tradition

Every year, for about the past five years, I've taken a day trip to Stratford in November to do a little Christmas shopping. I generally make this outing on my birthday , November 10th or on Remembrance Day, November 11th. Yesterday I was enroute to Stratford when the clock was creeping up to 11am. The first Remembrance Day was conducted in 1919 throughout the British Commonwealth. Originally called Armistice Day, it commemorated the end of the First World War on Monday, November 11, 1918, at 11 a.m.: the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Services are held around Canada at cenotaphs, in schools etc. to mark this hour of remembrance. I wasn't near a cenotaph at 11am but I tuned the car radio into CBC, listened to the Last Post and observed the 2 minutes of silence to honour those lost in war sitting in the car on the side of Harmony Road. I took this photo just after the 2 minutes of silence finished.

Stratford is colourful even when the festival is finished for the season.

I like this combined view in one of the windows of Rheo Thompson Candies - the Christmas decoratioins and the reflected buildings from across the street.