6 October 2026 – In there, in the world of mani/pedi, a world of acrylics and gels…
there are no seasons.
Out here on the sidewalk, in a world of concrete but also of trees…
there are seasons.
Currently…
it is fall!
All posts tagged fall colour
Inside, Outside
Posted by icelandpenny on 6 October 2026
https://icelandpenny.com/2026/10/06/inside-outside/
Alley Cats & Advocates
14 September 2026 – Late in the walk, both of them, one each for a two-part day.
Part One has me heading through Chinatown and back into the East Van neighbourhood of Strathcona. Since I’ll be attending an artist’s talk at the Paneficio Gallery on Keefer at Hawks, I walk my way in, all along Keefer from Main Street.
This taco truck stops me in my tracks just before Heatley Avenue. The big, bold colours and graphics, yes — but check the brand-name endorsements!
If the Blessed Virgin doesn’t convince you, maybe these guys will.
Next up, and almost immediately because it’s catty-corner from that truck: MacLean Park, and its giant notice board here at the north-west end. I read notices, impressed by the variety and fascinated by some of the names, the descriptions. This home repairs business, for e.g….
and this night club…
and… and… and I don’t know what this is.
I read it very carefully, right to the end, including the QR code instructions…
and it is then with some relief that I return to the physical, actual world.
I watch these musicians setting up for their free-concert gig in the park…
and, reassured by the normalcy of it all, cross back to the north side of Keefer and walk on.
Almost at the corner of Hawks, diagonally beyond that bicycle, there’s Paneficio, its bright façade dominating the street corner. The building is a complex of artists’ studios, living space and a small exhibition gallery. This is the last day of Yuri Arajs‘ show, Dust to Dust, and an impressive number of red dots mark the works that he discusses in his remarks.
Afterwards, I check the current offerings of what is surely the city’s sleekest little-free-library…
where a quick riffle through one of the books, Make My Curry! (New Indian Cuisine), by Uganda-born Vancouverite Sami Lalji, convinces me to scoop it up.
My south-west loop toward home takes me first through leaf litter on Hawks, bright with the golden tones of fall…
and then west on the alley between East Georgia & Union streets. Crisp shadows at my feet, seasonal reds and golds overhead into the distance.
No alley murals, just some tagging and (I say this with petulance) some scrawls. Sulk. I’m almost at Jackson, about to drop down to Union, when a garage door gives me reason to stop sulking and be happy again.
I know, I know, this is not terrific art. But they are cats, and they do have attitude. (And third eyes.)
So I make my way out to Main and back south with good humour restored.
The bus drops me just north of Broadway — and launches me on Part Two of my day.
Because this is Car-Free Day on Main Street (10th Av to King Edward)! The view south from the Main Street bus stop here at Broadway, aka 9th, draws me in. It is blissfully empty of vehicles and, a bit farther along, full of tents and people.
Tents on both sides of the street, a great jumble of foodstuffs, handcrafts, vintage and up-cycled clothing, pottery, jewellery, plants and veggies, and every kind of organization compatible with the neighbourhood and a “car-free” ethos.
The farther south I walk, the busier it gets, more and more adults, kids and leashed dogs, more and more ways for everyone to interact with each other and with all the offerings.
I watch two clever boys play chess…
I watch a cardboard pope smile gently while his human colleagues watch for opportunities to talk Roman Catholicism and St. Patrick’s Church with passersby.
I am definitely in Advocates Alley now.
Do you see the red and white COPE sign, just past the pope’s shoulder? COPE is one of the municipal political parties, gearing up for the 17 October civic elections here in Vancouver.
Next up, this duo: the sign on the right more obvious than the affiliation of the white-trousered, yellow-buttoned gentleman in the middle, who is trying to persuade the uncommitted listener on the left.
Sign on the right? You got it: the USA mid-term elections are coming up in November and Democrats, as always prior to an American election, want to pull in as many “abroad” votes as they can. Yellow-Button Man is with a very new party on the Vancouver civic scene called Vote Vancouver, and he is talking about our elections thank you, not theirs.
I accept a leaflet as i walk by… and then carry out my own act of advocacy.
I choose a bowl of traditional Himalayan steamed dumplings. This is only mid-September! I still have a whole month, to prep for my civic duty.
Posted by icelandpenny on 14 September 2026
https://icelandpenny.com/2026/09/14/alley-cats-advocates/
Strolling With Confidence
26 October 2025 – A double pun, both parts inspired by what I see, this drizzle-rich day, at the VanDusen Botanical Garden.
