best of unposted 2019, non-kid related

man, is this going to be a long post. or maybe not really.
happy 2020, a fresh time for resolutions such as, let's make another effort with this blog etc. my major problem is that i've basically stopped taking pictures since b. has discovered the qualities of his iphone camera, with the added benefit that any photo he takes automatically goes into google photos. goodbye, ancient toil of downloading pics and so on.
i'll probably get back with a vengeance once i get an iphone and learn how to use it...but that might still take years. clearly not one of my 2020 resolutions.
pictures, come on:

this is february, after we'd visited our house the second time, to fill in and sign the official offer to buy. we decided to inspect the neighbourhood on the fleury side, which google maps had told me good things about. it was pretty cold, we walked all the stretch to the metro (more than an hour) with a stop for lunch at No. 900, the fancy pizza place on the fancy side of the strip. so when we saw this slope (parc des hirondelles, about 25 minutes' walk from our place) we started planning how we're going to bring the kid sleighing here. still hasn't happened, people!
we've been out in the summer though, with domino's pizza ("picnic!") and gelato from across the street, so it's generally good. 

april, walking by the river. i can't remember if this was with my mother-in-law or with b. and rada, but in those days before grass/flowers i did this so often (maybe i was alone!), cause i was so starved for being outside

clearly beginning of summer - god, these are so mixed-up chronology-wise - but just to show off the real pears on our real, existing, living pear tree! they looked amazing up until july when most of them started to get some blackish thing on top, and by the beginning of september i had about 5 pears left...i wanted to let them ripen properly, and in the end i ate about one, the rest fell prey to birds and squirrels i think. 

our roses! around june, i imagine. this picture was totally taken specifically for b.'s mum, who is obsessed with roses and who only ever spends time in canada in winter.

street festivals! this is from the mural festival on st laurent, and i happened there very randomly. i have spent so little time in the plateau last year, that every time i go it feels like a special occasion. (and conversely too much time downtown, ugh.)

picture taken (probably same day as above) from the bench in front of Replika, sipping on a lemonade. new icecream shop on the corner alert!

this house (and the following) are along my favourite route on bd. gouin, next to the river and the nature park. the only drawback is a pretty high possibility of flooding in spring...uh, and probably mosquitoes. otherwise, they are perfect. most of them are also old houses, i.e. built around 1880-1910. this one had just had its roof redone last spring, plus i like the fluffy tree next to it.

i wish the colours (i.e. that turquoise) had come out better in this one. the house is huge - every time we pass by, we guess at the number of staff that's probably needed to maintain it.

seeing ducks in the park from very close by (end of june)

and suddenly, on a different continent. mid-august, in my grandparents' village, when i took b. on a tour on the first afternoon there. very impressed that they are fixing the old roads so it's easier for cars to get in and out - obviously someone local and ambitious got some funds from somewhere.

summer in bistrita - my friend's kids (ages 8 and 10) playing in a fountain in the very heart of downtown lol

evening out with Turnul Dogarilor. b. worked from home for most of our holiday, but canadian hours are good for having lunch break at dinner time and just heading to the park or to central streets on a leisurely quest to finding yet another restaurant or terrace to eat at.

sunrise from the bus (Tabita), like in the good old days, travelling to Cluj on a mission. this time the mission was to meet as many people as possible during one day. i didn't do perfect, but i did ok and i ate approximately 3 lunches.

my cousin's older son posing with placinta. (his brother was 4 days old at the time of the picture)

lazy morning with b. in the park in Cluj, watching weddings and these graceful creatures

and lazy afternoon in Cluj, doing the tour of wine booths and souvenir displays on a festival weekend

en route from Bulgakov to more festival sightseeing

my parents drove us to a couple of daytrip spots around Bistrita, which basically means we all went to a place with a great landscape (preferably on top of a mountain), stopped and ate a lot, then came back home. you know what, i'm not complaining. (also took pictures. duh)

this is from the border between transylvania and moldova, from on top of a lookout built next to a monastery. and we are in the middle of some spectacular downpour

among old papers, i found this poem i had copied 20 years ago, in my freshman year at the university - it's included in some old edition of "justine" by laurence durrell. about 4 years ago it came back to me and i couldn't get a copy, so for a few days i struggled to reconstitute it off the top of my head. i got it almost right.

back home and to the serious business of cleaning out the side of the yard which was overgrown with useless trees. alert, new serious-household saw!

late september in parc ottawa, close to our place

fall colours in october at beaver lake on mount-royal. (i was very proud of this picture, and indignant that my mother-in-law did not appreciate it - she only likes pictures with Rada in them, i think ?!)

i keep telling people that all the "fall in montreal" instagrams etc seen-around-the-world are the product of a lot of focusing on the same about 3 or 4 trees in the park. here i finally have some proof.

end of october, next to our house on an afternoon (probably coming home from work, so around...4.30 p.m?). i couldn't not include a picture of our maple tree after wondering about it the whole spring. so here's the answer: it gets golden, not red. still, i'm not really dissatisfied.

my mother-in-law's favourite destination is always the river (with special interest added if the river has ice floating on it). so b. took her and her father on a sightseeing tour of old montreal just before christmas...beaver tails and hot toddies were had, but nothing compares to the river!