A bright & sparkling end to a challenge: P&P #29

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, read by Emilia Fox.

Upon the whole... I am well satisfied enough. The work is rather too light, and bright, and sparkling; it wants shade; it wants to be stretched out here and there with a long chapter of sense, if it could be had; if not, of solemn specious nonsense...

I thought it would be fitting to end the challenge with the book that started it all. I actually listened to this earlier in the year when I had a crapload of marking to do. I like to put on a movie or audiobook while doing a marking marathon. Something I've seen/heard before, so I don't have to pay too close attention because I know what's going to happen, and if my attention is completely caught by a particularly odd or hilarious answer from one of my students, I don't need to rewind. My usual go-tos are mystery novels or the extended version of the Lord of the Rings, but this time I decided to listen to Pride and Prejudice; I've had this on my computer for a few years but for some reason had never listened to it.

I haven't really gone into details about why I love this book before, but the witty dialogue is one reason. Another is the simple subject matter; I feel I can relate, somewhat, to Elizabeth because she is not going through some dramatic love-affair/abduction/political intrigue. Darcy is not my ideal hero (I sigh for Henry Tilney), but what I like about their relationship is that Darcy and Elizabeth are better people for being in love with each other. They both have faults, have both learned from each other, and have both grown as a result.

On to the recording itself. Emily Fox played Georgiana in the 1995 series. I don't remember her saying a lot, because, you know, Georgiana, but she has a lovely voice. The most important thing is that her Mrs. Bennet doesn't drive me up a wall, because that would make the recording unlistenable. I was initially annoyed by Jane; I felt she was being read as too little-girly (a little like when Lizzie plays Jane in costume theatre), but that stopped after a while. It's very listenable, overall.

What I noticed in listening to the book is that there is stuff I don't remember. I don't mean major plot points or conversations, but small things, especially right near the beginning, that I forgot were there. When you've read a book eleventy billion times, you tend to skim over certain parts and skip to the stuff you like. At least, I do. Anyway, it was nice to be surprised every now and then.

(I should note that my parents had a record of P&P, abridged. It had to be, otherwise it wouldn't fit into the 50 or so minutes allotted to vinyl. One of the episodes cut? Was Lydia's elopement. The mind reels.)

To sum up, here are all my reviews. You'll note the list has been considerably added to since I started the challenge:

Web series

Jan: The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (with a final comment here but no review of the DVD since we're still all waiting for it

Books

Feb: three teen romances: Epic Fail, Prom and Prejudice, Pride and Popularity (various authors)

Feb: Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rockstar, by Heather Lynn Rigaud

March: Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James

April:Pamela Aiden's Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy

April: Lions and Liquorice Vanity and Vexation, by Kate Fenton

May: Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife and Darcy & Elizabeth: Nights and Days at Pemberley, by Linda Berdoll

June: Mr. Darcy's Diary and four others by Amanda Grange

Sept: The Annotated Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: A Sourcebook (various editors)

Oct: Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange

Dec: Dinner with Mr. Darcy, by Pen Vogler

Audiobooks

Oct: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Graham-Smith

Dec: Pride and Prejudice, read by Emilia Fox (self-referential, much?)

Plays

July: Elizabeth – Darcy: An Adaptation of Pride and Prejudice by Hallie Burt and Kate Werneburg

Movies/TV

March: Bride and Prejudice

July: P&P (1980)

Aug: P&P (1995)

Sept: P&P (1940)

Nov: P&P (2005)

29 items. 20 books. 16 hours of audio. 16 hours of video. 1.5 hours of theatre. 1.5 hours of baking. That should be enough to win me something, right?

Thanks to Austenprose.com for the challenge. I've enjoyed reading other people's picks and seeing their sometimes differing views. Since this was my first real introduction to Jane Austen fan fiction, as it were, I'm looking forward to reading some of their recommendations. I'm also looking forward to not having to blog them.

