the most part but have a white tail. And clearly, it is possible to have a grey squirrel with white and tan ears.

Reflective snowplow markers but no snow

In my neighbourhood folk love their lawns but they also need snowplows. Unfortunately, snowplows and lawns don't go together, especially on curved streets. The snowplow drivers find it hard to follow the curves and the result is snowplow blades running over lawns rather than the pavement. Large swaths of sod are peeled and rolled leaving bare soil.

The solution is to place a row of reflective-tipped snowplow markers at the edge of the lawn where the lawn meets the street. My granddaughters, who are longing to go skiing, see the markers as hopeful signs indicating that soon there will be a long-anticipated heavy snowfall.

So far this winter, there has not been enough snow to bring out the snowplows. Some nights it hasn't even been cold enough for the local hill to even make snow. And what snow is made is constantly at risk of being washed off the slopes by a heavy rainfall.

It's January and Santa is still on display.

Cemetery tombstones can hint at a sad story. My wife found the birth-death dates carved on this stone quite upsetting. In a word: heartbreaking. On the surface, the seasonal decorations seemed to cast a hopeful, optimistic feel. My wife is not so sure. Looking at the decorations, my wife felt the message was ambiguous. She believed painful memories were possibly on raw display. The Santa carries a sign asking those stopping by to leave a message. I wish we had left a message of heartfelt sympathy.

Abundant geese and urbanization go together

Should a picture of Canada geese overwintering in a park in London, Ontario, appear in blog devoted to urbanization? Yes, it should.

The Canada goose thrives in cities. Safe from most predators, often fed by bird-loving city folk, the large birds form large gaggles, the name for a flock of these birds. And these gaggles can cause urban grief. For instance, in Fredericton New Brunswick the birds interfere with traffic and if irritated will honk at impatient car drivers.

At the very least, the hundreds of geese filling Springbank Park in London make walking in the park difficult, unless one isn't put off by numerous small piles of bird poop. Yuck.

According to Yuval Noah Harari, the author of Sapiens, humans are responsible for driving far more animals into extinction that we usually acknowledge. While a large number of animals are threatened by man, there are some, like the Canada goose, that seem to thrive with thanks to the intervention of man.

Sadly, in most cases neither outcome, extinction or thriving, is desirable.

Gene turns eastern grey squirrels black

Technically, it's an eastern grey squirrel, or so I understand, but its fur is black and not grey. It seems black squirrels have a DNA modification that results in black-furred grey squirrels. Grey or black both squirrels belong to the same species: backyardi pesti.

The little monsters dig up my wife's tulip bulbs long before the plants bloom and eat each and every one they find. That said, I have to admit the fluffy-tailed rodents are cute and cute will takes a wild, urban animal a long way with my three granddaughters.

Without flower bulbs to devour, our backyard pest is supplied with slices of apples, chunks of carrots and handfuls of raw nuts by my three granddaughters. This keeps the squirrels happy. Grandma? Not so much.

The Mallard: abundant and widely distributed

These male ducks, with their iridescent green heads, are very common in London, Ontario, even in the winter. This comes as no surprise as mallards are said to be the most abundant and widely distributed duck species in North America. Mallards are also found in Europe and Asia.

According to Ducks Unlimited, "With the exception of the muscovy duck, mallards are the predecessors of all domestic ducks; they have been domesticated in Southeast Asia for over 2000 years and in Europe since at least the 12th century.

Happy New Year!

I'm not sure if this is my favourite photo of the year or not but it certainly places high. I like it so much it makes me seriously consider moving to the spot pictures in a few years. It looks like a pleasant place to spend some time. I know my granddaughters would enjoy visiting me if I moved into a neighbourhood featuring a small herd of urban deer.

Jumbo statue in St. Thomas outside London

The Jumbo statue is located in St. Thomas about twenty-five minutes or so from my London home. The life-sized statue was erected in 1985 to mark the 100th anniversary of Jumbo's death. Possibly the most famous elephant who ever lived, "The King of Elephants" was killed when struck by a railroad locomotive in the southwestern Ontario city.

