ottawa october

All photos: K. Bruin

In October, I live in the most beautiful place in the world.

On, Thanksgiving week end (two weeks ago for those of you reading outside of Canada), my family was so fortunate to have a wonderful guest. My friend K. and I have been friends since we were 17 years old. We met as new room-mates in Room 1 of McLaughlin House at Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific. She was there representing the Netherlands and I hailed from Hawkesbury, Ontario.

We became friends pretty much instantly, through struggles with friendships, school and heartbreak and whole lot of fun. We travelled to Vancouver together and she once took me out on a sail boat into the bay so I could engage in a little primal screaming.

In my second year, after she'd graduated, I missed her terribly. We've been lucky though. Work has brought her to Canada three times in the last five years and we've been able to spend time together. My family has fallen in love with her. And I can't wait until next year, when she comes back.

When we were at school together, we lived in a very beautiful place and I know that K. loves this country almost as much as I do. But until this year, she'd never seen Eastern Ontario on a beautiful fall day.

This year, we had a chance to rectify that and we took advantage of the long week end and the glorious fall weather to go for a walk in Gatineau Park. K. was the only one of us who took photos on our outing and she's given me permission to share them with you. My only regret? There are no photos of the two of us together. We'll have to rectify that next year.