It's the end of the year as we know it: Top 5 misses and hits

So, I have a serious backlog of blog posts to catch up on, but I thought I'd jump onto Gillian's end-of-the-year reflection bandwagon while it was still the end of the year. I had a secret goal this year to not buy any item of clothing or jewellery if I could reasonably make it, and I was successful^*. Before this year, I only made things every now and then. This year? Different story. Quick summary: not including gifts, I sewed 17.5 items, crocheted 9, made 10 pieces of jewellery, and refashioned 8 things. I'm fairly sure that that's a lot more than my previous output combined. I'm including jewellery, crocheting, and refashioning in these lists, because otherwise I'd be stretching to find 5 items I'd give top marks to. What can I say? My reputation for being a hard marker is not undeserved.

Starting with the... I hesitate to call them misses. Let's call them learning opportunities. When I was thinking of which items to blog about, I realized that, while I do have several problem-child items, some of them are less absolute misses and more casualties of the way I approach projects. So I'm going to copy Ginger Makes a bit; my last two misses learning opportunities are general trends. And learning opportunities are useless if you don't actually learn from them, so I'm including some plans to turn them into yeses instead of nopes. Here we go.

Sorbetto tanks (unhacked versions)

I have worn these a couple of times each, but the bust darts and armscyes on the black Sorbetto are really high and the length is a bit too short. I fixed that problem on the white Sorbetto, but it is made of a bit-too-sheer cotton voile and I'm not thrilled with the way the binding turned out, so I don't like to wear it in public. I might try to fix the darts on the black one, but I suspect that I won't.

Even Mr. Darcy acknowledged that the partridges were remarkably well done: P&P #28

Dinner with Mr. Darcy: Recipes inspired by the novels of Jane Austen by Pen Vogler

I came across this Sunday when I was browsing in Chapters after the Sing-Along Messiah waiting to meet up up with the DC and G to see The Hobbit (Xmas spirit, I has it) and I couldn't resist.

This is a nifty book. Vogler has split the recipes into meals and linked them to a book: breakfast at Northanger Abbey, tea at Mansfield Park, the supper at the Netherfield Ball, etc. What's cool, though, is that below the standard recipe is an original recipe from a contemporary cookbook; many of them are from Martha Lloyd's Household Book, written by a lady who I am just learning now lived with the Austen ladies. There are also short articles discussing mealtimes, table arrangements, servants and the like.

There is, happily, a recipe for white soup.

Image source: rylandpeters.com

This isn't a book for vegetarians, by the way. There are only three or four non-meat or sweet dishes. Bring on the night sweats!

My one complaint is the texture of the cover; it's fabric and a cat-hair magnet. I'm going to need to vacuum it before I use it again.

Naturally, I needed to test one of the recipes. I chose to make gingerbread, since it is one of the DC's favourite things. These are quite tasty; they have caraway seeds in them, which gives them an unusual flavour. The DC has taken to calling them "Mr. Darcy's gingerbread."



I might be attempting some of the picnic recipes for next year's Dîner en blanc -- pigeon pie, anyone? Assuming I can source pigeons (aka squab) in Toronto.

A dress good enough to swim in: The hunt for Red October finally ends?

This is a bit late for the Red October sewalong, huh. And it's the exact opposite of a Green December make. Fine.

I have a black lycra RTW dress with a cowl neck and flared skirt. It's so pretty and fun to swing dance in, except for one small problem: it has a really low back, which means that it can be awkward for leads to put their hands on my (sweaty) back^*. I've been hoping to make a backed version for some time, possibly in red. And so I finally have.

Sorry, Edna

I made a cape. I'm kind of in love with it.

Tweed rides/runs/rallys require suitable clothing and back in the initial planning stages of the rally, I decided it would be fun to make a cape. I originally thought I would make the Peppermint cape because it looked simple, didn't use a lot of fabric, and best of all, it's a free pattern, but the DC convinced me that it would just fall off my shoulders while riding. So the hunt was on for the best cape pattern.

Every body hoped that he would never come there again: P&P #27

Pride and Prejudice 2005.