Earlier this year, the CBC did an excellent take on Jumbo, his life and death. Here is a link to: 
Jumbo: The Life Of An Elephant Superstar.

According to the CBC, "More than a century after his death, mystery still swirls around Jumbo. Was he really the tallest elephant in the world? How was he treated? Was his death part of a conspiracy?"

Unicorn-pig hats not made here

When I was in school I was taught how import trade was to early cities and city states. What they couldn't make themselves, they could obtain through trade. For instance, China prospered by trading jade, spices and silk.

I thought about this while prowling London stores after Christmas. Today China prospers thanks to strong global sales of unicorn-pig hats. Unicorn-pig hats?!

When I was a boy London produced a long list of stuff that underpinned our way of life. We made everything from massive electrical transformers to fashionable wool sweaters. We were capable of so much. The range of what we produced was staggering. Today, the range of what we don't produce is equally staggering. Transformers? China. Sweaters? China. Today, we cannot even make our own unicorn-pig hats.

But before I could post this, my one granddaughter assured me that this is actually a unicorn hat despite its piglike nose.

She tells me it's not nice to point out that its nose is rounder, flatter and more snoutlike than most. It's unkind, she says.

To underline her point she has called up a true unicorn-pig on Pinterest.

Christmas candles: a fading tradition

When I was a boy my grandparents' used to set out a display of Christmas candles on their dining room table. I heard rumours of lit candles being placed carefully among the branches of the annual Christmas tree by some families but I never encountered the dangerous practice myself. Although my immediate family didn't light candles at Christmas, nevertheless, I came to consider brightly burning candles a Christmas tradition.

When my wife and I visited a friend over the holidays, she had a Christmas candle display arranged on a table in her living room. It was beautiful, traditional and slightly dangerous. The candles do not just add a visual delight to a room. The candles are scented. As the candles burn, fragrances, such as cinnamon, are released into the room.

I hadn't encountered a Christmas candle display like our friend's in years. I was left wondering how many people are still continuing to follow the old tradition.

Heritage home in London (Ont.) area

This is the heritage home just outside London with the face-nailed hardwood flooring that I discussed yesterday. The century home has been well maintained. Where possible it is original and where necessary it has been upgraded: bathrooms and kitchen.

Yet, this home has not had its walls removed to create an open-concept living space. The kitchen is modern but small; the dining room is useful but closed in on all four sides. It's intimate. And the entry has a small foyer with a number of exits plus a staircase leading to the bedrooms on the second floor.

Homes like this are not inexpensive in southwestern Ontario. In Toronto a home such as this would be valued at more than a million dollars (Canadian). Outside Toronto, in a place such as the London area, the price may drop by as much as half. But a price of as much as $900,000 would not raise eyebrows in the right location.

This heritage hardwood floor is face nailed.

This face nailed hardwood floor is in a home outside London, Ontario. The hardwood flooring looked good, considering its age, but on closer examination it was obvious this floor had been face nailed.

No one face nails an entire hardwood floor today. I was left to wonder just how common this practice was in the past. The home in which this floor is to found is more than a century old. The owner assured me that more homes in the area had similar floors.

Clearly there is a heavy price to be paid in esthetics. But that said, and accepted, the floor is amazingly squeak free. I imagine if one heard a squeak, pull the nail or nail in the area, and replace all with longer ones. Squeak gone.

Was this a southwestern Ontario aberration or was this done in many localities a hundred years ago?

Not exactly the white Christmas of story and song

It was a white Christmas in London, Ontario. But it was not the white thanks to snow but on account of heavy fog. It was a white and green and all-too-warm Christmas. The grandkids are looking forward to skiing come January and I'm getting concerned.

Christmas was a once a time to receive a London-made toy

Christmas morning once meant getting a few toys, games or puzzles from Somerville Industries and made right here in London, Ontario. Not so today. My granddaughters toys all game from mostly from China with one coming from Korea and another from Germany. Canadian made toys are a rarity.

