GCTC’s gone from Preston and Gladstone to its new digs in Hintonburg. Now there’s a huge dumpster out front.

It’s an interesting corner if you slow down and you have a camera with you. I never noticed this mural out back of Caffé Italia across the street.

Next door to GCTC is Green Papaya. I don’t know why they have a picture of grapes in their parking lot. I don’t think grapes figure prominently in classic Thai cuisine.

On the other side is Dragon Auto Services.

Down the street you have Krishna Auto Repairs. If I lived on Preston St. I might have a hard time deciding if I wanted Krishna or Dragon to fix my car. If I had a car.

That place in behind Krishna used to be Hummingbird. When did it become Open Text?
Updated later: Well obviously, all I had to do is Google it. “Open Text swallows Hummingbird.” August, 2006.

Lots of changes on Preston. One of the biggest is this Irish pub going in just a block from the Prescott. It isn’t open yet.

This Starbucks, which is open,

is right across from Johnny Guido’s.

These changes will dilute the Italian character of Preston, but that was already happening with such newcomers as Green Papaya and Stone Face Dolly’s. I think it’s good that Preston is booming, with its great location leading up to Dow’s Lake, even if it won’t be quite as homogeneous as it used to be.

Down at the farm, this guy James Fletcher had a drinking fountain dedicated to him by the Field Naturalists Club around 1908…

with his face on it and everything. Must have been quite a guy.

Naturally I googled him. There’s lots about him here. It says, “His letters, which are bound in annual volumes, occupy about 2.5 m of shelf space in the Public Archives at Ottawa.”

2.5 m of shelf space! His letters! I wonder how much shelf space my letters are going to get. Maybe they’ll give me 1 mm for the one I wrote from camp when I was 11 ;)

Actually I used to write a lot of letters, up until email came along. I wonder if nowadays, somebody like James Fletcher would get to have his emails in the archives. Probably not. You don’t see many commemorative drinking fountains nowadays either.

After sighting the giant fishes, I continued on my noontime walk around Dow’s Lake.

The tulip festival is still in full swing. I can’t get over the red ones. This guy wore a matching jacket.

The plucky little Ottawas are doing their best. We can’t all be red!

Gilding the lilies.

This is a light fixture on the stairs up to the Bronson bridge. I hope you’ll bear with me. I think ordinary things become interesting when they are photographed in loving closeup.

Such as this mysterious inscription on the lake wall…

And this orange thing.

Here’s some more nature. Rocks in the water…

Blossoms…

Rocks and blossoms…

A duck.

I went to the Experimental Farm the other day. I like this picture for the sole fact that it has Cow Lane in it. But I didn’t see any cows.

A good-humoured Good Humor girl…

The elevator doors closing behind me…

The end!