James Tucker in Cov

The other week (I have been having computer troubles) I went to Kingston (site of my undergrad years) on my way to Ottawa, as part of the Great Passport Adventure Of Last Week. I was graciously put up by Jenna and Absent Kevin, and re-aquainted with the Toucan and poutine within hours of arrival. For all that I've spent the last year in the UK, I'd put the basement of the Toucan in Kingston as one of my favourite pubs ever, still.
The weather was incredible, and was probably one of the last days that the city looked that nice- Kingston has a nasty habit of getting bleak and very, very grey come the winter, as everything is made from the same grey limestone. In the bright sunlight, though, it all just looked agreeably solid and time-tested.
Oh, and I saw a snake.

So, I've not updated in a while. But there's a reason for that. I've finished my master's dissertation, and moved back to Toronto for a while. It's not been terribly exciting, in short. However, this Thanksgiving weekend, I went with my family to Lake Muskoka to close up the cottage for the winter.

As Muskoka is farther north than Toronto, the weather was a little cooler, and the leaves had really begun to change colour. For the first time, in fact, we saw busloads of tourists up to see the fall colours wandering around the town of Bracebridge. In any event, it was lovely. Less than a week later, it's much, much colder, and very windy. The harsher end of autumn is already here, apparently.
Those are the falls in Bracebridge, at top, which stand at one end of Manitoba Street (left), the main street in Bracebridge ( I love the small-town Ontario street-names, which are always grand and well-thought-out: Dominion, Manitoba, King, Queen etc, even if they aren't as descriptive as some of their English counterparts).
Below is the lake from the general vicinity of our cottage. The water was still warm enough I probably could have gone swimming, though the water level was low for some arcane reason to do with fish wintering or something.