For cousin Johnny...

We are in the midst of the playoff season for the Stanley Cup.

Our beloved Vancouver Canucks have made it through the first round and then last night....

A huge upset...The Montreal Canadiens beat The Washington Capitals to move on to their 2nd round.

They are the only Canadian team left in the eastern division.

Which brings me to my next post on Toronto...

The Hockey Hall of Fame.

A shrine for some. 

They come to pay their respects to those who skated to glory...

To bathe in the religion to some, that which is OUR game...Hockey.

These hallowed halls are filled with the ghosts of Saturday night...

The glass cases glow with relics of heroes from boyhoods of days gone by...

The history of the gear...

Here, Jaques Plantes' gaolie mask he designed himself...the very first.

1959..

Tired after years of being slashed, bruised and broken, he was the one who finally started the trend of keeping your face in one piece...from that....

to this...

 I spent many a Saturday night hearing the theme song for Hockey Night in Canada come on the t.v,

the snow falling outside, my brother and father, brown stubby beer bottle in hand,

sitting in happy anticipation...

The larger than life players making their way around the ice...

The announcer shouting those 4 words you either dreaded or loved...

"He shoots...he SCORES!"

There was something more which I came here for though.

It was to remember my dad's second cousin Johnny Quilty.

This is what he would have seen when he walked into the locker room in 1939-41...

He played for the Canadiens during this time...

Look...there he is up on the team rouster...3rd from the bottom right.

Johnny even won the Calder Cup for Most Valuable Player...

I found it here, in the same room as the Stanley Cup, with his name engraved on it.

Unfortunately, Johnny sustained a terrible broken leg in the following year with the Boston Bruins and never played again.

But he's remembered here...in this great building of hockey legends.

I felt obliged to have my photo taken with 'Lord Stanley'...

Yes, I was in the presence of greatness...

All of those years, growing up in the shadows of this great game...sometimes hating it for pre-empting favorite t.v shows...

But sometimes loving the feelings of pride when a country unites for the love of the game...

The 2010 gold medal game puck.

Cheers Johnny!

La lune

 Last night...she was hiding for a while...

...behind a veil of mist.

 Then slowly, she decided to come into view...

Still a bit shy...she went behind the trees...

And then in one big brave move...

There she was!

La bella luna.

Some much needed company...

While I was away, Tom decided to put some eggs in the incubator to increase our laying stock.

Of course its nicer when a hen goes broody but he thought he would get a head start on things.

Unfortunately, halfway through, the power was out for 6 hours. Constant heat is essential to proper incubation and we feared that was the end of that.

Miraculously...

...this little one survived and hatched!

We made her (hopefully!) a little nest in a box, with a heat lamp and a fuzzy surogate mom to nuzzle up against...

I know, I know, its a duck but it was the closest thing I had that was soft and had a wing she could crawl under.

Note to self: buy a feather duster for future orphans.

Then this morning, Tom found out that there was a poultry swap about an hours drive away, and decided to go and see what he could find...

So the family has now extended from 1 to 6...the lone chick was evidently quite thrilled with the added featherage in close proximity!

I can't wait to see what the little brown striped one will look like!

They are all supposed to be hens as well so lets hope they turn out to be good layers and maybe one or two will go broody themselves one day.

Shoes, shoes and MORE shoes...

Now, this may sound strange, but if you ever get the chance, you absoloutely must go to the Bata Shoe Museum. It is a complete history of shoes, dating back 4,500 years...

...but first a pint and a bite to eat to fortify us on our journey.(Not to mention figuring out where it is exactly).

Through these doors are hundreds of pairs of shoes from a collection of over 10,000.

Eat your heart out Imelda Marcos!

These early flip flops had an air space below the main platform which, when walked upon, would 'poof' out scents of perfume kept in the lower chamber.

Yeah, gold studded flip flops.

4 inch long shoes for the bound feet of the elite Chinese women.

A shoe for every purpose...these for crushing chestnuts.

These for gliding down frozen canals...

There are even gumboots for cows!

And lovely suede booties for dogs in the snow.

These are called 'smugglers clogs', so named for the bottoms which are carved to look as though you've been walking in the opposite direction...they were used during WW2 to fool the Germans.

Has anyone seen Cinderella?

How about Elton John?

I fell in love with this sweet pair from the '20's.

Amazing beaded moccasins...

As well as intricate embroidery.

The original platform shoe. 

This is where the term 'putting a lady on a pedestle' must have come from.

I think I saw someone at the disco in the '70's with a pair of these once.

The things one does in the name of fashion.

Song for Friday....blast from the past...

Just watched the movie 'Pirate Radio'.

Based on a true story.

During the '60s a ship operated off of the coast of England  broadcasting an illegal rock and roll radio station 24 hours a day....anyway a fun movie with lots of great old classics. 

Here's one of my favorites with some great advice from the band...Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones....enjoy the spring weather!

A tribute...

There's a sombre place at the bottom of Bathurst Street, down by the docks.

It sits in the shadow of an old malting plant flanked by new construction of high priced real estate.

This is a small park, a large memorial really, dedicated to Irish immigrants who came in droves to Toronto during the Great Famine.

Unless you already know the history, this is the only sign you come across that really doesn't explain much.

During the summer of 1847, roughly 38,000 Irish landed on the waterfront in the harbour.

At the time the city only had a population of 20,000 so you can imagine the impact.

More than 1,100 of these immigrants died of typhus in "fever sheds" built on the wharves where the ships docked. These names are but a few of some of those who perished.

The names are carved between the large slabs of layered rock.

Just beyond the flat, rock are four life size bronze figures depicting the misery of those times.

It was quite a sobering place to be, especially on this day when no one else was about. 

I thought about my ancestors who had come from County Cork during this time and the hardships they would have faced.

 Poverty, persecution, racisim.

Somehow though, many of them made it, moving into neighborhoods aptly called Corktown and Cabbagetown (for the large food gardens planted there).

There was a settlement known as The Ward where the conditions were ghetto like.

This was where the most impoverished were forced to live and remained an area of poverty from the 1850's to the 1950's.

During 1909 eight acres of The Ward was demolished to make way for the new hospital and slowly shrank over the next 40 years. Its now virtually erased from the memory of many residents.

This park was erected in 2007 to remember those who made the long voyage and who didn't survive and to those who did survive and helped build the city.