Recipe for a perfect weekend

Ingredients:

1. Hamburgers + assorted BBQ items
2. Balcony BBQ provided by Mum (early 5th anniversary gift - thanks!)
   
3. Swedish berries
4. Liebfraumilch
   
5. Apt613 for ideas
6. Bus tickets
7. Camera
8. Ottawa Beaches Daily Updates
   
9. Caroline

Directions:

1. Visit the usual suspects in the Market (Workshop, Victoire, Lost Marbles, Sugar Mountain)
2. Have a BBQ (thanks to husband for actual grilling) with friends. This was one of those evenings I haven't had in a long time: great company and excellent and varied conversation well into the dark night.
   
3. Visit the Capital Craft Market (It was great. I hope it grows...)
4. Eat at Smoke's Poutinerie - overpriced but good.
   
5. Frolic at the newly-renovated Canadian Museum of Nature. Favourites: the interactive elements, the new terrace outside the café, the rare blue whale skeleton, the dinosaurs, and the BIRDS! Oh, and the mountain goat who was damaged in the earthquake and whose head is held up by a Squeegie (see below)
   
6. Have a drink at Dow's Lake and a succulent dinner on the tiny, charming, grapevined terrace of Il Piccolino
   
7. Eat a delicious brunch at The Scone Witch
8. Go to the beach for the first time (or second, depending on whether you are me or C) ... This was my first visit to Westboro Beach, which is as lovely as it is accessible by public transit (thank you!), and Moe Attalah's licensed patio of Moe’s World Famous Newport Restaurant provides delicious refreshment. I would be all over the Gatineaus, but that would require buying or renting a car first.
   

The “Scots Baronial” (nope, I didn't make that up) Canadian Museum of Nature, featuring the new glass tower built to replace the original stone tower that was sinking into the soft soil of the area. Did you know that the museum, the "Victoria Memorial Museum Building," dates back to 1912? You might know it temporarily housed Parliament after the first Parliament Buildings burnt down, and its construction was intended to mirror the Centre Block.

A casualty of the earthquake (or did he have too much to drink on Canada Day?)

Il Piccolino

Tuna sconewitch on cheddar scone

Westboro Beach, with guy reading from an e-book reader (see? You thought this post had nothing to do with books, but it does!)