Serendipity

27 deg C - excellent weather. Walking past a busker on his sax along Rideau in the clear crisp morning, en route to Parliament Hill - surreal. Missed (again) the Changing of the Guard - when we were here last year, the season had not yet started. Now that I'm here again, apparently it has already ended :-(

Almost everything on the Hill has a meaning, and certainly everything has a history. Despite this sense of gravity, I found some amusing moments. Look at this - think it's just another monument?

Look again. Doesn't life feel like that sometimes? All kinds of rubbish fall on our heads and shoulders, and sometimes there's just nothing we can do about it... Minutes later, I found the counterpoint to this thought. The "Women are Persons!" monument reflects a courage and derring-do unusual for its day. Read more about it here.


Seeing how I couldn't find much live company on the Hill, I decided to recce 257 Slater. It's a very long walk! Jiat lak, better go study the bus and train routes... There was a really nice atrium on the way to 257 Slater. At the heart of this atrium were 6 white-haired, grandfatherly gentlemen waiting to entertain the gathering lunchtime crowd with al fresco jazz. You wouldn't think they had the energy, but they worked their magic with the keyboard, sax, trumpet, clarinet, tuba, drums and double bass. Very cool.

I was quite taken with the sight of and music made by these gentlemen, so I sat under a tree to watch for a bit. A lady soon came to share my bench, and we started talking. When she realised that I was new to Ottawa and on my own, she offered to keep in touch with me and left me her home number. Turns out that she and her husband have been living in Ottawa for 36 years!

A serendipitous day... ending with a serendipitous buy :-)