Winter is coming...

We had our first dusting of snow a couple of days ago and the weather is dipping below zero almost daily. I am walking to work less and less. I'm pretty sure that when I injured my calf muscle playing basketball a few weeks ago, I tore it a bit. After our big comeback win almost three weeks ago, we had a week off. The following week, although I had really tried to warm up my calves a lot, I still felt worsening pain throughout the game. I didn't play very well and we lost quite badly. I have decided I will take at least one week off to try to heal a bit. My whole lower leg gets swollen by the end of the day, so I may have to go see the doctor or physio.

I got caught without winter tires this week (even though there was only about 1 cm of snow on the ground and it would have been fine to drive on summers) so I swapped over to the winters one evening in the garage, after the kids were asleep. 

I think that people will be putting away their sports and classic cars this week, as it's only a matter of time before we get some real winter weather. 

There are still a few cool cars on the road, and a surprising number of motorbikes too. The other day, I even saw a Mini Roadster with the top down when it was below zero. I love when people use their cars as they were meant to be, for as long as possible before winter.

Cool and rare 500E

The RX8 looks so nice with these wheels

It's still warm enough to play in the park

Oscar looks ready to start walking at any time now

Surprise Ferrari 456 spot in late November

The 993 is not my favourite generation of 911, but it's still a nice car and I like its small size.

I am not excited about Mercedes' latest coupe designs. I prefer the clean lines of previous generations, like this one.

... or even this one, a decade older.

What is it about these Jaguars that I find so appealing? This is a Vanden Plas edition. I wonder how they are to drive?

Late fall and still no snow

I went for a walk at lunch time with my camera and I found a few trees in Old Montreal that still had some leaves on them. The pier with the clock tower is probably the nicest spot in Old Montreal and the only one where you really feel like you are on St-Lawrence Seaway.

 

 

 

 

 

We had another activity-filled weekend, which included eating authentic carbonara made by our friend Alessia's mother. She is also an expert at watching babies, it turns out. Jules is doing well at swimming lessons (no parent in the pool anymore) and Oscar is almost sleeping through the night (he makes it until 5 or 6 am without intervention).

In basketball news, I injured my calf three weeks ago and played a lousy game after that. We lost. I missed the following game, which we lost after leading by 15 because our captain JP was injured too. We made up for all this last Friday, however, when we came back from a 15-point deficit that lasted most of the game to win by one point. I almost blew the whole thing with a terrible turnover on a lousy pass I threw. I made up for it with a couple of late foul shots and a jump shot. It felt pretty good to win that one!

I still haven't winterized the BMW, but there's still time for that, right?

Oscar did not eat the carbonara, but had some of the crescentini

Jules enjoys the very large toys at the Outremont library.

New Camera... Yay!

Last Friday, I came across an ad for a used Pentax DSLR camera on Kijiji and I bought it. It's a 2012 model, so six years newer than my old one. It takes pictures at 16 megapixels, rather than 6. It also takes series of photos much faster and performs better in low light situations. I'm pretty psyched!

New camera!

In other news, my parents sold the house where I grew up, which they have owned since 1974. I visited with the kids last Saturday and let them play in the back yard a bit before it's gone. My parents will be moving to N.D.G. in December, bringing them closer to all three of their kids.

We enjoyed some pretty decent weather for Halloween. We went trick or treating with a family of recent immigrants who were doing it for the first time in their lives (with their little daughter). It was really quite sweet (as was Jules' haul of chocolaty candies!).

Action shot of J.

Oscar in the yard

Jules with his grandpa

Ready to trick-or-treat

A really clean Golf . Not a GTi, but still nice.

Defender 110 looking ready for adventure

My buddy used to have a Cougar like this one

The best angle for the new C63

Beautiful sky this morning on the way to work

A happy boy wearing my hat.

A typical alley view in Montreal