A Walk around the block

We woke up this morning to pale sunshine and pretty much all the snow melted away. Spring is showing her face here and there. I took my camera for a little walk to capture the day.

Winter's last gasp?

It snowed a couple of nights ago. And it was really pretty--for a few hours. After dinner I headed off to a meeting in our neighbourhood crunching through the snow. Everyone was out enjoying a taste of the winter the rest of Canada experiences.









The following morning we headed off to Beacon Hill Park. The snow shadows make for nice photos of dead grass. And we enjoyed seeing the ice on the ponds and lakes there.

But it seems that it didn't make the ducks very happy. They had abandoned their usual practice of swimming around ducking under the water to feed. They were standing disconsolately around at the edge of the melting snow wondering what to do.

These ones had discovered something edible in the mud at the edge of the snow and we busy feeding there. Including one Canada Goose that had flown in from somewhere else. (Usually we see these out at the bigger lakes but not often in the park).

Across the lake there were bunches of ducks shivering on the ice and looking very unhappy and cold indeed. 

I love the way their orange feet show up against the ice. We felt quite sorry for the ducks, who are really not used to their ponds being frozen over. Fortunately as we were leaving, a guy pulled up in his car and started scattering duck food around on the pathway.

Here's what happened then: Every duck within sight started running or flying over to join the fray. 

We left the park knowing that the ducks were being fed and headed home to make our own cozy dinner. There's something nice about cooking on a snowy night.


 


Today there's still snow but it's melting. There may be a little more tonight but the forecast is for temperatures to rise tomorrow. We're hoping that it's winter's last gasp--and so are the ducks.

Of tulips, snowdrops and iguanas

The valentines day flowers are still looking perky and the sun is shining. It's mighty cold outside though, hovering around 0 degrees Centigrade but when we're inside looking out it feels as though spring may soon arrive in Victoria.


























The snowdrops are up in my garden and the crocuses are popping up everywhere so it can't be too far away.  We're gradually getting absorbed back into our life at home.

It's funny how it takes a while to remember what it is we do in our days after we've been away for a while.  I'm back to my bungee and fitness classes and we had a social weekend reconnecting with friends.






But now my mind is going back to a few pretty cool things we saw in Zihuatanejo. Here's an iguana resting on a tree trunk and a shot of boys playing soccer on the beach and a lovely condo we spotted just back from the beach on our last day after spending the morning on Playa Madera. Things like this we will miss.

A last look at Mexico

We're back home from our four-week trip to Mexico--and it is lovely to be back in our familiar space. Before I get buried in daily life I thought I'd post a few photos of our trip. These won't be beach or sunset photos because I posted a lot of those from Zihuatanejo. These ones are from our six-day excursion up into the mountains.  

A sweet historic cafe in Urapan, where we had cappuccino every morning.

Several images from Patzcuaro, where we were entranced by the buildings and decor, and even more by the Indigenous people who populate the town.

Above is a view down the cobbled street to one of Patzcuaro's iconic churches featuring an incredibly ancient wall and gate that reminds me of something you might find in Italy. I love this wall so much that I've started to do a watercolour painting of the scene.


And here's  wall another from the old city of Morelia, which features so many stone buildings.

We enjoyed our time in Mexico, including the beach life in Zihuatanejo but the temperatures on the coast were a bit too hot for my liking. The only time I was comfortable was when we were on the beach or in the ocean. We chose Zihua because I wanted to swim in really warm water--and that was lovely, but the trade off in the humidity and heat at that latitude didn't make it worthwhile for me.

Pozole day in Zihua

Thursdays are Pozole Day in Zihuatanejo and Sandy and Vidal took us out to their favourite place yesterday at lunchtime.  This restaurant specializes in the Mexican soup called pozole (po-zole-ee), made from hominy. I've heard of it for years but had never tasted it before.  I don't know why I waited so long. It's delicious.


Apparently it takes a long time to make because it's only served on special celebratory occasions, and in certain restaurants on Thursdays. In fact this particular restaurant only opens on Thursdays when they serve several kinds of this special dish to a crowd of Gringoes and Mexicans. We got there at 12:30 and took our table which Vidal had reserved for us. Here we are at the table. Vidal is on the right, behind him is Sandy, and behind her is Lou, Sandy's mom who is visiting from Chicago.



The place was already crowded even though the pozole wasn't quite ready. The waiter brought a big platter of avocado, radish, chicarone, tacitos, tortilla chips and other goodies which we nibbled on while we waited. There are three types of pozole: red, white, and green. And you can get it made with either pork or chicken. We chose the verde with chicken and this is what it looked like when it came to the table. It turns out that those condiments I had been nibbling on were to add to the soup. Good thing there were still some left.


 

This was the small bowl, plenty large enough to fill us up for the rest of the day.

Now that we're back at our little casita I've been doing a little bit of water colour painting. The first one I did was from a photo of the mercado. It's not a very good photo of it but it give you an idea.  And yesterday I finished one of our little courtyard with the morning sun on the table covered by a tablecloth we got at the old fabric mill in Uruapan.






Yesterday I thought I was getting used to the heat and but it turned out that it was just a somewhat cooler and less humid day. Today Harry and I are flattened again.

We have some plans for the next couple of days to get together with people and our plane leaves Monday for our return trip. We're almost looking forward to the cold!

The antigua factory of San Pedro

We're back in Zihuatanejo today, having taken a five hour ride on a first class bus from Morelia. I didn't get a chance to show you our discovery on the last morning we spent in Uruapan. We tracked down the antique factory of San Pedro on aa back street beside the river. That's the Rio Cupatitzio, the same one that tumbles down the gorge in the big public park I wrote about a few days ago.

Here's what the river looks like at the bottom of the canyon. You an see it's still got lots of power, plenty to run a fabric mill. This factory was built at the end of the 19th century and  has been closed for decades, but remarkably it is still open to the public.The last morning in Uruapan we set out to look for the old mill and after a few false starts we found it. This is the front of the building showing some of the details. It was built along the lines of an old hacienda and is still in excellent condition.

We walked in to find the entire top floor is an art gallery with an amazing installation of figurative work by Javier Marín, a Mexican artist of high international repute. His sculptures in various materials including metal and fibreglass and have been shown all over the world. This exhibit made good use of the tall space of the old mill with its beamed ceilings and lovely natural light. Here's a sampling.

Then we went down a long wooden staircase to the ground floor where the old machinery has been sitting gathering dust. It felt very ghostly, as if the workers had just left decades ago and never returned. 

   

In an outbuilding at the back there were a couple of hand looms where people were weaving blankets and table cloths, which they were selling in a corner on the upper floor. We bought a lovely woven linen table cloths and napkins. It turns out we the place isn't always open. Sandy, our AirBnB host tells us she went to see it six years ago and it was closed.  We lucked out.