I cannot understand why the simple, injection-molded plastic pan flutes given two of my granddaughters could not be made in London as stuff like this was in the past. But they aren't.

Oh well, enough of this. It's time to change tack and wish all a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Some believe saying merry Christmas is politically incorrect today. Try telling that to my Muslim neighbours. The ones with the Christmas tree. They say the season is fun. They enjoy it. The mother and daughter especially enjoy the tradition of baking sweets for the holiday. And I assure you that their baklava is a sweet. There can be no argument.

In London, malls are not the shopping destinations they once were.

Every year my wife and I take two of our granddaughters Christmas shopping. We tour the stores in White Oaks mall and when done the kids and I stop for mini Cinnabon. It is an evil delight. Grandma doesn't partake and that just underlines how bad having an icing-topped Cinnabon must be.

White Oaks was possibly the first mall in London. Built by a local family on a major thoroughfare leading from the core to the four-lane highway serving the city, the mall was a great success.Over the intervening years it has faced a lot of competition and, although it has been hit hard, it is still arguably the most popular mall in town.

That said, the stores were not packed. The wide corridors were not bustling. The line-up for a Cinnabon wasn't long. With the biggest anchor stores now gone, the mall, appears to be marking time, holding its own.

I see the images of malls found in other cities and posted by members of this group and I'm jealous. Our remaining malls are nowhere near as grand. In fact, grand seems to be the kiss-of-death for a London mall.

Our downtown once boasted a true high-end mall. It cost something in the neighbourhood of $135 million to build back in the 1990s. Today that mall has lost almost everything it once sported at its opening, including its original name.

The shortest day of the year

The Canadian singer Bruce Cockburn has a song "The Coldest Day of the Year". Well, yesterday wasn't the coldest day of the year, not even close. But, it was the shortest day of the year with the sun appearing to set just before five o'clock.

London is set smack dab in the middle of some of the richest, most productive farmland in Canada. The farm fields extend right into the growing city. It is not uncommon for the land to be filled with a fast-growing crop of corn one year and a rapidly-expanding suburban neighbourhood the next.

When you can't afford a trip to Europe

A fellow by the name of Ian Newton posted this to a Facebook page called If You Grew Up In London, Ontario, You Will Remember When...

I'm sure there may be more that could be said about our area's use of borrowed place-names. Kitchener, to the right of the route marked in blue, was originally called Berlin. The name was changed in 1916, driven by anti-German sentiment common in the region during the First World War.

Not far from London on the Lake Erie shore is Port Glasgow. It likes to brag that perch, pickerel, salmon and rainbow trout are all to found not far from the port. And I would not be surprised to learn a few kilt-wearing men could also be found in the area if one were to look. You see, Port Glasgow was settled more than two centuries ago by Scottish immigrants moving to the area.

Smart phones not made here

Everywhere I go I see folk using their smart phones to take pictures and to text and even, sometimes, to talk. These new tools seem to be ubiquitous.

As a Londoner, I see something else. I see a technology that slipped from our grasp. At one time, London was home to a massive Nortel plant. It made telephones, and not just for Canada but for the world. When I was in Tunisia back in the 1990s, I saw a Northern Telecom building outside Tunis on the way to Sidi Bou Said.

Nortel was such a powerhouse of a telecommunications giant that at one point more than a quarter of the value of the Toronto Stock Exchange was claimed by Nortel.

But that was then. Today the plant is gone. The company almost forgotten. Telephones and most state-of-the-art telecommunications equipment are now made offshore. About the strongest lasting memory of the once giant company are the ones held by the workers who found themselves without jobs and without the pensions they had been promised. 

Giants can be very disappointing.

London kids love snow. No surprise here.

The last school day of 2019 is just around the corner and Christmas is less than a week away. And yet, snow is hard to find. Making a snowman is impossible and a snow fort is out of the question.

These two London kids aren't taking it lying down. They not only shoveled their grandparent's driveway, they shoveled the front lawn. And what did they do with the shoveled snow? They packed the snow in a large, canvas wagon and in a number of large, plastic garbage cans.

