A perfect fall afternoon

On Wednesday Cole and I made a second pilgrimage to Granville Island this week. On our walk there the other day I kept wishing that I'd brought the big camera - there was amazing not rainy/not sunny light. The light was impossible to recreate, but we had a great fall walk anyway. The foliage is gorgeous right now. I used to think that BC didn't get beautiful colours like back East, but either I wasn't paying attention, or something's in the air. Probably both?

It was the perfect opportunity to test out our new baby carrier. I finally broke down and put our Bjorn on the shelf. It's served us well for six months, but my shoulders just couldn't take it anymore. Cole weighs about 18lbs (so I've calculated on our digital bathroom scale that - egad - also tells your body fat %) and it's been hard going for the last month or so in the Bjorn. I got an Ergo, which everyone raves about. I like it ok so far - it's comfy when it's all adjusted right, but I do miss the simplicity of the Bjorn. Click, click... Now, I'm all tugging on things and trying to figure out whether the sleeping hood is helpful or causes Cole to freak out... A little of both, I think. The Ergo is comfortable though, our walk was great and Cole napped the whole way.

The market was simply crawling with teenagers. It was like a pimply, slouchy gauntlet! I got annoyed at not being able to get through the crowd and at one point bellowed, "excuse me, children" at a group of 6 foot tall 14 year old boys. Who visibly rolled their eyes, snickered and moved about an inch. I managed to get us some of the most delicious honey crisp apples at our favourite Okanagan stand, pears for jam (which hopefully won't be a repeat of last year's pear jam fiasco) and some deliciously stinky Shropshire blue cheese to go with my Terra walnut bread.

I wanted to take the ferry home - as always I'd bought too much fruit to make walking an easy option - but we kept missing the boat. The ferry to Science World only comes twice an hour... I wandered off to spend my half hour wait obtaining a Copenhagen, only to become distracted by the ukelele guy (Ralph Shaw, my favourite busker at the market) playing a spirited rendition of Sex Bomb. It was a request from one of the old dudes in the crowd and it was just too funny watching the crowd of grannies and babies groovin' to the music.

So we ended up just missing the boat again, but thankfully the 30 minutes didn't pass without entertainment. First, at the dock, we took from-above photos of ourselves... Notice half-eaten Copenhagen just inching out of the frame. I can entertain Cole for ages by chewing. Seriously. Then, another nice Mama pulled up with her 1+ year old girl and her nagging Mother. Grandma proceeded to nitpick everything about the situation - the baby's leg was sticking out of her pants 1 inch - cover the poor child up or she'll freeze to death! It was funnier when she turned on another random Mother standing on the dock, chastising her for covering her baby with a blanket. Had the child no sweater? And on and on. Thankfully she must have seen me laughing with my eyes (as Tyra would say) and she spared me her advice. This same woman proceeded to find things from her purse for the child to play with - possibly in the hope of reducing the amount of frenzied shrieking going on - including a bottle of prescription pills to shake. Nice...