I finally figured out my main problem with this movie: it's too sombre, too dramatic... too Brontë. It doesn't really have that bright and sparkling tone that characterizes P&P. The director decided to make this a story of two people who were attracted to each other from the beginning and it's so intense. From the very beginning, the music sets the tone of the movie. Aside from all the dialogue they leave out, they've changed most of the comic characters into... not comic characters. Brenda Blethyn's Mrs. Bennet is kind of a sympathetic person (in fact, she and Mr. Bennet seem to be kind of in love, which, just, NO), Judy Dench's Lady Catherine is kind of imposing. Mary isn't pompous at all; in fact, she's rather sweet. and Kitty seems pretty normal. I dare say this makes all the characters more like real people than caricatures, but for heaven's sake! This is P&P!

Pancake of the Month, take one, again: Pumpkin pancakes

What do you get when you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter?

It is no longer October, but it is still time for all things pumpkin. Pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin beer, pumpkin cookies... pumpkin pancakes. Yay for clichés! I'm sort of surprised I didn't try these last year. This recipe comes from All Recipes, and I made some slight changes. Since you use vinegar + milk to make a buttermilk substitute, I used buttermilk instead. At the suggestion of a reviewer, I added 1/2 tsp nutmeg. I also did not measure the pumpkin carefully, so there was slightly more than one cup in there.

The verdict?

They are terrifically fluffy, although they could stand to have more of a pumpkin flavour. Really yummy with maple syrup and butter. The DC thought they had just the right amount of spice, and said "this is what pumpkin-flavoured stuff is supposed to taste like." The recipe says it will make 12 pancakes, and I got 12 using generous 1/4 cup scoops.

I forgot to spray the griddle (which I'm still happily accepting suggestions for on how to de-blacken it, btw), so it was a bit of an effort to flip the first ones. When I flipped the third one, I was trying to spray the pan when it slid off the spatula and landed, gooey side-down, on top of the unflipped fourth pancake. Once in a lifetime shot.


The observant reader will note that these were the pancakes I meant to make in October as my second pancake, but did not. I will make a second type this month, once I get out from under all this marking. I'm thinking chai.

Definite probability of Macaron: The hunt for Red October continues...

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In a great rush and very much at the last minute^*, I made the Definite Probability of Colette's Macaron in time both to wear for
Hallowe'en at school and to have as a Sew Red October dress. I had these quilting-weight card fabrics sitting in my gently increasing stash for a while and in an effort to make some room in the bins, I resolved to make something out of them to wear when I teach probability, which dubious pleasure I have in two different courses this year^**. The irony is that while I am in the middle of the probability chapter for one of those courses, I didn't see that class yesterday. Oh well.

You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy: P&P #25 & 26

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now With Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!, by Jane Austen and Seth Graham-Smith, read by Katherine Kellgren; Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange

Happy Hallowe'en, all! I am currently under siege from neighbourhood monsters who want to take my candy from me. Ah, the joys of living in a third-floor walk-up with the only lit doorbell and a downstairs neighbour who insists on putting a pumpkin on the porch and then leaving for the evening. I'm not grumpy, really I'm not.

Anyway, as I sit here guarding my chocolate-covered caramels and trying to keep the cat from freaking out, I thought it would be an appropriate time to review some P&P adaptations of a more supernatural nature.^*

Pancake of the month, take one: Apple puff pancakes

I completely dropped the ball on this challenge in September. The last weekend of the month rolled around and I realized I hadn't made my pancakes yet. Unfortunately, we had plans to be in Peterborough for a wedding, so that left Monday. Which meant that it was time for me to get sick, naturally. So no new pancakes in September.

To make up for it, I will try two different recipes this month. Woo! I couldn't find canned pumpkin on Thanksgiving weekend (wut?) when I wanted to make pumpkin pancakes, but I have since found some and I hope to make them on Hallowe'en.

First up is September's apple pancake recipe that I hoped would make up for last year's disappointment. I'm not sure where this recipe came from, but it's been in my binder for years. It's pretty similar to the puffed cherry pancakes I foolishly made with jam in May, except it has 5 eggs and one cup each of flour and milk. By the way, I tried that recipe again with real cherries later in the year, with results similar to what I got this time.

