Sudbury, Ontario

My brother Ben has been living in Sudbury for about three years, and I finally got up to visit him this spring. It turns out that (in spring, at least) Sudbury is a very pretty town, nestled in the hills around Ramsey Lake.



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According to Ben, a week or so earlier - before all the leaves were out on the trees - the hills were all just black rock, but when I got there on the May long weekend, it was a perfect spring weekend, green leaves on the trees, lilacs in full bloom, blue skies, and possibly most important, pre-mosquitos!

Which was a good thing, because Ben is not one to sit around and relax, and he decided that after my flight from Regina to Toronto on Friday (which incidentally, had transferred through Calgary) and then from Toronto to Sudbury on Saturday I had done enough sitting for at least a week, and so we did a fair amount of walking. And mosquitos are plain and simply drawn to me. Not a trait I'm particularly fond of, really.

Saturday afternoon, we checked out his dream lot - top of a hill in a new subdivision, looking down on the lake, then we walked along the boardwalk from the Science Centre along the shores of Lake Ramsey and back, and then we toured one of his rental properties, a very nice and architecturally interesting house. We parked the car there and walked down into the city where we had supper on a nice shaded outdoor patio  at the Laughing Buddha before heading back up the hill to the car, and out to the house where I would be spending the weekend, as Ben is living in a one-bedroom apartment, and Dad was coming up on Sunday afternoon to stay with him.

Sunday after lunch, we went back to Ben's place, and he decided that he wanted to show me a really cute bistro downtown - just a 15 minute walk, near where he goes every morning for his coffee.

Right.

Down the hill we went, across a railway bridge, up a little hill, down a long hill, around a corner, and there we were on the edge of downtown Sudbury. Up a hill, turn the corner, and we finally made it to the main street. Three blocks later, we were at the bistro. Which was closed on Sundays.

We ended up across the street in the mall, where I bought a hat so that my head wouldn't burn anymore, and we sat there chatting until we got a call from Dad - he was 20 minutes away from Ben's place.

We immediately left the food court and headed back, in a bit of a rush, because with my short legs, it was closer to a 40-minute walk than a 15-minute walk, and we got to Ben's shortly after Dad did. Ben did admit that possibly, his 15-minute morning walk is closer to 20...

As Murphy's Law would have it, Ben was on call that weekend, and he got a call to go down to Parry Sound on Sunday night, so he and Dad headed down there, and ended up staying the night and picking me up after breakfast on Monday.

We spent the morning before I left putting siding on a shed at the back of Ben's apartment building, and I got to run a drill! [Mental Note: Find out what kind of drill that was - very light, easy to use, perfect for when I need to buy a cordless drill!]

The shed started out with very weathered plywood that was full of holes, and ended up covered in white siding, looking very sharp.

We got three sides done before I had to head back to the airport and catch the plane back to Toronto, where I was spending the night at Julia's before catching the early morning flight back to Regina in the morning.

Julia had invited a few people over for a bbq, so I got to see some more friends before I headed back out west. Cathilynn and Cecil were there, fresh from a long weekend away in Kingston, and Jaz came with her boyfriend, and Derrick and Starlene were there with Patrick. Jonathan and Wilma also came for supper, but then Jonathan got a call, so they ended up having to leave right after eating. It was good to see everyone, even if I ended up needing a week's holiday to recover from my long weekend.