5 February 2023 – Messy out there, because we are between seasons, even more messy because drizzly, but also mild and therefore easy to enjoy.

Everywhere, the messiness of not being firmly either one season or another.

Old leaves not yet gone…

and new spring blossoms not yet open.

Surprises, too.

I’m walking east on E 10th Ave, and as I cross St. George I look for the sidewalk community library — the take-something / leave-something wooden structure that was a fixture here long before I arrived in the neighbourhood. Well, it’s gone.

I am unsettled by this, feel my universe slightly creaking on its axis, and I am therefore relieved to see that the bizarre streetside attraction a few doors farther east is still in place. I’ve shown it to you before: a metal tub balanced on mannequin hips + legs, with assorted real plants and plastic ornaments — always including a clutch of tiny plastic naked babies, doing their best to escape from turquoise plastic clogs.

Though the babies are always there, the presentation varies slightly over time. Today there is a large, glossy horse chestnut balanced carefully atop the mass of babies.

I’m laughing so hard a young couple stop to see what’s going on. “Clever babies!” cries the woman, getting into the spirit of the thing. “They know they’ll need food for their travels.” We beam at each other; her boyfriend stares patiently into space.

A nearby gate bears this balloon, with its optimistic and timely message…

which you can only read if you stand on your head.

Then there’s the messiness of the construction site over at Fraser, as this vintage home is coaxed back to life…

and, in contrast, across the street the tidy presentation of a vintage home already restored. (Is it just me, or does that gate quite wonderfully resemble an apron? Wearing that would cheer me no end, preparing dinner…)

Messiness, no two ways about it, exuberant messiness is the calling card of any skateboard park — here the twin bowls in South China Creek Park near Clark…

watched over by a metal crow perched on a neighbouring balcony.

Mr. Crow is the start of a run of animal life.

There are salmon (plus frog plus ladybug) in the sidewalk mosaic at Commercial Drive…

and a dinosaur at Victoria & E 8th.

Of course there is.

Clever dinosaur, even more clever than those chestnut-toting plastic babies. And if you’ve never visited the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology in Drumheller, Alberta, home to this enlightened creature, then at least visit it right here, online.

This dinosaur, the other side of the tree informs me, has local friends.

Yet more information over on “The Drive” (aka Commercial) at E 4th.

Fascinated as I am, I am not in the market for a fade. I’d happily be in the market for a latte, but unfortunately every café I pass is full up, so I head home.

Where I remember that I picked up a horse chestnut for myself, right next to those enterprising tiny babies. I pull it out of my pocket, and tuck it in with some ferns on my balcony.

Twenty years from now there will be a towering great horse chestnut tree on this balcony, and only you, in the whole wide world, will know how it got there.