MOM's GARDENMom worked really hard planning the gardens this summer. The photos really don't do these massive flower beds justice.

PURRS and BUBBLES
Callum plays hide and seek......not very well!!Rocky loves a cuddle. I think he is the only cat in the house who doesn't know he has only one eye. The others use his blind spot in fights to their advantage.
And the new addition, a big-go aquarium! Go fish-the cats wish!

CHILDHOOD HAUNTING

(Clerks' Bedrooms)
When I was a kid my parents were members of a society downtown. They spent much of their time at the local office on the weekends. As a kid, this meant I went along.
This building always terrified me as a child. It hadn't been updated in what looked like forever, especially through the eyes of a child. The society had its residence upstairs with one way in, and one way out, a 26 step stair case. 26 steps in a row!! At the top there was a hallway lined with offices; formerly the professional quarters of doctors, dentists and brokers. In broad daylight this corridor is still pitch black.
At the end of the corridor, where it's particularly dark, another staircase curves around a corner. As child I was terrified of the end of this corridor, as if something would drag me up the stairwell. This building scared me so much that I remember one night watching the Santa Clause parade from an office window in terror. Mom had turned out the light so we could see the parade better. Not a wise move!
This building has haunted my dreams into adulthood. In my nightmares I get to the floor beyond the mysterious stairwell (somewhere I had never been before), but in my dreams I take an elevator (something I never knew to exist in the building). In the dreams the floor is a hallway with smaller rooms used as bedrooms.(Elevator Shaft)
I decided to face this mysterious building again this summer, for the first time since childhood. I went up the creepy set of stairs to the abandoned floor, that I had never visited before and knew nothing about, to find it was as it had been in my nightmares. Better yet I found the abandoned elevator shaft.

I couldn't believe it. Apparently the bank, below the society's residence, had had accommodation for its clerks on the top floor; small very basic bedrooms, just as there had been in my nightmares. My parents had told me years before that there were offices up there, like downstairs. I had no way of knowing this.

I wonder if children really are more attuned to mysterious things?

Apparently the first person to die in Brantford from Spanish influenza was a doctor who had his office at the address and as for the rest of the building's history?... I'd like to know.

SILENT HILL (Downtown Brantford) IN THE SUN(Colborne Street)

Former shopping district in Brantford, now abandoned and decaying, became the ideal film set for the horror blockbuster Silent Hill (Terrible film! Don't see it!). I used to shop on these streets as a child. It's sad to see it like this.
However, there is hope. Laurier University has moved to the old public library a stone's throw from the main site of the decay. The university has purchased many buildings in the area for renovation. Hopefully Brantford's downtown will get off the big screen and start flourishing as so many people remember it once did.Unfortunately the casino is cleaning out the pockets of people in the same locality. Maybe not a good thing for the locals? Brantford certainly has some interesting city planning schemes.