One part, the Michael Dennis cedar sculptures visible from the forecourt, which I always enjoy…
but whose title I always forget. I have to read it anew each visit: Confidence, says the label, Western red cedar, 2012.
Truth to tell, I don’t quite understand this title.
Dennis’ cedar sculpture for Guelph Park was called Reclining Figure, a name that made obvious sense — though also a name that disappeared from popular memory when the piece was recast in bronze, nicknamed The Dude, and in turn caused the park itself to become known as Dude Chilling Park. (But that is another story, and one I’ve already told you.)
To me, this Van Dusen duo look more contemplative than confident. Pffft, who cares? Confidence is an admirable characteristic, so let’s run with it. Confidence in my outerwear to be as waterproof as it claims, for example… confidence in nature’s transitions each season… confidence in the bones and installations of this Garden to be of interest, whatever the season, whatever the weather.
Confidence immediately justified. This is what greets me, as I start northward along the west side of Livingstone Lake.
Contrasts in the slopes to my left, fall textures and colours at play against the deep green of the coniferous background.
Sculptural details, in seed pods I can’t identify…
and in a curious fall fruit that I can, namely the Common Medlar (Mespilus germanica).
Then, just before I reach the footbridge that divides Livingstone Lake from Heron Lake, I see this enormous leaf on the ground before me.
Which I can also identify, and which sets me looking for more.
This is a Gunnera leaf — Gunnera manicata, aka Giant Chilean Rhubarb, and worthy of the adjective. One leaf can be a couple of metres wide, clumps run 3-plus metres high and 3-4 metres across. There are great clusters of this plant around the inter-zone of these two lakes.
The plant towers over visitors all summer long.
In fall, it is cut back…
and its leaves inverted, to protect plant crowns from winter temperatures.
I’m properly awed by Gunnera in summer, I giggle at it in winter.
Giant pixie caps!
I’m across the foot bridge now, looking north into Heron Lake, taking in the whole sweep of autumn complexity, from desiccated russet stalks at my feet to flaming trees in the distance. So rich.
Also, in places, so denuded.
I follow the sweep of this dug-over flower bed, past that uprooted tree, and come to a signpost that promises me the most extraordinary amount of choice: both seasonal and geographic.
Here’s where the other part of my punning post title kicks in. I am offered a stroll, and I take it. Specifically, at this point, an autumn stroll in Eastern North America.
Yes. It is very all-of-that.
A side trail loops me past the Cypress Pond, and brings me out once again to the south-east curve of Livingstone Lake.
Where I rejoin the Confidence couple.
I too have confidence — confidence they watch over their lake, just as The Dude watches over his park.
I take my leave.
Posted by icelandpenny on 26 October 2025
https://icelandpenny.com/2025/10/26/strolling-with-confidence/
Under the Threat of Rain
12 November 2024 – It’s definitely a leaden sky up there, but down here there’s lots to look at. Plus there’s a rain jacket in my backpack. I am equipped.
Colours pop against all that grey.
Bright autumn leaves snagged in a still glowing shrub…
seed pods tawny against yellowing foliage…
seed pods cascading from their vines…
and a small tree, starkly elegant against its stone & brick backdrop…
all of them my companions, as I walk my way north down Scotia Street, flanking the east wall of…
the Brewery Creek Building.
Not its original name! Even “Fell’s Candy Factory,” still visible above the brass lettering, is not the original name.
Built c. 1904 as a storage cellar for Vancouver Brewery Ltd., this building was later (among other things) a candy factory, a creamery, a grease works and a stucco manufacturing plant before the restoration and renovations that, in 1993…
transformed it into a collection of live/work condos in a Class A heritage building.
New-builds are now springing up all around. It more than holds its own.
Though I like some of the sassy newcomers.
Especially ones that prove modest building materials can also hold their own — when deployed with bold colour and strong, clean lines.
And this is the back-alley view!
A bit farther north, I’m still caught up in the old/new mix that is Mount Pleasant these days. Low vintage buildings and early (2017 or so) Vancouver Mural Festival artworks mark East 3rd and the alley just off Main Street..
but behind them to the south rises one of the sleek new eco-conscious work facilities that are now reshaping the area, East 5th in particular.
I’m headed in the opposite direction, north & west to the east end of False Creek. My route takes me past Mountain Equipment now-American-Company-not-Canadian-Coop. I consciously Don’t Go There; I instead enjoy the exterior of this mass timber building. Including the corvine slogan under one pillar’s footing…
and droplets sliding down the water course built into the Quebec Street façade.
You see? It has rained, it will rain, but at the moment, it is not — not quite — raining.
