Muskoka ka ka

Phew time is flying almost as fast as Patrick can run! In the thick of school, nursery, gymnastics, sportball, mums group and playdates and my weeks are marching by at an amazing pace.

We have had Diesels parents with us for the last 2 weeks which has been lovely but also busy. We did get the time to take good advantage of our live in babysitters and managed to replace a tap, lay some flags, winterise the garden and go and look at some flooring and even squeezed in a night out. You know how much we adore our children but its only when you have help that you realise just how much you can get done when they are otherwise engaged.

We’ve done a bit of exploring in the last couple of weeks and finally went to the mennonite market at St Jacobs www.stjacobs.com. I have to say it wasn’t at all what I expected as rather than the mennonite crafts and produce that I had expected to dominate, they were all concentrated in one place and the rest was the usual market dross. We did go for a drive around to see the farms and saw lots of horse drawn carriages – shockingly, 1 had pneumatic tyres which we all agreed they didn’t have in the 1800’s!
Next off to Niagara on the Lake where Diesels parents spent a couple of days in a really lovely B & B which was the first house in the town and looked out onto Lake Ontario.

When I went to collect them we went over the border in the US and saw the Falls from the other side. I have to say, completely different from the Blackpool treatment that you get on our side. Instead its a rather nice park that you walk through to look at both of the Falls. The American being much more impressive up close than it is from across the river, still doesn’t top the horseshoe though. I never get tired of looking at it and hearing the sound of the water. Probably just as well, noting the number of times I’ve been in the last couple of years!
We really enjoyed Thanksgiving weekend which we kicked off with a stay at a cottage in Muskoka. We were so lucky with our timing as the fall colours where at there most vibrant. I guess its pretty well known how beautiful the fall is in Canada but I would truely recommend that you experience it. Firstly, you cannot imagine that the colours really exist in nature, Secondly, the contrast of colours in the trees for as far as you can see makes for an amazing landscape. It was a gorgeous sunny weekend and that just makes everything even better. I’ll post all the photos later and apologise if you get fed up of yet another tree. We tried (possibly unsuccessfully) to capture the beauty and majesty of it all.