A good snowfall brings out good neigbours

A snow scoop in young hands quickly clears a snowy drive.

I have a heart condition and all my neighbours know it. Last night a heavy, wet snowfall blanketed London, Ontario. I was not looking forward to starting up the snow blower.

At 8:30 a.m. the front doorbell rang. It was a lad from across the court. "Would you like your walk and driveway cleared?" I answered, "Yes."

I have always found that good snowfalls bring out good neighbours.

Zellers: A bit of Canadian history fades from London

This is the new, soon to open, Target store in Westmount Mall in London, Ontario. Just a short time ago this store was a Zellers outlet. The Zellers chain had a long, rich history in London.

In 1928 Walter Zeller, from the Kitchener-Waterloo area, opened four stores in Ontario, and one of his original stores was in London. His stores were such an immediate success that they attracted the attention of an American firm Schulte-United Ltd. The Yanks bought Zeller out and then the depression hit. The Yanks went bankrupt. Zeller bought back his chain in 1932 and he was on roll that would last decades.

Walter Zeller retired in 1955 at 65. He died just two years later. He was buried in Montreal where he had lived for some time. This is why the Zellers head office was located in Montreal. The years after the death of Walter Zeller were tumultuous ones with control of the chain almost falling into the hands of the American Fields Stores. In the end, Zellers made Fields into its own subsidiary. Then in 1978 Hudson's Bay Company became the sole owner of Zellers.

HBC struggled for years under different owners until in 2008 the U.S. based investment firm, NRDC Equity Partners, bought Hudson’s Bay Co. for $1.1 billion. The Yanks peeled Zellers free of HBC, selling the rights to approximately 200 Zellers’ leaseholds for $1.825 billion to the American Target. All but three of the remaining Zellers stores are slated for closure by March 2013.

By late spring, three Zellers stores, one in Toronto, another in Montreal and a last one in Vancouver, will be the only stores remaining open from the once oh-so-successful Canadian chain.

London: view from city hall

Two new apartment towers, one still under construction, grace the city's downtown.

Saturday, the City of London held the Build a Budget Workshop. The event presented Londoners with a window into the complex world of city budget development. With many on city council striving to maintain a zero percent budget increase for a third straight year, the budgeting task in London is becoming more and more difficult. City costs go up over time, that's just a fact of life; If a city's income doesn't go up too, cuts or increased borrowing will result.

Session looking at draft budget allocation for city services.

Unfortunately, my health was not good Saturday and I had to excuse myself after attending only one session. I believe the event was divided up into four main sessions with numerous other associated activities available.

For instance, there was a speaker's corner, based on the MuchMusic concept. Participants recorded 30 second video clips in which they presented their thoughts on the budget. The mayor and members of council were encouraged to make short video clips as well. All the clips will be edited together and the resulting video posted on YouTube.

The folk at city hall are certainly imaginative and aware of the strengths of social media. Using a free web-based service, tweets with the hashtag #LdnBudget13 were projected for immediate viewing at the event. Plus, all tweets tagged with #LdnBudget13 were collected for later analysis.

Mayor Joe Fontana at event on left.

Even though I could not stay for the entire event, I left feeling concerned that clinging to an arbitrary 0% budget goal may keep my taxes from jumping this year but it is just putting off the inevitable.  I have always believed that the day will come when one must pay the piper, or the snowplow operator, or the fireman, or policeman or the sewer repair crew, or the street repaving team . . .

Today the public discussion seems to be centred around whether of not to cut Sunday library hours at the downtown branch but there is far more involved. Reserve funds have been fair game in the past and the sale of city assets is again being discussed.

Oddly enough, some costs associated with the mayor's office have gone up by tens of thousands of dollars since the pursuit of a zero increase goal began. Maybe if the mayor were to show some leadership in making the tough economic decisions . . .

London, Ontario, igloo

Igloo on front lawn of a home in a London, Ont., suburb.

My granddaughter and I were amazed when a large, white igloo slowly took shape in our neighbourhood. It has now been standing for a number of days. Sadly, it may be in for a hard few days starting tomorrow; Warmer weather is forecast, as well as rain.

I especially like the whale sculpture adorning the entrance.

An urban constant: change

Cities, like everything in life, are not static. How cities, and the buildings within them, change through time has been a topic of interest to many. I gave a book to a friend delving into this very topic. In some cases, it was downright amazing to see a picture of a structure shortly after it was built published beside another picture of the same building a hundred years later. A lot can happen in a hundred years.

London children celebrate the New Year

Fiona, 3, puts on the hat made earlier.

It is not just adults who enjoy celebrating the arrival of the new year. In London, Ontario, there were are number of celebrations are held about the city aimed at satisfying children ready to party.

The Children's Museum in London held a four hour long event with face painting and new year hat making keeping kids busy while waiting for the 12 o'clock countdown, that's 12 noon and not 12 midnight.

At noon balloons dropped and children screamed: "Happy New Year!" The museum is three floors filled with fun stuff and after the balloons dropped, the children dispersed to all corners of the museum the check out the exhibits.

London Community News found Fiona at Victoria Park.

In the evening, there was a celebration held in Victoria Park in the downtown core. Again, children are encouraged to attend but early in the evening. Since not many toddlers are up at midnight, a truncated fireworks display was presented at 9 p.m keeping the young ones happy.

The local paper (The London Free Press) often runs stories referring to the Southwestern city as boring. Today there are hundreds of young people who would find fault with that description.

Corrigan School of Irish Dancing, London, ON

The Corrigan School of Irish Dancing presented their Christmas show Sunday at the Wolf Performance Hall in the Central Library in downtown London.

The dance troupe, mostly young girls, put on a great show. With taps loudly keeping time, they danced about the stage both to the music of the muscians and while tapping out music themselves.

Legs kicking high, hair and skirts flying, they kicked their heels and spun about the stage.

It was wonderful but no one was too astonished at the talent. During the year, many of the girls on stage travel great distances to compete in Irish dance contests right across North America and even occasionally in Europe.

When I used to work for the local paper, covering something like this was easy. I had a professional camera and fast lenses that let in enough light to shoot at the high shutter speeds action photography demands.

I'm retired. I shoot with two point and shoots: A Canon S90 and a Fuji FinePix HS10. Dance offers great picture moments but capturing these is tough.

The best bet, although it doesn't capture the all important action, is to wait until the end of the reel or the jig and grab a quick shot of the girls posing. This offers good form and almost guarantees a sharp picture.

I can't settle just for images of the girls taking a pose before leaving the stage. I have to at least try for action. Here it is very important to keep the camera steady. The subject movement will destroy almost all your images. Do not add camera movement to the mix. I found a steel post to steady my camera.

And sometimes, sharpness is not the deciding factor on whether a picture is a keeper. When my 3-year-old granddaughter performed a beginner reel with Nora Corrigan, sharp or not the picture was a keeper.

Still even a strong emotional attachment to an image doesn't grant it the right to be played large. It just doesn't have the quality. I upped the contrast of the image to hide a little of its defects.

I wish everyone reading this post, and everyone filing pictures to the City Daily Photo group, a very Merry Christmas and hope you all have better luck than I when shooting the difficult moving subject stuff for your blog.

Cheers!