Of late, the quiet is expanding.

I find myself choosing not to hop aboard as many buses and trains lately as I once did. I find myself running through a list of destinations many mornings, and mentally ticking them off, one by one.  'Nah, too hot today, too far, looks like rain, takes a train and a bus, been there, done that, nah, nah.'  

I'm not sure why.  It's true that the city planners, in their wisdom, have redesigned the bus system, making it harder for me to use. (though still free)  I suppose it's more efficient in terms of riders per bus per kilometer per hour, but I liked the old system better. Or, I suppose, I could blame it on the upgrades being done to our rail system.  The past summer has seen a lot of work on rails and sidings and so on which means I couldn't always count on the trains running if I had wanted to ride them.    

I have been finding it increasingly pleasant to linger over a cup of coffee in the morning.  Jeanne often has her phone in her hand as we sip and reads a few of the headlines.  We discuss them sometimes, but mostly shake our heads in disgust, both at the newsmakers and the media.    

Then, when Jeanne heads down to the gardens, I clean up the kitchen from breakfast, and sit down at the computer to upload my latest batch of pictures, check for incoming emails, add a bit to my ongoing blog post, write some emails of my own, play a hand of Free Cell, or otherwise amuse myself.  It's surprising how quickly the time passes.  Then, in lieu of choosing a travel destination, I check Jeanne's grocery shopping list, and head to the store.  I will probably also decide to take a walk somewhere in our local area.  I still walk about an hour every day, but that's a lot less than I'd walk if I went exploring somewhere.  

Enough rambling.  The end result of my laid back lifestyle is that I have fewer photos of the new and exciting. This post will reflect my mood lately.  It'll show you daily stuff that I recorded very recently, comfortable stuff.  

"Oh, look, a cloud with a hole in it.  That's been on my bucket list for a long time."  

As always, a sunrise

Today I walked down to the Taste of Samoa shop for some sort of dense cake and custard-like topping, (which I dropped coming home. No real damage to it except it got scrambled up a bit), and what they call pancakes.  Very much like giant donut holes.  (One of the best food bargains that I know, at 5 for $1.)  

A fall picture. That's our entrance just ahead to the left.  

The scaffolding on the far side, from us, of The Palms.  

This is a kumara. It's like a not-so-sweet, sweet potato.  Jeanne wanted to test how they'd do in our gardens and this is one of the first out of the ground. The yield will be impressive if the rest of the patch mirrors the first digging, and I think it will.  Very few people here realize how much produce she is responsible for.  There is a large crew of volunteers that help, but she has personally planted practically all of what is currently growing and harvests a large part of it as well.  

These are the Madeleines, who entertained us recently. Phenomenally good. They sing songs from the 1940's, 50's and a few newer besides.  

Here's one of their promos from YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrxZxRBCEXg

Another fall scene.

Finally, a quiet, kind of moment in time picture.  See you next week.      -djf