We just came back from a walk down Queen St to the DVP and back. It's getting pretty cold out there -- I should have worn my toque. Saw that a couple new places are open or close to it. Loic (a gourmet food-to-go place, although I'm not sure they need a big store front for their concept), a new art gallery (beside Comrade). LPK's Culinary Groove (a dessert place, I think) is still under construction.

We're still waiting for a nice pub to open up in Leslieville. Maybe the new place on Queen and Curzon will be open at some point. It looks like their application for a patio on Curzon was not approved because of a lack of response to a poll of neighbours, and that they can't reapply for two years. Seems like a strong penalty for a lack of response. I didn't find anything about their liquor license application.

Anyways we're just drinking a herbal tea and then going to bed.

I worked on the backyard for most of yesterday:


I decided to put flagstone for the whole path. So far I've used about 0.5 tonnes of 1" flagstone from Rock Valley. There were some larger pieces (as large as 2' x 2') that I'm going to use on the patio in front of the deck, to define the different spaces between the patio and walkway. In all the flagstone will probably end up costing about $300.

The weather has been really nice this Thanksgiving weekend. Friday I was sick (there's a bug going around work) and so I took the afternoon off and came home and slept. Saturday I felt better, but we still took it easy (just cleaned up around the house).

On Sunday I started working on the back yard again. I had 2.5 yards of limestone delivered from Homeland Garden Centre. I had thought I needed crushed limestone but they insisted that I needed limestone screening so that's what I got. I had looked at other places but this was close (they're just up on the Danforth), and their delivery trucks are small enough to fit down back laneways.


I used up about two-thirds of the limestone screening, and I have enough left to do the flagstone patio between the deck and my parking spot. I figured it's better to have leftovers because I can always give the extra away on craigslist.

It was rather exhausting work. A previous owner had put down gravel in the backyard, but only up to the house. The little alley beside the house was about 3 - 4 inches lower. I removed the top 3 inches in the front of the pic, and used it to raise the alley. I put down industrial grade weed block and then the limestone screening.

Next is to build a boardwalk from the deck to car, on top of the limestone. I don't know if wood sitting on top of screening is a good idea (maybe gravel was better for drainage), but I'll find out.