Ontario Days 4 & 5

I’m (finally) feeling tired so this’ll be brief.

We went to St Jacobs, where we met up with my sister and her husband, and checked out the market and the antique stores and the Home Hardware museum and a fabulous quilt/fibre arts shop and lots of other neat things.

The information centre in Leamington is shaped like a tomato. This, of course, is because the Heinz factory is in town. Leamington is all about tomatoes!

The tablecloth at this produce booth was hand woven:

 

Neat stuff at the hardware museum:

That was Thursday. We spent the night in a little B&B out in the country … which is different than the Alberta definition of ‘out in the country’ in that the roads are paved and you can do 90 km/h (if it is in an area with few Amish, who still use horses & buggies to get around). I woke up early and went outside to try and walk some sense into my body and saw this:

We all went to St Mary’s where there is a lovely river and some spots where there used to be large waterwheels, to power grinders or what have you.

Look, it’s my family at the Thames River:

Then everyone headed off in different directions – me to the fibre conference with my friend Wheelwright, my parents to visit an old friend who lives in a seniors home (Dad plays the piano for her and it makes her very happy), and my sister and her husband to head home.

Here’s Wheelwright spinning on one of his restored antiques – this one is from about 1860 he figures, and it’s amazing. Awesome to spin on.

And I am, finally, tired enough to sleep … so I shall go do that and I’ll tell you more about the conference and the wheels tomorrow.