everything will happen soon

so this aims to be a very springy post.
daylight saving (or whatever it is) - check. now it gets dark after 7, check. winter coat banished for the rest of the year, hopefully - or so the meteo would like me to think. sometimes it's sunny not only when it's cold, so...sunglasses in my bag, ready to be used - check.
even though we're more than one month behind, march is march, i.e. moody. for a while there it acted like this is it, now the grass and flowers will come, blah, but i can sincerely say this year i knew better. (or/and also, didn't care that much?). still not excluding the possibility of at least one more snowstorm  before may. this being said...

picture taken on the one day between 1st and 10th of march (march 7th - baba mea traditionala) which i picked to represent what my year will be like. so on the one hand not super reassuring (it was also cold), but on the other hand i slept in, did some successful shopping and got an excellent pic. this is plaza st hubert somewhere south of beaubien

they don't have martisoare in quebec, but they clearly got the idea. on a fence across jean talon market, on 8th of march...which was the first really spring-like day this year...although windy.
and just to let you know what i got for women's day: a tub of haagen dazs :)

whoever did this, good job guys

apparently a "guinguette" is a resto+dancing venue. this open-air place has a small platform and i think in summer it will have long tables and benches. i've never seen any dancing happening here, but i like the shamrock reference because also st patrick's. 

flags of quebec, montreal and...italy. that's it, you're in italy now, unsuspecting passersby. 

this is the church in little italy that was made into an apartment complex. i first saw it back in 2014,
but i don't remember whether i noticed then how yellow that statue is.  i guess this time it was also a case of very good light.

got a package from my friend giulia, with matching anim'est t-shirts featuring cats, so we had to have a thank-you photo session with the shirts and THE cat. cat was not very pleased, but somehow we managed.  hey giulia, now we need a t-shirt for the cat!

yep, and then...i know you wouldn't believe it, but:

the lovely snowstorm stella paid us a visit while i was commuting back to downtown montreal from lachine.  i actually have no idea what route my usual bus to/from lachine is taking these days (there's a detour because, construction, i think?) but later that night a highway around there got blocked, with  300+ vehicles stuck overnight. blizzard etc, 36 cm of snow. march 14th to 15th. i'm just trying to illustrate the charm of quebec for those of you contemplating easy, no-visa tourism
anyway, the next day schools got closed; but i had to go downtown again; and guess who was the first person in our building/backyard to make her way down the stairs and all the way through the ruelle! mhm.

this orchid sits above the radiator and doesn't care about superfluous weather. 9 flowers at the time, now 11 :)

and i made cookies for b's birthday. they look a bit like buttons, and clearly i need a bigger tray, but it did work pretty well. it's my first time making cookies at home, i used the recipe at replika but with less brown sugar. and i made them a bit smaller 

new week, new weather. making friends with cats in the neighbourhood again. 

i realized winter's gone when i finally got downstairs to "oui mais non", one of our top neighbourhood cafes (and this is high praise, since villeray is close to reaching peak gentrification these days) and i was like, ooooh, we should have come here in winter!
nope, in winter we only entered the smallest room upstairs and got coffees to go. well, lesson learned i guess. 

not sure if this has any connection with seasons or it's just the baristas indulging in cutesy stamps. 

on second thought: indulging, for sure.