The Green Green Grass of Home

Montreal is well-known for its curving outdoor staircases and colourfully painted apartment buildings.

This is a particularly fancy row that has been turned into very sleek and stylish condos, no doubt with appropriate price tags.

Even viewed upside-down in a mud puddle, their charm shines through.

Here's one of those curving staircases.

But every so often, sandwiched between 3-story brick or stone buildings, a little old one-storied charmer crops up.  This is perhaps the sweetest little home I've ever come across in Montreal.

I would love to walk through this gate, enter through the front door, and find myself home.

It's true what they say about the grass always being greener on the other side.

On my way into Montreal from the airport I had quite a long conversation with the Algerian-born cab driver who, when told of my country home with 5 acres back in New Brunswick, assured me that,

"Mais, Madame, vous habitez en Paradis! No stress, no noise, no pollution, no neighbours to bother you.

You have your health--with all that, Madame, vous êtes riche!"

How does one argue with that?

One simply doesn't.

I told him I would think of him while sipping my glass of wine in the glider swing this summer.