A walk among the lights

A gloriously clear day today, followed by a clear night. We deserved that, after the damp, grey week we've had. The drawback was a bitterly cold wind. Not wearing enough and not having eaten enough for lunch, my extremities got chilled; at one point I could hardly feel my toes as I walked along, a strange sensation. This evening I was more sensible, donned an extra, fleecy layer, and had two helpings of the vegetable curry I'd left slow-cooking all day.

Every Christmas in Ottawa, the trees and buildings are beautified with a colourful "Pathway of Lights", this year, until January 7th. Elva, Laurie, Carol, Don, Chris and I met on our street this evening for the sake of a government-recommended, 7.5 km walk along the main streets, via Parliament Hill, to see them. Carol and I took photos; Carol tells me she drove her very elderly aunt along this route from her nursing home, the other day, and the old lady had been thrilled by the illuminations.

The reflective disks on sticks are supposed to represent wheat fields in Quebec, waving in the wind; the installation's entitled Entre les Rangs. Crossing the Portage Bridge to the Gatineau side of the river we also passed an artistic structure representing a dream-catcher, near Victoria Island, the spot where the First Nations gather. That one is called The Gather-Ring:

It is spotlit from below with changing colours.

The brightest and most striking light of all was not supplied by the National Capital Commission. It was the moon, almost full, shining on the ice that's forming in the Ottawa River.

 

In the afternoon we'd been flying as well, landing (first for a touch-and-go in Gatineau and then for a full-stop at Rockcliffe) when the sun was setting right ahead, so Chris had trouble seeing the runways for the dazzle. Driving home from the airport it was even more dazzling.