….the trees on the street are in place and the store owners have started to decorate them 
The Lakeshore Santa Claus Parade is this Saturday so I’m sure there will a lot more decorations. Stay tuned.
…theme for this year’s One of a Kind exhibitor’s competition
Penguin Random House Canada hosted this year’s competition so the penguin was an obvious choice for a theme. There were just too many to show all of them here but I chose some of my favourites to share with you.
…thanks to Becca Givens for hosting Sunday Trees
….so the snow is still on the ground
Earlier in the week we experienced a snow storm that broke all kinds of records for November 12th. Usually when snow falls this early it doesn’t last more than a day but there was a lot of it and the seasonal temperatures are well below normal. The seasons are all confused. There are still leaves on the trees but today many of them decided it was time to come down. It’s quite strange seeing leaves on top of snow.
The snow certainly has put some people in the Christmas spirit and decorations are starting to appear in the city.
…it’s looking more like January than November 12th
Yesterday the snow started to fall and the temperature stayed below freezing so it didn’t melt. It just kept snowing and snowing and snowing. The leaves are still on the trees, my garden furniture isn’t put away and my snow tires are not on my car. Apparently we’ve set a record for the amount of snow that fell and the low temperatures that we experienced for this time of year.
Today my husband got up early and started shovelling the snow in front of our house and the homes of some of the neighbours and later in the day I had to spread de-icer on the stairs and the driveway. More snow on Thursday.
This last photo is of my snow tires waiting to go on the car but I couldn’t get an appointment until Dec. 11 to have them installed. I made the appointment a few days before this storm.
…thanks to Leya for hosting this week’s Lens Artists Photo Challenge
Many of these photos were taken at art galleries in London, England and here in Toronto. Others are from the Toronto zoo and from the Highgate Cemetery in London. The one of my son-in-law is a selfie he took because he knew he was being followed by that fox. Being followed by a fox is the creepy part for me not my son-in-law.
…usually the first snow waits until the end of November 
Granted it’s not a lot of snow but even the dog, who usually loves the snow, was not impressed.
….a wet night but that didn’t deter the trick or treaters
The weather for Hallowe’en was suppose to be so bad that there were parts of the country that were talking about postponing Hallowe’en night. Here in Toronto it was decided to leave Hallowe’en as is. We all have memories of going out on rainy and sometimes snowy nights to fill our bags with sugary treats. Back in the 50s crepe paper costumes were all the rage and I remember wearing one on a very wet night. Needless to say the costume fell apart and I was covered in dye that bled from the costume.
We never get a lot of children coming to our door. We are at the bottom of the street and many of our neighbours don’t turn on the lights or are purposely out for the evening. There are about five houses that always make an effort to decorate the yard and/or put out a Jack o Lantern. This year was no exception but it rained very heavily for most of the day and well into the evening. There were brief periods of time when the rain subsided but it kept returning and later in the evening the winds really started to kick up.
The surprise this evening was that the children and their parents came out in droves. Many carried umbrellas, some were driven from house to house but most of the children walked. At first it seemed like Hallowe’en night was going to be a bust but at about 6:45 small groups of kids of all ages started to appear at the door.
Normally we only get 15 to 25 visitors on Hallowe’en but tonight we had a record number of 62. I ran out of chips (56 bags) and only had 6 chocolate bars out of 120 left over. The only downside is that there is no candy to munch on for the next few days, especially since we don’t have any young children living at home any more. In hindsight it’s probably a good thing.
Here are a few photos of some of the decorations in the neighbourhood.
Our pumpkin this year was a happy fellow and some of the kids allowed me take their photos.
Our granddaughter is posing next to her father’s amazing pumpkin. She was suppose to dress up as Belle and that’s why the pumpkin was carved in the Beast’s likeness. As you can see Winnie had other ideas and wore her Owlette costume from last year. My theory is that because her father dressed up as Spiderman she also had to wear a super hero costume.
You can see that it also rained in Hamilton but that didn’t keep Winnie from bringing in this large haul of goodies.
Mama Cormier 