London rockin

Some Halloween decorations appearing in my suburban neighbourhood are not accenting the horror angle. All things considered, a Halloween with a light touch when it comes to horror would be greatly appreciated. It is just a little store located in a somewhat out-of-the-way location. Oh, there's a lot of vehicle traffic in the area but getting even a small percentage of that traffic to stop is quite the feat.

But the little grocery store, lunch stop, butcher shop and woman's clothing boutique with gift shop keeps going year after year. I wonder how many other customers are like us, my wife and me, and simply want to support the underdog? Truth be told, if that is what we think we are doing, we may be wrong. We may need it as much as it needs us. Today, we stopped by the little store so my wife could buy a fall outfit.

While she shopped, I picked up some Polish perogi es, some English crisp bread and some Italian dried beans soup mix before we both left with cups of hot pumpkin spice latte -- move over Starbucks.

In writing this I may have revealed to myself why the little store is still in business: creativity. It carries such an eclectic inventory of quality stuff that the place has made itself worth making a stop. Considering how stores come and go with great regularity in the large malls, maybe our local retail entrepreneurs located in the malls could learn from the little oh-so-creatively stocked store in the middle of nowhere.

Does almost daily rain keep the fall, at least the fall colours, at bay? It's chilly at night. The days are certainly much shorter. And yet the trees are late showing their fall colours this years. Oh well, it is easy to be patient when one is getting old, circulation is failing and the Canadian winter is running late. A few extra weeks of fall weather is fine.

Oh, and about the recent rain. London's old streetscapes are disappearing bit by bit year after year. When it was built the glass-skinned tower in the background was the tallest building in London. It was all of 26 stories. Today, it is an also-ran. Downtowns were once more than "destinations. Factory workers and bankers worked in the same area, sometimes on the same block. Downtown is actually doing a bit better than many imagine but it is not doing as well as many would like. Whether or not all the recent changes, too often extreme changes in planning decisions, will bring vibrancy back to the core is still an open question.

It is beginning to look like a lot of Londoners do not see the downtown as the all important beating heart of the city. These Londoners do not share the city planner's dreams. My doctor's office is in a two story walk-up. Her office is on the first floor.

In the basement, there is a small pharmacy. Accessing the front door proved very difficult for many patients and so today there is a very long entrance ramp at the rear of the building. If I had to describe the two building infill development, I"d call it ugly and not all the practical. The distant building, a small apartment building, appears to have problems dispersing humidity. The surface of the white bricks on the side of the building is flaking, leaving ugly, rough, exposed red brick.

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