Pumpkin Hunting

[Porch pumpkins, Belmont; 10/15/12]

It's been a relatively quiet week, workwise, by which I mean no tight deadlines. It's given me some needed breathing room. Not enough to clean the house, mind you, nor marketing or any number of things I need to do. But a bit more puttering time. And time for stepping out the door and meandering in the sunshine hunting porch pumpkins.

[Eyeing the flamingos]

We hung around town this weekend. On Saturday, we wandered through the Public Garden and over to Beacon Hill to find a bite of lunch, then up Cambridge St, by Government Center and Faneuil Hall. We passed the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse, built in 2000, which I've either never seen or somehow never noticed. That area of the city has changed a lot since the Big Dig tore down the old central artery overpass. While I've reoriented myself in the past 5 years or so to the changed landscape of so much of what used to be the great divide cutting off the North End and the waterfront from downtown, I guess I haven't walked around that particular sprawl of land. In my 20s, when I used to drive in to Boston to go carousing, I'd sometimes park down a side street across from where the Brooke Courthouse now stands to avoid the parking fees in the big parking garage. All so long ago!

On Sunday, friends came into town and joined us for brunch at the Met Back Bay, which was wonderful - both the company and the food. The overnight and morning rains ended as we ate and the sun came through to enrich the colors on our brief post-brunch walk in the Public Garden and brick walkways on Marlborough St. Since we were busy talking, I didn't take any good photos, but seeing the old usual stomping grounds through visitors' eyes enriched the view even more than the rains.

Comments

[Relatively Retiring]

Lovely photos, as ever. I wouldn't trust that pumpkin with the flamingoes....they look very uneasy together.
It's interesting to see that people can leave things on their porches. If it happened here the pumpkins would be smashed in a matter of hours (and this is a middle-class neighbourhood!)

[Leslee]

Thanks, RR. There are pumpkins on every other porch around here - none smashed as far as I can see! I used to be concerned about that where I lived before, but they seem to leave them alone around here. Pumpkins, chrysanthemums, scarecrows, witches, spiders, headstones, bodies without heads, heads without bodies, various limbs... you name it, people have them. :-)

[Natalie]

Leslee, I wanted to thank you for mentioning me in a previous post (Fragments) but for some reason the comments are closed down there. Anyway I tried!

Your photos are always lovely, really bringing the sense of place up close and personal. It's enjoyable walking around with you.

[Leslee]

Natalie: Yeah, my blog's set up to close down comments on older posts to keep the spammers at bay. Anyway, thanks for stopping by and commenting! Glad you enjoyed.