Carnavale - kids

As always, click on any photo to see a larger image.

These photos, except for one, are of kids in costume along the parade route.

Be sue to check out the Carnavale parade photos in the February postings.

Tomorrow early we leave for Spain where we will be for 3 days.

We will visit among other places, the Alhambra - no doubt lots of photos will emerge from this trip. I will post them as soon as I can after we get back on Wednesday

R

Loule Carnavale

Here is the next set of photos from the Carnavale in Loule. Click here for a map to locate Loule and Albufeira.

These are all from the parade including one child in costume watching the parade.

More to come on another day.

We are off to Spain on Monday March 2.

More after we return on Wednesday.

R

First post from Albufeira - 2009

This is Friday, day 5.
As this is my first writing the days already past blur a bit.

The plane was an hour or more late leaving Toronto so we arrived late to a sunny day about 16 C. After getting into our room and unpacking, we went immediately to the beach. Later we arranged our 3 day trip to Spain where we will visit Costa del Sol and the Alhambra in Grenada before going on to Cordoba. We leave on Monday, March 1 and return late on Wednesday. More about that after we return.

On Tuesday we went to the town of Loule (about 40 minutes from Albufiera) for the final day of the pre Lent Carnavale, a sort of mini Mardi Gras, an event for which Loule is apparently quite famous in Portugal. The afternoon parade lasts for about 3 hours with floats depicting all manner of things including politician bashing, beautiful costumes, music, general celebration and an opportunity for folks to act out a bit without fear of recrimination. Celebration no doubt goes on into the night, but we left when the parade was winding down. We had a wonderful time and took lots of photos, some of which I will post in this and one or two subsequent posts. As you will see, some of the costumes are scanty and not only those in the parade are in costume - many in the crowd, especially children, are as well.

We are told that all of the costumes are made by the participants and/or their families at their own expense which is impressive as many of them are very sophisticated and beautiful.

The photos are:
1. a view from our balcony, just to remind what we see each morning,
2. Some of the parade folks before it began,
3. Another before the parade,
4. The first float we saw,
5. One of the painted on costumes.

More photos of the parade in the next post.

Wednesday was quiet - John and I did our usual morning walk (4 kilometers), after which we walked along the beach to a restaurant for lunch. Then into "old town" for a bit of shopping and drinks at Sir Harry's pub then home.

Thursday I found an internet cafe about 10 minutes walk from home where I dealt with an "emergency" web site problem. I will be able to post to the blog from that location. In the afternoon Ruth did some sketching and painting and I took a few photos around town.

Friday we went with our friends, John and Margie Jackson, from Crow Lake, to the town of Tavira and the Ria Formosa park in the eastern part of the Algarve . More about that day trip later.

Skating in Dundas Park

Click on any photo to see a larger image.

Thanks to the persistence of Shayla and Ryan, we mobilized ourselves to go skating, twice, on the new outdoor "artificial ice" skating rink in the Dundas Park.
Shayla, Ryan, Ann, Michael, Ruth and I skated on Saturday after Christmas. The weather was quite warm so the ice was soft and, as the maintenance folks hadn't quite got the routine down well (the rink opened only a few days before Christmas and not all of the equipment was in place yet), there were also some patches of water on the ice surface. One of those bits of water contributed to Ryan slipping and falling when he decided to walk around in his boots after he had finished skating. Fortunately, he still had his helmet on or he would have hit his head quite hard.
In spite of these minor ice problems, everyone had a great time. Shayla is skating very well and Ryan has improved over last year - and even improved from Saturday to Sunday when Ann and the kids went out again. On Sunday it was colder and the ice was much better.
A few photos of Ann, Shayla and Ryan on the ice. These photos were taken on the colder of the days as indicated by hoods and fairly red cheeks.

Pre Christmas photos

Just a few photos taken in the last week or so.
One, before the recent snowfalls, of the new skating rink in the Dundas Driving Park.
After the recent snow one picture of the baseball park players' bench, one of the early break up of the storm and one of snow on our back deck.

More Thanksgiving photos

See earlier post for the first set of Thanksgiving photos. In this post the first photo is Ruth and Shayla disseminating Milkweed seeds, then Ryan in front of three or four beautiful maples, three is enroute home from the walk and four is just before Thanksgiving dinner.
The blogger requires low resolution photos - creating those files reduces the intensity of the colors so they appear a bit muted on the blog. Envision slightly more intense colours, especially the reds, than you see on your computer screen.

Thanksgiving, 2008

This was a great Thanksgiving weekend! Shared with Ann, Pat, Shayla and Ryan and Vic and Babs and Sheila Harms.

The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm all weekend so as much time as possible was spent outside walking, canoeing, kayaking, reading, snoozing, talking, catching up on dictations; and inside, eating, playing crokinole, taking swimming officiating exams, more snoozing, etc.

No one went in swimming on purpose though there were a couple of involuntary partial immersions.

The foliage colors were quite spectacular this year - hard to remember from one year to the next, but this one definitely seems to be one of the best.

A few photos give a glimpse of the colour around Patterson Point this year.

R