Dalhousie Street

Most days, I walk down Dalhousie which is about a third of the way between our house and Parliament Hill and it struck me as I was sitting in the i deal coffee shop (after climbing over the pair of tethered terriers at the door), drinking a cup of the potent brew they sell there (the beans freshly roasted on the premises), what an interesting street this is. At one end of the street is the busy intersection with Rideau Street with its body building supply store (selling raw whites of egg and other "sports supplements" by the bucket, literally) and beyond the quieter end looms the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, the Lester B Pearson Building. Other buildings range from the sort of traditional, grey stone house with painted balconies you would find in Normandy, to Victorian British terraces, or square Bostonian brownstone houses, to brand new apartments.

The ambiance is changing by degrees, going upmarket. A new "heritage town home" and retail development on the corner of Guigues Street is calling itself Montmartre on the Market and another popular, free trade coffee chain in Ottawa, Bridgehead, has recently opened one of its branches there with a unique air-freshening device, a green, "living wall" of tropical plants from floor to ceiling. (If the notion interests you, click here for pictures of such things.) The little shack that used to house Kentucky Fried Chicken is now the Casa do Churrasco, the cosy Portuguese Restaurant where we often spend Friday evenings and where Chris' favourite order, the steak on a stone that he can cook for himself at the table, is liable to smoke out all the other diners. Diagonally opposite is Argosy Books, whose owner, "with a preference for fine books, collectors' editions and classic literature," keeps changing his window display according to a weekly theme, with an apt and often brilliantly chosen quotation in big print placed slap in the centre to give us pause for thought. A couple of outlets sell beauty salon supplies and there's a pet shop called A guy, a girl, two dogs & a cat. Further on is a corner shop selling mystic crystal balls and the like and a "concept boutique"—The White Shop—where everything for sale is, of course, white. Where there used to be a large pawn shop is now a row of trendy boutiques. There was a porn shop too, but it's been transformed into a bridal wear outlet!

Not so long ago Ladies of the Night, as Chris calls them, used to loiter on the street corners hereabouts and accost men passing by. But yesterday I overheard one earnest young woman talking to another about the "knitting nights" held once a week on the i deal coffee premises. "We all just hang out and do crafts," she said. "It's better than hanging out in the street."