Aven

@avensarah

Roman poetry & culture | Endless Knot Podcast & YT | 🇨🇦Fed govt, former prof | She/her | circumsiliens modo huc modo illuc, pipio

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Aven@avensarah· 3d

#SundayPixChair The morning after.

An assortment of lawn chairs in a circle in a backyard enclosed by a cedar hedge. A temporary gazebo stands over a table to the side.

Aven@avensarah· 3d

And yes, the candles are in the shape of an L. For my 50th, of course! 😁 It may not be my actual birthday today, but I had a wonderful party and feel truly lucky and loved. 🥰

A woman with short light brown hair stands in a backyard smiling in a cream coloured sundress with pastel flowers, holding a paper plate with a slice of cake.

Aven@avensarah· 3d

Update on the birthday party prep drama: the pulled pork worked fine in the end and was great, and the cake got made this morning, so the two planned cakes were accomplished. And they were delicious, if I say so myself! One lemon curd & whipped cream, the other butter cake with ganache icing.

Two layer cakes on cake stands on a table outdoors on a lawn, one with white cream and blobs of yellow, the other with chocolate icing and lit birthday candles. A woman in a flowered dress stands and gestures towards the cakes.

Aven@avensarah· 6d

The Supreme Court building, facing away from the water and towards Wellington Street. All the other pictures are taken from the path that curves around behind this building beside the river.

A large squared off concrete/stone building with green copper roof and two bronze statues on plinths on either side of the main doors.

Aven@avensarah· 6d

A newly built and honestly very cool energy distribution centre, with mirrored cooling towers. It’s built into the cliff and has an information centre and cliff climb in it as well.

A curving stone wall, with two tall mirrored towers in the distance

A small cliff with interesting cloth like decoration on the side, and construction vehicles.

Two slim curved mirrored towers standing in a newly landscaped green space

Aven@avensarah· 6d

Some crow friends hanging out.

Aven@avensarah· 6d

The Ottawa River, with Gatineau (Quebec) on the other side. On the right you can see the Library of Parliament and the glass of the National Gallery, on the left near the end of the bridge there’s the Museum of History.

A wide river lined with green trees, with spired buildings on the right and a bridge on the left.

A wide river lined with green trees, with spired buildings on the right, a bridge in the centre, and a cluster of buildings on the left.

A wide river lined with green trees, with buildings on the right and left and a bridge in the centre, spanning a cluster of islands.

Aven@avensarah· 6d

The further building is the West Block of the Parliament buildings, still in the midst of renovations.

Stone buildings with spires and green copper roofs, against a clear blue sky, with a crane to the side

Aven@avensarah· 6d

On my lunchtime walk I looked up and saw this little guy, and it suddenly made me think about TwitterWanders way back in the day, and @captaindoodle.bsky.social and @wombat37.bsky.social. So for old time’s sake, here’s a mini BlueskyWander from the walk to the Ottawa River from my office.

A carved stone owl on a plinth on the side of a block stone building.

Aven@avensarah· 7d

This made it easy, if you want to have your say on Tim Hortons' very upsetting HP tie-in. affirmingconnections.com/tim-hortons-...

A brown box with text: "I sent mine. I asked TIm Hortons and Restaurant Brands International to end the Harry Potter campaign -- and to say publicly why. Your turn. It takes five minutes."
tinyurl.com/THtoolkit affirmingconnections.com

Aven@avensarah· 9d

My favourite colour is blue, and wild blueberries are one of my favourite blue things. #SundayPixFavColours

A container full of small dusty blue berries.

Aven@avensarah· 10d

I took my 5-yr-old niece to the 🇨🇦 Museum of Nature today. The special exhibit is “Wild Colours” which seems really neat, but she only wanted to look at the bugs and the dinosaurs. So I just took pictures of cool things in the gift shop, in honour of our recent episode with @korystamper.bsky.social

A round container labeled “Cavallinin& co. Color chart vintage puzzle” and “natural system of colours”, with an image of a circular spectrum of colours.

Blue book with the title “Werner’s Nomenclature of Colours adapted to Zoology, Botany, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Anatomy, and the Arts” by P. Syme. There are a series of coloured squares on a banner across the book, with the caption “The book Charles Darwin used to describe colours in nature on his HMS Beagle voyage”

A tote bag with a series of circles displaying the colour spectrum, with the title The Chromatic Scale of colors

A book with paint swatches of colour and the title A Field Guide to Color, a watercolor workbook, Lisa Solomon

Aven@avensarah· 29d

It’s a bit hazy here today. That’s the sun. The colour is accurate.

Small deep orangey-red dot in a greyish sky.

Aven@avensarah· Jul 12

Midsummer when we were in Sudbury meant the backyard was in full bloom. One year I got creative with the mowing! #SundayPixMidSummer

Orange flowers in a backyard with paths mown through

A very large backyard with the near half mown to short grass and the far half filled with orange wildflowers, with winding paths mown through. At the far end a lake is visible through a screen of deciduous and evergreen trees.