And what was the result?

Yuck. I mean, it tasted okay, but it was not very pancake-like. Maybe last May I didn't notice the texture in all that jam, but today, despite it being fairly puffy when it came out of the oven, it seemed more like... slightly sweet solid egg and flour mass.

Maybe I didn't leave it in the oven long enough? But I had the same problem with the puffed cherry redux.


I might give this type of recipe one more shot, but I suspect it's just not for me.

So I am still on the hunt for a good apple pancake. I might be stuck with pouring fried apple goodness over regular pancakes, though.

Of architcture and art: Coffeeneuring #2

Monday was Thanksgiving, and since my family usually celebrates on the Sunday, I had the day free to get some marking done and test one of the routes for the Tweed Rally (Come! It will be fun!).

First I biked out to the Dundas Street East bridge over the Don River to take pictures of my cherry Sorbetto, but then I headed off to visit some of the 19th century gems we've got on our manifest. I don't want to spoil the surprise, so here are a few architectural hints:

Cherry Sorbetto: The hunt for red October begins

Happy Thanksgiving, all! Well, to everyone in Canada, anyway. I am pleased to announce that I actually finished something, mostly, for the Red October Twitter challenge.

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This sew-something-for-an-event thing seems to be working out, for the most part^*. I sewed this Colette Sorbetto hack for Thanksgiving dinner last night. We were going to take pictures on the Dundas St bridge over the Don River on the way to my aunt's house, but it was pouring down rain. Today, by contrast, was glorious, so I went over to take pictures before I tested routes for the Tweed Rally (Come! It will be fun!) and coffeeneuring. The DC had to work, which is why you are stuck with eyes-closed/headless shots taken from the handlebar of the Opus.

How beautiful is the moon?

Another reason to love Twitter: I discovered that yesterday was International Observe the Moon Night. It's an annual event where people, you know, look at the moon, and I was happy to finally put my not-so-newly-acquired Newtonian reflector to use.

The box had not opened since I brought it home in May, so I rushed to assemble the telescope before the clouds took over. Half an hour later, I was set up on the deck trying to find the giant half-lit object in the sky -- the viewscope may need a wee bit of adjustment. However, I found it and got the same thrill I always get when I see the craters on the Moon. Imagine what Galileo must have felt!

Taking a picture turned out a bit better than when I attempted to capture the transit of Venus, although vignetting, which term I have just learned, was an issue. The above is the best of the bunch. Craters!

Très bizarre! Coffeeneuring #1

I had sort of planned to start coffeeneuring last weekend, but it was raining and I was lazy. No such excuse today. Well, except for the lazy bit. That part is always true. Anyway, the day was warm and sunny, perfect for a bike ride.

In which different accounts of Mr. Darcy puzzle PhysicsGirl exceedingly: P&P #24

Pride and Prejudice, 1940

This movie puzzles me. I get that it is played as a comedy, and there are aspects that are well done in that sense. It's just that there is so much wrong with this movie, and yet? I kind of like it.

The good?

The whole tone of the movie is bright and cheerful. Right from the beginning, I felt happy to be watching this movie. In spite of the fact that I've seen it before and knew what was coming...

Hey... about that 9 in 6 challenge?

I should follow up on how I did on that challenge I set myself to sew 9 items in 6 weeks, because I know you are all on the edge of your respective seats. The short answer is... not too bad, but not as well as I had hoped. It should have been no surprise to me that I'm terrible at meeting deadlines unless there is a specific goal involved (say, an event or a potential prize); only one of the items was finished by the deadline set in the original post.

In order:

There will be coffee-like substances

The rules for chasing mailboxes's 3rd Coffeeneuring challenge are out. They are more or less the same as last year, with a few changes. Basically, we have 7 weekends to bike to 7 different coffee shops and drink coffee/tea/hot chocolate/apple cider. Photograph. Blog. Repeat.