Now, they have enough snow to make a giant pile of the fluffy white stuff. And we all know what big piles of snow are good for, right? Jumping! And if it warms up a little, the stuff gets packable and a snowman becomes a possibility. These two are prepared.

Christmas pagents are different today

When I was in public school almost seven decades ago, Christmas pageants were quite different. First they clearly called Christmas pageants. Today's event at École Élémentaire Marie-Curie seemed to be billed simply as the school's Winter Show.

There was lots to see and to hear⁠—students dancing, singing, playing musical instruments⁠—there was even a Santa Claus of sorts.

What was missing were camels, angels, a manger scene, wise men, shepherds and . . . Well, you get the idea. What may not be instantly clear is the missing strong religious connection may be a good thing.

École Élémentaire Marie-Curie is a French first language elementary school in the west end of London, Ontario. This is not a French immersion school with the goal of making English speaking children fluent in French. This is a school for families that speak French at home. This school is for parents who want their children taught in French, the language in which their kids are most comfortable.

While there may not have been any camels in the show, there was a dinosaur.

Labeling aside, there was lots of Christmas spirit filling the classrooms, halls and auditorium. Parents brought treats to share, the food drive boxes were filled with donations and in the auditorium families, clearly with different backgrounds, chatted and shared laughter.

And what did the children call the event. I talked with two and both agreed, it was the annual Christmas show.

The little guy is successfully competing with the chains.

It is just a small store but it often has just what you want and at a quality that puts the big chain stores in the area to shame. It's Remark. The family that owns it has one store in Windsor, one in Sarnia (I believe) and a third in London.

The other day my wife spent a quarter of an hour buying just three items at the Loblaws owned grocery store. Only two check out lanes were open.

We should have gone to Remark, as we usually do, ten or more check out lanes are usually open there. One is no sooner in than out. And the prices are very competitive. I don't know why so many folk feel big is better. It often isn't. Smaller is more competitive. It is successfully compete or wither and die.

Remark has been going for fifteen years in London. It shows no sign of withering and dying. And my wife and I, and even our grandchildren, are very thankful for this. We like the fresh navel oranges and the sparkling white cauliflower, the grandkids like the fresh, yeast-puffed, chocolate-topped doughnuts.

Heritage for Sale

York Developments, a local London developer, paid $30 million for some important land at The Forks of the Thames. Why is the land important? Some amazing heritage property is located there, such as a 19th-century courthouse featuring a unique castlelike appearance.

Rather than write a lot and quite likely get some of it wrong, I'm going to cut and paste from the Facebook postings of Butch McLarty, the nom de plume of a local historian who is quite vocal about the recent sale.

• Situated on a four-acre parcel of land, the old courthouse and gaol complex was designated a national heritage site in 1955.
• In 1980, many features of the interior and exterior were designated a heritage property under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act.
• In 1981, a heritage easement was registered on title of the property by the Ontario Heritage Trust.
• In 1986, a few features of the interior and the exterior walls of the old gaol were designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act.

The "Castle" Courthouse is not the only heritage property at risk with this sale. The old Gaol, located immediately behind the courthouse, is a busy conference, wedding and banquet centre.

The old Gaol was also designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act by the City of London on Nov. 17, 1986, protecting the exterior walls, the one preserved cell block and the interior trap door at the top of stairs and hanging hook (which were never used in an actual hanging since all executions locally were done in the jail yard).

Unfortunately, heritage protections on paper via laws and statutes don't always protect the heritage features of a property, interior or exterior, just like all laws are routinely ignored every day of the week. We've witnessed more heritage-related fiascos locally than I care to remember during the past 50 years.

The best use for this National Historic Site is to remain in public hands, as it's been since it was built in 1829. Private ownership by a land developer is not only long-term bad news for this site but also a breach of trust by Middlesex County that was gifted the property in 1979 by the Province, along with millions in cash by the feds and the province to renovate the old Gaol for modern-day use.

