Our quiet little neighbourhood....

The other day Gregoire set off to buy some groceries and returned a few moments later to tell me that there were two drug addicts shooting up outside in the lane. Both looked in very bad shape. There was a woman in her forties but she could have been seventy, and a man in his thirties. He said he stared at them but did not say anything and they said "We'll be gone in a few minutes. We're good people." Question is - what do you do? The addicts aren't the people we need to be reporting to the police, its the dealers. Like anyone, we don't want drug use in our backyard. I don't know what the solution is here. In this case, we did nothing, except waited for a few moments before going out. They had gone.

Yesterday I went on a walk after supper. We try to walk each evening, at least twenty minutes and we've explored in every direction.


I love walking the lanes behind houses, there are always interesting items on show, like this microwave which has been there at least three weeks, and there are no takers at all. God knows what the world is coming to, it must be worth a fiver at least, I mean how do you know it doesn't work unless you take it away? Well maybe that's it, people are taking it away, plugging it in and it goes with a resounding "DUD" and in fury they're marching right back and stuffing right where they found it in the first place.



At first I thought this garage door was painted in some kind of ye olde VanGogh style. Then I realized it was really like that.


Another feature I like is what people are doing along the curbs outside their houses, like this nice flower arrangement around a tree. Better than selling drugs any day.




And now the new garbage containers have recycle slots for bottles and cans, which is just brilliant...



Well as I completed the walk yesterday I wondered past the blog train station. And came across this plastic bag.


I could see cheque books and various financial statements. I grabbed the bag and walked, rather ran home. I had visions of thieves running after me, but obviously I've overdosed on Law and Order. Anyway I got it home and put on a pair of rubber gloves (yes, too much CSI , I know) and had a look round. Several passports and cheque books in the bag. I called the police and they said they would send someone round to pick it up. I think I've led too much of a quiet life as there was quite the adrenaline rush when I was looking at stuff. I checked the name on the passport and started looking up the person in the phone book, but obviously I was getting a little carried away here.

The police never showed last night. This morning we went out shopping and there was a message that they had dropped round while we were out. As a result I drove down to the local community police station with the bag of loot and filled out a form describing the contents and where I found them. It seemed a bit anticlimactic. The person behind the desk didn't even have a uniform on. Oh well. Enough excitement for one day.

or a negative

as a watercolour

Life on Blog Street

another view of the creek

and this be it...

I like murals. This is only one section of one in a nearby school playing field. There is a salmon spawning creek nearby...

We found this on our travels last night, if we'd have felt more energetic we would have carried it home. Maybe if it is still there tonight, we'll go pick it up.

We spotted this visitor in our backyard a couple of weeks ago. There's a good reason for those striking black and white colours. I bet this is the character who woke us up the other night with an imposing odour.

and obviously no post would be complete without the freebie du jour. This is the before picture ....



and then a similar offering a couple of weeks later, minus one item, now beautifully adorned with morning glory. Someone has turned the vac round since the first picture. Whether it is in working order is up for massive debate. I suspect not since someone went to the trouble of hawling the heavy washing machine away and left this behind. Sorry the paint pots are not included as they are on the wrong side of the fence, though heaven knows why.

No parking because otherwise branches will break off of their own free will and hit your vehicle. We have residents only parking on our street because of the proximity to the blogtrain, but lots of folks park there anyway. I'm thinking that this sign might be a deterrent, if I could just get the branches to cooperate.

a splash of colour to brighten the day