As I did last year, I'm going to bike out to different parts of the city and try a different beverage at each stop. If I repeat a neighbourhood from last year, I'm going to try a different café. The neighbourhoods I plan to visit are (in no particular order):
The Beach(es)
Roncesvalles
The Junction
The Danforth
The Brickworks
St. Lawrence Market
and one of Leslieville, Parkdale, Kensington, or West Queen West again. As always, I reserve the right to completely change my mind.

You can see last year's Coffeneuring trips below:


In other biking news, the Ice Cream Sandwich ride was sadly called off due to rain. We'll try again next year. The Tweed Rally is still going strong, though. It's going to be a lot of fun and we're pulling together some nifty prizes. November 16. Come on out!

The Rose of Tralee

My Great-Aunt Julie died a few weeks ago at the incredible age of 101. She was a remarkable woman: she grew up in a small town in Ireland before it was "Ireland," was a nurse during WWII, then met and married a Canadian and moved to Alberta. She had ridden a camel, a motorcycle, and been flown across the Arctic Circle, and was entitled to the full benefits and respects that are accorded to such a hearty adventurer.

She was still sharp as a tack at her 100th birthday in May 2012. We sang her favourite song, The Rose of Tralee, changing the name to Julie. That's her on the lower left.


At her funeral reception today, we sang it again.

The pale moon was rising above the green mountain,
The sun was declining beneath the blue sea;
As I strayed with my love to the pure crystal fountain,
That stands in the beautiful Vale of Tralee.
She was lovely and fair as the rose in the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me;
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,
That made me love Julie, the Rose of Tralee.

The cool shades of evening their mantle were spreading
And Julie all smiling sat listening to me;
The moon through the valley her pale light was shedding
As I won the heart of the Rose of Tralee.
She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet 'twas not her beauty alone that won me;
Oh no, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,
That made me love Julie, the Rose of Tralee.

Upcoming biking events

There are a few fun biking events coming up in the next few months. If you have a bike and live in the the Toronto area, you should come have a fabulous time. If you don't live in Toronto, you can do the third one where you live. Or you could come to T.O., which frankly sounds like the more fun option.

First up is summer's last hurrah on September 21: the Ice Cream Sandwich Ride, organized by Hyedie of the Cupcake Ride and Maegan of Lazy Sundaes. And me, nominally. It's open to everyone. We'll start at The Depanneur in Little Portugal and work our way over to Moo Milk Bar in the Beach. Check out the Cupcake Ride blog for details.

The day after, Denise will be hosting another Hydro Fields and Bungalows ride. I won't be doing that one, but if you haven't yet checked out the hydro corridor trail, you're missing out. Details are here.

C) MG from chasing mailboxes will be hosting another Coffeeneuring challenge sometime in October. Watch that space for details.

And finally, the DC and some of friends felt a bit bereft due to the postponement of the official Tweed Ride until next May^* and decided to organize a smaller event to tide us over until then^** and lo, the Tweed Rally was born. Saturday, November 16 will see a kind of scavenger hunt-slash-bike rally, visiting some of Toronto's historical landmarks^*** and followed up by fun times in the beautiful Edwardian Firkin on King, clad in outfits reminiscent of the era. Also? Prizes! Details on the FaceBook page here.

(We are eagerly accepting prize donations; contact tweedrallyto@gmail.com if you'd like to help us out.)

^*I still have to blog about last year's Tweed Ride. I still have to blog about a lot of things.

^**And I got talked into helping organize. How does that keep happening?

^***Yes, we do have them. Snarky.

Come on, PhysicsGirl needs a new pair of shoes!

Well, no, she doesn't really, but I would like to win these 30s-style oxfords from American Duchess. Aren't they fabulous?

Despite this blog entry, I don't want you to click that link or anything, because the more people enter the contest, the less likely I am to win. It's simple mathematics.

I promise that I will give them a very good home. I suspect there may be some hugging them close and murmuring "My Precious," if my past shoe-behaviour is anything to go by.

Even if, as seems likely, I do not win the shoes, I'm going to have to save up for a pair of the 23 Skidoos. Those look great, are apparently terrific for dancing, and I'm intrigued by the possibility of customizing them. Which might mean two pairs...

