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With my move to St. Catharines a few years ago I became more dependent upon my car. This wasn’t a conscious decision, but it is a pattern that I have fallen into because of convenience, I guess. I’m not happy about this. When I lived in Kingston I didn’t own a car — I walked everywhere and did all my errands on foot. Sure, sometimes when I was lugging home heavy groceries I might have wished for a ride, but overall it was easier to not have a car in that city. The proximity of the campus and the downtown shops and the residential areas makes Kingston a very walkable city, in my opinion.
I haven’t found St. Catharines to be a very walkable city. I know it will be better when I eventually buy a house downtown (a goal that is, for various reasons, a little ways off right now), but a city should have more than one neighbourhood that is conducive to walking. I’m not talking about an after dinner stroll — I mean the ability to be able to do errands on foot, to be able to park the car and not have to rely on it every day. While I it made me smile to read about a local man’s pledge to give up his car, it also made me kind of sad to realize that in this city a lifestyle like this qualifies as “news.” Like Randy Ouellette, I am really happy to hear that St. Catharines has signed the International Charter for Walking and that the city council is exploring ways to make it easier for people in this city to opt for walking or cycling instead of driving so much. There are positive changes starting to take place already — the nice new bike lanes on Lake Street, for instance, are a wonderful addition!
Then there is this scary news, which seems like even more incentive to stay off the roads. Wouldn’t a regional transit for Niagara be wonderful?
This year is the first year since I was a kid that I have had a real Solstice/Christmas tree. When we were little we’d get lovely small trees for our bedrooms (usually the top of a larger tree) and I just loved it! I would cry and cry when it was time for it to be taken down. My poor parents! They compromised by letting the trees sit in the backyard for a few days so we could still play with them and enjoy them.
I haven’t really bothered much with festive trees in my adult life though. Somewhere along the line I got one of those fake plastic trees that I put up a few times, but I stopped doing that a while ago. It seemed like a lot of bother and I have to admit that I find the plastic trees a little disappointing in terms of ambiance.
So, this year’s tree is very special. It is a beautiful fir tree, small enough that it fit in my Honda Accord, but big enough to be festive and lovely. Because I am currently sharing my house with my sister’s insane kitten we decided that it wouldn’t be very much fun to put the tree in the house. (I’m sure that there are only so many times a person can pick up a Christmas tree off the floor before going crazy!) We decided to put the tree in the backyard and decorate it with treats for the birds and the squirrels. We’ve decorated it with suet cakes, bird seed, popcorn, nuts and cranberries, and my friend Linda has nicknamed it the “happy bird tree.” Part of the fun is that we keep having to add more “decorations” as the old ones get munched away.
Exciting news — Google and LIFE have teamed up to present a digital archive of images.
