In June of 2014 I wrote about the Great Glebe Garage Sale. Here's this year's recap.
The Great Glebe is the granddaddy of Ottawa garage sales and always takes place the Saturday after the May long weekend. It is immense and you would be foolish to try to drive anywhere near there that day. Thousands of people descend on the area to buy, sell or volunteer. This year's weather was hot and sunny so it was a perfect day to go for a walk among the lovely houses with their gardens all in bloom.
My favourite quote of the day came at 7:30 am, when I overheard a young child ask his Dad, "Is it later yet?" I wouldn't actually recommend bringing young kids to the Great Glebe. It's a very crowded event. Some folks seem to think this is a fine time to show off their dogs. We even saw two dogs strapped into strollers. Now that's what the Great Glebe doesn't need...more dogs in strollers.
We didn't eat breakfast before we left the house. We were counting on finding last year's house that sold tasty breakfast sandwiches. However healthy food seemed to be in short supply this year. By 10 am we gave up looking for the breakfast sandwiches and settled for a hot dog. There were plenty of homes selling cupcakes and chocolate chip cookies. We did enjoy some fine fruit kabobs near the end of our morning.
The shopping itself was the usual interesting recycling experience with plenty of surprising finds. Perhaps our best buy of the day was a folding double stroller for $20.00. Avery and Eliza were thrilled with the little dinosaurs I brought home and proceeded to chase us with them, complete with scary dinosaur roars! Nothing says fun like having a twenty month old chase you with a tiny plastic dinosaur!
It seems nuts to say bring a cell phone but with that crowd it is so easy to get split up. The three of us were constantly texting our new positions. "Hey I'm at the corner now. I'm going to turn right on Fourth."
As usual there were so many good folks volunteering or working for good causes like Ecology Ottawa. My favourite Great Glebe musicians, the Swampwater Dixieland Jazz Band, were there again, raising money for the Ottawa Food Bank. I was most impressed with a group of young boys, about 10 years of age. They had a bake table with a handmade poster explaining that they were raising money for fire victims in Alberta.
Here's the best part of the day. We walked around in that throng of thousands of people for four hours. In that time I never heard one angry word. I never heard an argument or any raised voices. Cars were crawling along, looking in vain for a parking spot or trying to pick up their purchases. Never once did I hear someone honk their horn. People were friendly, polite and accommodating. I came away with nothing but good feelings. How lucky we are to live in a city, where you can have so many people in such close quarters and they treat each other so well.
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