Sun News poll makes interesting news. Justin Trudeau is more popular than the other leaders but least suited to be prime minister, according to the survey.

It surely won’t be very long now. The heavy oak doors and other elegant woodwork have been stripped from the interior. The porch light and electrical fixtures have been ripped off the exterior. Someone has even dug up the nearly 90 year old flag stones that formed the front walk. And then on Thursday, September 19, 2013, Enbridge sank a hole across the street and turned off the gas to 308 Rose Park Drive in Moore Park. Outside on the nice little boulevard that lines the street, the mandatory orange plastic mesh tree fence has gone up to protect the maples. They are only about 45 years ago, planted in sadness too when the original elm trees all died off from the wretched disease. In this instance, the orange tree fence also protects the unique stand-alone street lamps that line Rose Park Drive. They remain in use from the 1920s. A short walk to the rear past the original milk box is the large yard. Stretching across nearly 70 feet, it will be fine for the two town homes to be built here in the months to come. The owners — all of them — are gone but neighbors have many memories of their friends and events (inset) like the 2011 Rose Park Drive Street Party where magician Tricky Ricky beguiled kids in the driveway to 308. So long 308. 

And how did he get down? It’s simple really. This one-year-old colt descended the same way he clambered up on the roof. The garage from which he surveys the world in this unusual picture is built into the side of a hill (inset). It is not a wide path to the roof, but if you are a sure-footed young creature with four legs for balance it can be done. We judge that little length of roof just off the ground to be about a foot and a half in length. Pat and Stephen Downey of Hampton, New Brunswick run this horse farm with Stephen’s brother Archie. It was Archie who got up early the other day to find the colt up on the roof. He snapped a picture and sent it to his brother. No one believed it. The old photo shop trick, you know. But it was all real and it took some coaxing to get the colt back down to his pasture. Those old shingles must taste awful. 

“Driver tried to stop”

Two women passengers on the OC Transpo bus  that collided with a VIA train Wednesday say that driver Dave Woodard did respond to the cries from passengers telling him to stop. But he did so too late. This information, aired on CP24,  has been unreported by the media and is being transmitted even now quite incidentally. Previously aired information about the seconds before the collision have come from motorists and train passengers who seemed to suggest that the bus slammed into the train without slowing. If Woodard did in fact apply the brakes in a futile attempt to avoid the crash it would tend to suggest that he had been distracted or asleep in the moments before he heard the passengers shouting at him, not disabled or unconscious as some have speculated. 

Andy Elder has added a nice angle to his choice-meat shop Grilltime at 62 Laird Drive opposite the Telus building. Visitors will now find additional refrigerator cases with some favorite marinated delights. Among the most popular, we’re saying, is the de-boned chicken marinated in the package. They aren’t too readily available in our neighborhood but Andy has them at a very good price. Another mouth-watering packaged meat is the marinated Korean short ribs. They broil up in just minutes and The Bulldog will be going back for seconds. Just as an aside, Grilltime is approaching a five-year anniversary at the Laird location. It’s easily found sitting between the Starbucks and Kenrae Rd. Grilltime is open Tuesday to Friday 10 to 7, Saturday and Sunday 11 to 6. (416) 467-4745.

Towns of Rumsey

Things are speeding ahead at the little development at the corner of Millwood and Rumsey Rds to build five town homes. Homeowners nearby should be pleased that the long forlorn property is finally going to look like it belongs in their neighborhood. The project is owned by South Hills Homes which took over from Castleton Homes as things began to get tough for the latter firm. There have been rumblings that the widely respected Castleton was having trouble. Until very recently, Castleton Homes had literally dozens of projects going in Leaside. It’s owner, home-town lad Tony Paglialunga, was quite literally king of home-building in Leaside. Many will be saddened by the difficulties his firm has faced.

Connor Hayes and JoannaLam

Friends in Canada and police in New Zealand fear that a young couple from Ottawa have been lost after their rental van was swept off the road by a landslide in a rugged part of the country’s South Island. Today more parts of the wrecked van were washed ashore more than 50 km from where it left the road, the New Zealand Herald reported. Joanna Lam, 24, and her boyfriend Connor Hayes, 25, have not been seen since Sept. 10 while they were travelling on the island. Police have already found the van’s real wheels and chassis at the bottom of a gorge, but haven’t located the body or engine of the vehicle. The fuel pump was found 7 km north of the mouth of the Haast River, the Herald reported. Early Wednesday morning, New Zealand time, 16 volunteers and police officers set out to scour the river and below the gorge. There are two boats in the river and a helicopter is searching from the air. Friends in Ottawa became concerned when Ms. Lam failed to appear for work in Ottawa at a job she had recently obtained