Seagulls: adaptable, quick thinking and bold

Out taking pictures downtown, I could not help but notice all the seagulls. The Thames River hardly counts as a sea. And both Lake Erie and Lake Huron are many kilometres away from the city. I wondered, "Why does London have so many gulls?" And it's not just London. My suburb, Byron, has oodles and the farm fields surrounding the city can have thousands of the raucous birds flying about.

According to the BBC, seagulls are breaking their connection to the sea. With urban gulls, their only connection to the sea is their name and that connection is tenuous. There is no actual seagull. There are Great Black‐backed Gulls, Iceland Gulls, Kelp Gulls, Ring‐billed Gull . . . and more. Plus, no surprise, there are Hybrid Gulls. But there are no seagulls.

Quick thinking and very adaptable, urban gulls can be quite different than their waterfront cousins. They have learned how to live very successfully in the city. These are birds that most likely will never see the open water of the Great Lakes, let alone the salty, endless water of the ocean.

Shouldn't street lighting posts last longer?

While shooting pictures for this blog, I noticed that the concrete streetlight post I was using to steady my camera was cracked. It had a big, vertical crack extending for many inches right up through the centre of the post. This post would need to be replaced.

I'm not sure who made the post in question but I know a lot of concrete streetlight posts are made in Burlington, Ontario, by the StressCrete Group. These posts look good when new. That said, shouldn't these posts look good after a few years of use as well?

Cities are expensive. Replacing relatively new cracked concrete posts seems like an expense that would blind side the city. I wonder if these posts come with a guarantee or a promise of a minimum working life.

It was a fun, well-planned event but few came. Why?

Supposedly cities are great places to live as events held in a city draw on a much larger population base than events held in smaller towns and villages and therefore find it is much easier to attract enough folk to make the event a success.

Saturday, the locally-owned neighbourhood theatre, there is only one left in town, showed a family-oriented film. The tickets were $5. A combo of buttered popcorn, a child-sized drink plus a Christmas cane was $5. Tickets on the draw for a large, gift-basket were free to all children.

I took two of my granddaughters. One won the gift-basket and shared it with her sister. She wasn't as lucky as one might think. There weren't two dozen kids at the show. Not two dozen!

Neighbourhood folk had told the theatre owners how much they loved going to the theatre for a Christmas movie with their parents when they were young decades ago. How wonderful it would be, they said, if the little theatre would show a film aimed directly at families. Ah, the memories that could be created.

I bought our tickets online. I pictured a line-up going out the door and down the street. This didn't happen. I imagined my granddaughters having great memories of the day. They will have those. Winning the gift-basket was nice extra touch.

Did they enjoy the film? Yes. Had they seen the film before? Yes. Apparently cable had brought the film, Arthur's Christmas, right into their home and onto their massive 60-inch flat-screen television. It is getting awfully hard to get people to get out of their homes to share a community experience. The experience may very well have already been availble, and enjoyed, right there in their home.

Next time, I'm taking to Twitter and Facebook. I'm going to spread the word. I'd really like to see a lot more families taking part in the next family day event.

Twin towers overlook The Forks of the Thames

These two apartment towers are in the core of the City of London. The two towers are near the The Forks of the Thames. Although not the first downtown apartment towers, these two were among the tallest, if not the tallest, for awhile. The downtown core is slowly turning around and highend towers like these are indicative of the change in the fortunes of downtown. The number of people living downtown has gone up dramatically in recent years.

No home delivery

When I was a boy mail was delivered right to the home six days a week. The mail was left either in a mailbox beside the front door or the mail was slid through a slot in the front door to fall the the floor in the entry hall. Then, to save money, the delivery was cut to five days a week. Saturday delivery was eliminated.
 
Eventually some genius realized it would be cheaper cut out home delivery completely. The drop box was born. Today in many, possibly most, neightbourhoods in Canada, mail is not delivered right to the door but is left in a neighbourhood drop box for later retrieval by someone for each home.

There's been a lot of resistance to the drop boxes. I saw these in the first neighbourhood I lived in in London more than four decades ago. My present neighbourhood doesn't have these boxes. My mail is still delivered right to my door. How much longer this will continue is anyone's guess.