Aven@avensarah· Jul 5

Ester has always been a very affectionate cat, but as she reaches her 15th year she’s become even more snuggly (an unkind person would say clingy). I can’t sit down without her finding a way to sit on/with me, even on a hot summer afternoon. ❤️

Aven@avensarah· Jul 4

Go Canada! Show us how fun the game can be! 🇨🇦

A hand with red and white nail polish. In the background is a tv showing a football game

Aven@avensarah· Jul 1

This past weekend we were up in Sudbury, which did its best to show us what a mistake it was to move away by treating us to spectacularly beautiful weather the whole time. We stayed in a former neighbour’s guest house by the lake, ate breakfast on their deck, and did evening yoga by Ramsey Lake.

The “cottage” at the bottom of our friends’ garden that we stayed in, by the lake we used to live next to. A small wooden hose surrounded by lawn and ferns and trees, with the lake in the distance.

Looking out on a sunny deck with flower pots, into a large lawn and trees and blue sky.

A pale sunset over a lake, with a dock ringed with Canada flags in the foreground.

A blue evening sky and lake , with a wooden platform in the foreground, with women sitting on yoga mats.

Aven@avensarah· Jul 1

We decided not to try going out anywhere because of the forecast 40°+ humidex, but now I’m glad we stayed in and aren’t dealing with the thunderstorms that have been going on since 2pm. #Ottawa #Storm

Aven@avensarah· Jul 1

Happy Canada Day! #Ottawa #storms

Front steps and garden (heavy on the hostas) with pouring rain obscuring the street.

Screen cap of a weather app for Ottawa showing afternoon temperatures of 27° C with humidex of 33°-37° and a risk of scattered strong thunderstorms

Aven@avensarah· Jun 21

And just an extra to celebrate my lovely and loving father, whom I am very lucky to still have with me. This is from a few years ago but I know he’d like you all to see his magnificent trout! #SundayPixFamily #FathersDay

A grey bearded man in a Tilley hat and rain jacket standing in the woods holding up a large fish by the gills.

Aven@avensarah· Jun 21

Some meaningful family photos for #SundayPixFamily. My grandfather’s family, my mother’s family, me as a baby with four generations of my mother’s family, and my parents on my wedding day.

A black and white photo of four people sitting on the steps of a house; a mother, two teenage boys and a teenage girl. Text on the photo reads “Gordon’s family ~1947”

A black and white photo of five children between 1-11 years old and a man and a woman sitting around a dinner table

Four women and a baby. Text reads “Susan, Betty, Sarah Galia, Sarah Page. 1977”

A couple standing in front of a house, the man is wearing a kilt and formal wear, the woman is in a flowing deep blue dress.

Aven@avensarah· Jun 15

There were fireflies though, and this one that clearly got trapped on the surface of the lake was amusing me. Note there’s still light in the sky at 10:30pm.

Aven@avensarah· Jun 15

We were up at the cottage this weekend, and it was a lovely relaxing break from the world, if very buggy. I tried to film the sheer number of mosquitoes hovering outside the screened in porch, but never managed to capture the true extent (30+ in a one foot area). You could hear the whine at dusk.

Aven@avensarah· May 31

#SundayPixCeramics Three lovely pieces made and given to us as gifts over the last two years by one of my oldest friends, who took up pottery about 10 years ago.

A light green plate with incised leaf motifs on the bottom; a small dark blue vase with dried roses in it; a dark blue mottled mug. All hand-made.

Aven@avensarah· May 17

The bunnies are frolicking in our backyard, unconcerned by our bbqing nearby.

Three eastern cottontail rabbits (light brown) in a yard with longish grass and a few patches of dandelions

Two rabbits in a lawn next to a small tree with chicken wire protecting its base

Aven@avensarah· May 17

Three moods of water for #SundayPixWater

A wide shot of rushing whitewater rapids over dark rocks, with evergreen trees and a handful of yellow and red fall trees scattered in the far bank. The sky is overcast with puffy grey clouds.

A small frozen waterfall on the side of roughcut rocks in the sun

Still water with sand underneath. A perfect large soap bubble sits on the surface, glistening with iridescence, and is reflected in the water

Aven@avensarah· May 15

That’s a fabulous passage, but I’ll admit I was distracted by one verb that I’m not sure I’d seen/noticed before, mostly because of how it matches my outfit today. 😆🦕🦖

Passage of Latin about grammatical genders with the word “dinoscuntur” highlighted

Selfie of a brown-haired white woman wearing a dress with dinosaur print on a blue background

Aven@avensarah· May 6

@dannybate.bsky.social This slide from a talk at the conference I’m attending made me think of you. The alphabet as magic, in curse tablets found in Roman Britain 😁

Aven@avensarah· May 5

First day of the @cacscec.bsky.social conference is almost done; I thought I’d wear appropriate jewellery for the Women’s Network panels on Masculinity. 😆

Selfie of myself (a brown haired woman with blue eyes) wearing a gold chain with a small gold phallus and earrings of winged phalli.

Booklet of the AGM of the CAC held at Queen’s University on a desk next to a notebook

A page of the conference schedule with various panels, including two sessions of the Women’s Network Panel on Masculinities

Aven@avensarah· Apr 26

#SundayPixBakedGoods I do very much enjoy baking, though I’m not always amazing my at the presentation side of things. Everything tastes good though!