Glebe Report

In June 2019, I looked out the front window of our house and a flash of white caught my eye. When I investigated, I discovered that bark had been meticulously cut around our large blue spruce tree. Not being familiar with such things, I quickly googled and learned about girdling, a process used to kill trees.

The Ottawa Tennis and Lawn Bowling Club on the banks of the Rideau River serves the whole of Ottawa but more particularly nearby neighbourhoods, including the Glebe. Indeed, before it moved to Old Ottawa South, it operated in the Glebe for a full two decades, from 1902 to 1922.

It should come as no surprise that the Dow’s Lake Residents Association has been responding to some of the serious flaws in the plans for the new Civic Hospital campus in the Experimental Farm near Dow’s Lake and the Arboretum.

Any last hopes for an underground parking garage, as initially promised for the new Civic Hospital, were dashed on October 13 when City Council approved the new campus master site plan. The hospital is now moving forward on site-plan approval for a four-storey parking garage in Queen Juliana Park.

The enticing new window displays at 791 Bank Street might have already piqued your curiosity – they show just a glimpse of what’s for sale inside Penelope Jones & Company, a new store that opened in October at the corner of Bank and Third Avenue.

The Tree Team of the Glebe Community Association (GCA) needs your help to keep the streets of the Glebe leafy green for future generations. Do you have a location on your property suitable for a tree?

The holidays are right around the corner, and the cherished community tradition, Glebe Spree, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. In the past decade, it has given away over $100,000 in prize money to lucky winners.

A few years ago, when my wife and I spent three weeks in Vietnam, one of the highlights was a three-night stay in Sapa, where we met our fascinating guide Cham and her family.

Which is the most recognizable little bird at our feeders and in our gardens? The cheerful little Black-capped Chickadee, of course.

The Ontario government recently announced lifting capacity limits for indoor activities. This means GNAG can finally reinstate special events and fundraisers back into the Glebe Community Centre.

If the Glebe Collegiate song rings a bell, you might be a Glebe Collegiate alum of. . .um. . .a certain age. The school is readying to welcome back all students and staff on what promises to be a fun-filled anniversary weekend. Reserve May 13-15, 2022 in your calendar, and join us!

I’m happy to report that we’ve secured two more adult crossing guards for schools in the Glebe, out of only eight new positions added citywide. One will be assigned to the mid-block crossing on Fourth Avenue between Lyon and Percy.

While the days get shorter and cooler, things are as busy as ever for the Glebe Community Association. We had a packed agenda at our meeting in October.

I am thrilled to be submitting my first column as your new MP for Ottawa Centre. First and foremost, I’d like to thank you for putting your trust in me to represent you as Member of Parliament. I am more than ready to hit the ground running and start working on key issues that are important to our community.

My Sunday visits to the Ottawa Farmers’ Market at Lansdowne often end in a lineup at one of the food stands clustered behind the Aberdeen Pavilion. There, visitors can satisfy their cravings for street food with authentic international bites like Punjabi pakoras, Venezuelan arepas and Syrian falafels.

As this heavy-hearted year of the pandemic comes to a close, Poetry Quarter contributors have taken this moment to sit back and take stock, reflect on what was lost and what was found. Cherish the unremarked, the memories of happier times – indeed, the very nature of time. And to launch new passions.

Working from her own studio, Debbie Gilmer has run a full-time pottery business since 2009. But last year, her livelihood was hit hard by COVID-19, and she was forced to pivot to try to save it. Her work will be shown at the December 10 Ottawa Guild of Potters sale.

The St. Matthew’s Online Treasures Auction is back for a second year. Like last year’s fun and successful event, it will feature art, travel, home cooking and more. The site opened for bidding on Friday, November 12 and runs until 4 p.m. on Saturday, November 20.

As members of Bear & Co. working alongside Pierre Brault Productions, we welcome you back to the Gladstone Theatre. Consider this your invitation! Bear & Co. will produce Dylan Thomas’ classic tale, A Childs Christmas in Wales. And Pierre Brault brings you his solo rendition of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol. They play alternately at 7 and 8.30 p.m. from November 30 to December 18.

Building upon previous programs offered for descendants of survivors, the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship (CHES) is proud to welcome writer Helen Epstein. On November 14, as part of Holocaust Education Month, she will deliver a presentation entitled, “The Shadow of the Holocaust on the Lives of Children of Survivors – Is it Possible to Move Beyond Its Grip?”

Art Lending of Ottawa is happy to invite the Glebe community to our next art show and sale at the RA Centre on Riverside Drive on December 11. This holiday show will be only our second show since March 2020 when COVID-19 stopped all our in-person events.

The 27th annual Ottawa Children’s Storytelling Festival will run November 22–27. The festival will be held online through Ottawa Public Library’s website and, with limited in-person seating, at the Odawa Native Friendship Centre.

After the forced closure for the past 19 months, the doors of Southminster United Church are open for music once again. The church’s celebrated Wednesday noon-hour concert series restarted in September and has concerts planned for live audiences until the end of 2021 and beyond.

My husband and I are going to be downsizing to a two-bedroom retirement residence in January. In anticipation of this move, we have started decluttering our current four-bedroom home and realize we have too much stuff! Where can we take items like these and know they will have a second life?

It’s hard work letting go of the past. Concentrating on the here and now while all our yesterdays knock at the cellar door, wanting still to matter, wanting at least not to be forgotten. Just trying to ignore them takes work. It’s exhausting. But it occurs to me that maybe we are not meant to leave the past behind, even were it possible to do so.

Before the pandemic hit in March 2020, Judith Hoye took three exercise classes a week at Abbotsford. Then she’d stay after class for social time, coffee, treats and laughs. “All that ended as COVID took over,” said Hoye.

This month the Glebe Report’s film reviewers bring you The Nightmare Before Christmas, a Christmas horror classic reviewed by Angus Luff, and The Father, an evocation of developing dementia that reviewer Kate Roberts calls “a series of spirals that twist around each other, mixing up places, people and conversations like hair trapped in a brush.

The Ottawa Public Library has an extensive collection of picture books that appeal to both younger and older readers. In the month when we recognize Remembrance Day, war and conflict are subjects, which children might be discussing in school while adults ponder the same issues.

Nouns and pronouns are the objects and subjects of our thoughts and actions. Without them, we would literally have nothing, and no one, to talk about! Three cheers for nouns and pronouns and the fantastic work they do.

Even as an adult, fall gives me the feeling of a new year. I came full circle this September as I started at Good Morning Creative Arts and Preschool for the second time. I first began at GMCAP (formerly Good Morning Playgroup) as a child in 1989 and have now joined the ranks as a parent.