Just What Is The Moggy Anyway?

I was coming out of a grocery store in the Glebe when I noticed a rather unusual car parked. It's a Morris Minor, known affectionately as a Moggy or Moggies. I liked the little touches, like the back seat pillow or the little statue of Queen Elizabeth, complete with waving hand.

Centennial Images Of The Council

The terrace on the west side of the Chateau Laurier offers a walkway towards Major's Hill Park. Each year, a government agency puts up display panels that last from summer well into fall. This year, with the centennial of the National Research Council being marked, the panels emphasized numerous projects the scientific organization has undertaken in the hundred years since its founding. I photographed several of the panels. Each can be enlarged by clicking on the images.

One Last Blast Of The Fall Colours

I took these shots on the first Sunday in November. Late fall colours here seemed to extend later this fall, and yellow seemed to feature prominently.

This view from Plaza Bridge of Parliament Hill, the Canal, and the Bytown Museum is dominated by those yellows. The last time I showed views here, red colours were dominating the trees.

I then headed over to Major's Hill Park, where the fall colours stood out among landmarks like the Connaught Building and the US Embassy, and the statue of Colonel By.

Leaving the park took me past the Peacekeeping Monument, which features the spires of Notre Dame beyond it.

Late Autumn In The Museum Garden

The Landscapes of Canada Garden is at the Canadian Museum of Nature, having had been finished this past spring. It portrays topography and vegetation of Canada, starting with the mammoth steppe (complete with a life sized family of them in statue form), moving into Arctic tundra, Prairie grassland, and finishing with Boreal forest. It's a work in progress, as the evergreens of the Boreal section are relatively young trees (and seemingly wrapped up for the winter), but it's a delightful spot to wander. I passed through on a gloomy day a few days back. The vegetation itself, particularly the grasslands, is largely dormant now, waiting for next spring.

Architectural Gems In Night And Daytime

Before Remembrance Day, I was on Parliament Hill a couple of times to take in the light show of falling tulips against Centre Block. Leaving the Hill, I thought of taking nighttime images of two nearby buildings, and then daytime images of each.

This first one is one you've probably noticed in the background of shots, directly across the street from Centre Block. It is owned by the government, and once housed the American embassy. It is in the Beaux-Arts style of architecture, dating back to the 1930s. It has stood empty for years since the Americans moved into their current embassy site. For a time it was to be the home of a national portrait gallery, but one of the very first acts of the Harper regime (not at all missed, incidentally) was to kill the concept. A new government is working on new uses for the building, which deserves some worthy use.

The second one is down the street, with an entrance down along Sparks Street, and I've shown it to you before. The Sir John A. Macdonald Building is named for our first Prime Minister. It dates back to the 1930s, when it was built to house the main branch here in the city of the Bank of Montreal. Also in the Beaux-Arts style, it has been fully restored and is now used as a reception space for Parliamentary occasions. I missed getting in here this year for Doors Open, a mistake I'll not make again.

City Daily Photo Theme Day: Transitions

The first day of each month is a theme day for members of City Daily Photo. For December, the theme is Transitions, as selected by Tanya at Around Roanoke. You can see how other photobloggers are taking on this theme by clicking here.

For this theme, I decided to take views from the Bank Street Bridge over the Rideau Canal for comparisons over time. In each case, the first view looks west and the second view looks east. To start, this was the view in mid-September.

These views are from early October, when the fall colours were coming in.

These two were from mid-October, when the fall colours were more pronounced, and the water in the Canal was being lowered for the winter.

And these were a few days later in October.

This final pair was taken just a few days ago, on a snowy Sunday- the same day I featured in my post yesterday, actually. The staircases have been set in place for the skating season yet to come. The water level will be raised a bit before then.