Walking Trails and Thanksgiving Dinner

It's been a relaxed day. It started slowly with a leisurely breakfast after which I looked through Catherine's Economics textbook. The memories from my degree study came flooding back so at least the basic theories and principles are still in my head somewhere despite not having been used over the years.

Late in the morning we headed over to the Arboretum. We walked in bright sunshine along the Bull's Point and Marshwalk Trails and down to the Marshwalk Lookout Tower with views across Lake Ontario. On the way there and back we stopped to feed the Chickadees. They are such light birds and quite skittish. They'd fly down, take one seed from your hand and then fly off again. There didn't seem to be that many of them around but we did have a steady flow of them coming by to eat. We drove back around to the house, had some lunch then I sat and chilled out for a while. 

Jane and Nancy were busy cooking, David doing other chores around the house and the girls studying so at 3pm I went out to further explore Cootes Paradise. I went down the closest trail, Caleb's Walk then along the Sassafras Point Trail. There were a few people out but it wasn't very busy. I walked to the end of that trail and down a very steep gradient at the end for a view across the lake to where we'd been this morning. I clambered back up the slope and walked back along the trail then up and across the Ginger Valley Trail which eventually brought me out into Churchill Park. I wandered the short distance to the shops of Westdale, stopped for a coffee and sat outside reading the news for a bit on my phone. It started to get chilly out as the breeze picked up a little so I could only sit for so long.

I was back at the house shortly after 5pm and sat and read whilst the final preparations were being made for dinner. The fire was on for a while and I could have easily napped whilst sat in the comfy chair. One of the neighbours joined us for dinner which was a quite wonderful meal. We didn't make much of a dent in the huge turkey so there is plenty of cold meat for meals at least tomorrow. There are also pumpkin and apple pies left to be eaten. After we'd sat down and digested I helped with some of the washing up and am now ready to get to bed still with a very full feeling stomach.

View across Lake Ontario from Bull's Point Trail

Feeding Chickadees

Panoramic view of Cockpit Island and Lake Ontario from Sassafras Point