In the morning we had a quick brunch and then caught a bus to Lemoine point. To get there we had to walk through a couple of kilometres of suburban streets, rather miserable, with the odd McMansion, complete with weird nubs and lawyer foyers, etc. Most of the houses were also decorated for Halloween, all sadly using shopbought tat, but some fairly aesthetically arranged. One or two had built a full fence in the tiny patch of grass in front of the house, with gravestones etc. Quite nicely done, though I have rarely seen any Halloween stuff here that wasn’t from a plastic factory. What will our descendants say about how we used our limited supply of fossil fuels?
At last we arrived at Lemoine Point, a small conservation area. Near the entrance there was a path leading off into the woods which seemed unfrequented so we took it. I soon learned why as it was grassy and full of water, and my barefoot trainers obligingly let it all in so my feet were very wet indeed. Fortunately, lots of lovely little frogs leapt away as we passed so it was little tiny fireworks with every footstep. And it was a sunny day so I took off my socks and hung them over my shoulder to dry while the shoes also dried fairly rapidly.
The main part of the walk was lovely. On one side was the lakeshore, lined with boulders and full of mallards and chickadees. The local sport, clearly, is to stand around with some grain in one’s palm for chickadees to come and eat from one’s hand and, if one is adventurous, one puts the grain on one’s head as well. We passed a great many people doing this with little success, yet when we sat on a bench to eat a sandwich we got properly divebombed, both our hands and our heads, so clearly all you had to do was sit in one spot for a couple of minutes instead of moving around.
On the other side were woods, quite open and airy, set on slopes so vista after vista opened out, jet black tree trunks against fiercely yellow and red and orange . There were also quite a few chipmunks.
At one point, there was a path one could go down to the shore, so we clambered over rocks for a bit (I took off my shoes as there was some wading involved) and the GF tried to teach me to skim stones. He is quite expert and I managed a couple of bounces once, but most of them just plopped right in.
Emerging from Lemoine Point it was some way to the bus stop, mostly along pleasant roads though by the end they became miserable. Luckily the bus arrived within about 5 minutes of our arrival and took us to our next stop, the Marshlands Park. This we had all to ourselves. At first it seemed clear why, since they were a bit dismal, with small suburban houses on one side and a trashy bog on the other. Soon, though, they became magical. We passed a woman who told us, excitedly, ‘the snakes are all gone!’ which was good to know. Then the proper marshlands, which were crisscrossed by a small train track but otherwise full of trees and tall grasses and bogs with creaky, rickety boardwalks that one had to walk in the dead centre of to avoid tipping over into the stagnant water. There was something of the air of a fairy tale to it.
A bus back, a good Italian dinner, more delicious cakes, and that is all.
Oh and I forgot to mention, tonight and last night, Halloween was being celebrated in Kingston so the streets were full of tiny children in costumes trick or treating from the shops which apparently celebrate together. Again, sadly, they were almost all shop bought costumes (I thought, wistfully, to my mother who would spend weeks devising costumes for us) but it was a sweet sight.