I’m closing in on False Creek…
but it’s not the geodesic dome of Science World that catches my eye. it’s the runaway red balloon down there against the railing.
And then I forget all about the red balloon.
I can hear chimes & gongs & cymbals & whistles, and I know how to interpret them. They tell me that the glass tower by the Science World entrance, sadly silent during a long restoration, is once again in glorious, ridiculous, delightful, full-tilt operation. It has no name that I can find, but if ever any 2024 contraption deserved the name Rube Goldberg Machine — this is it.
Things clank, whiz, fly around, spiral and drop, tip and tilt, climb and do it again. A woman grins at me over her children’s heads. “The kids are the excuse. I could stand here all day.” I nod.
But we eventually move on …
I, past the reclining question-mark outside Science World’s creek-facing west wall that invites us to consider our daily choices, all of which affect the environment.
Question-mark nicely suits what happens next. I find myself in an impromptu focus group of SeaWall pedestrians — diversified in our demographics, but united in our conclusion.
Despite much conjecture among us, we remain puzzled. Goose? Swan? We settle for Very Large Waterfowl. We also agree that he/she is gliding over a sunken boat (the hull gleams greenish-white, the mast protrudes). Pleased with ourselves and each other, we go our various ways.
By the time I reach my Cambie Bridge cross-over point, the threat-of-rain has become really-rain.
I stand under bridge ramparts, exchange forecasts with a guy also pawing his backpack for a jacket, and watch a young woman toss her red umbrella aside so she can kick up her heels on one of the playground swings.
Jacketed & be-hatted, all zippered up, I climb my way up onto the bridge and head out over the water. I am so charmed by this graffito on the railing…
that I stand here until a ferry obligingly comes along, to include in the picture. (The wait gives me time to compile a Glad They Exist list, ferries being just one item. I find it a helpful exercise, very soothing, a counterbalance to all that I wish did not exist.)
And then I put the camera away, because, good grief, this is now serious rain.
And I then I take it out again, one last time.
Here at West 8th & Yukon, a living demonstration of the slogan back there under the MEC pillar.
Crows know! This crow knows he is very wet. And he is telling us all about it.
Posted by icelandpenny on 12 November 2024
https://icelandpenny.com/2024/11/12/under-the-threat-of-rain/
Beyond sere & yellow
25 October 2024 – Move over, Macbeth. Make room for Julien Sorel.
In addition to the sere, the yellow leaf…
this season also offers us Le Rouge et le Noir.
Stendhal and Shakespeare would be equally nonplussed. (And, I suspect, equally unimpressed.)
Posted by icelandpenny on 25 October 2024
https://icelandpenny.com/2024/10/25/beyond-sere-yellow/
We Pivot
3 September 2024 – Yesterday, Monday, was the pivot.
Holiday Monday, Labour Day, and good-bye to summer. One season ends; a new one begins — kiddies go back to school, organizations launch fall schedules, our clothing is suddenly no longer / once again appropriate.
I do myself a Monday loop down around my end of False Creek. Me plus half the city. We are at play!
Cyclists stop to buy yerba mate from a tricycle-based vendor…
a lone kayaker veers toward the Creekside Paddling Centre…
a busker sets up shop outside Science World…
but, oh, not everybody has a holiday.
These two are hard at work…
turning the white railing white again.
Over at Plaza of Nations, Batch (a pop-up shipping container bar) is closed for the day…
but right opposite, on the other side of the Seawall pathway, Alien E-Bike Rentals is open for business.
Locals may depend on their own bikes, or their own two feet, but visitors like what the six-language website tells them: rent a bike for two, or three, or even five hours, and loop your way around the whole Seawall.
Any day, the basketball courts in Coopers’ Park resound with the thunk of bouncing balls.
Sometimes — as in, a moment from now — they also ring with yelps of triumph, when someone sinks his shot. Look slightly above & to the left of the net. See? That ball is on its way.
It’s not just humans, pivoting from one season to another. We only do it because nature leads the way.
As I climb the incline ramp at the north end of Cambie Bridge, I look between the levels, and there it is…
colour! Our very own Trooping of the Colour.
It’s not yet officially fall, here in Canada. That arrives with the Fall Equinox, this year at 8:43 a.m. on Sunday, 22 September.
So: officially, no. But viscerally, in our bones, in our blood, in the quickened rhythm of our day? Oh yes.
Fall is here.
Posted by icelandpenny on 3 September 2024
https://icelandpenny.com/2024/09/03/we-pivot/
Walk, Talk, Rock… B.C.-style
Since 14 August 2014