Understanding the gravity of the situation

Happy Gravity Day! Or more specifically, happy "magnitude of the local Earth gravitational field" day. For your viewing enjoyment, an appropriate Rube Goldberg machine:

In which PhysicsGirl improves her mind through extensive reading: P&P 22 & 23

Whoops! Another one stuck in the draft folder for a month. Run free, little posts!

The Annotated Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, annotated and edited by David M. Shapard; Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice: A Sourcebook edited by Robert Morrison

It's back-to-school time again, and I thought it would be appropriate to review some books that were both enjoyable and made me learn something along the way. I love annotated books, in particular when they were written in different eras. I have been guilty of applying modern sensibilities and motivations to the characters and missing cues that contemporary audiences would have immediately understood. I think it's easier to miss this kind of information in Austen because, unlike Shakespeare, the language of the 19th century was so similar to what we now use that we (or is it just me?) tend to think that meanings and attitudes must still be mostly the same.

In which PhysicsGirl crashes the reunion and koi is coy

So there was this blog where a bunch of people challenged themselves to sew a new thing every week for a year, which sounds exhausting. They stopped that insanity, but recently they missed part of it and wanted to start it up on a yearly basis and thus was born The Sew Weekly Reunion.

I wasn't following the blog at the time of the original challenges, so I feel a little like I'm crashing the party, but what the heck. This year's challenge is the Pantone Fashion Fall Colours.

I protest! I hear you cry. White and black are not part of the Pantone challenge! And that scarf doesn't count!

How many white outfits does a person really need?

Several, apparently.

I was not going to sew a new white outfit for this year's Dîner en Blanc (which is this Thursday). I mean, who needs a tonne of white easy-to-dirty clothing, right? Well, I bought this slippery polyester pre-pleated stuff last year at Len's Mill Outlet along with the fabric for the Butterick 6582s after the Cambridge Butterfly Conservatory with the thought that it would make a nice skirt. And then sat on it. When I was looking at the pleated fabric prior to making the skirt for my 9-in-6 challenge and thinking how I wanted to make a top to go with it and since I need an event to push myself to finish the outfit... and it's white... and I have a dinner in white coming up... you get the idea.

Totally procrastinating

If you know me in person, you can probably skip the video. Or not. I'm not judging.^* This is part of the Blog Voices thingy, wherein we get to hear how other bloggers sound.^** And I'm sorry for that weird business at the end.



List of Words:
Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

List of Questions:
What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called?
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call your grandparents?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

You can see a list of the other bloggers who have been doing this at the Three Dresses Project.


^*Actually, I'd like somebody who does know me to watch it and tell me if I sound like this. Because, aside from the usual "I don't sound like that" thing, I've never heard myself sound like this. I've listened to recordings of myself, and this is bizarre. The DC says it's a bit tinny and that my voice is more mellow in person.

^**I even created a YouTube channel for this. I might start putting up ukulele videos. We'll see. I'll do it if I can put Lucy in the videos, because I hear that's a thing.

Blame it on the internet

Just as this is not a biking blog, this is also not a sewing blog. I mean, I occasionally sew and then blog about my makes, but the blog is not primarily about sewing. In the past I mostly only made big-ticket items, like Hallowe'en costumes and fancy dresses. Then last summer I stumbled across Lladybird's blog, and I swear she's like a gateway blog because I started following more and more of them. So many great sewing blogs out there. And they were making not-just-fancy-dress-in-all-senses-of-the-word clothes. I started and planning to sew more, and then actually doing it. I challenged myself to not buy any new clothes this year, but only make them. I took part in Me-Made-May. And I started following a bunch of sewers sewists on Twitter.

Pistachio macarons for everybody!

This is a pistachio macaron.


This is also a pistachio Macaron.


This is me, eating a pistachio macaron, wearing a pistachio Macaron.

Any questions?

Bustin' makes me feel swe-e-e-t!

Some music for your reading pleasure:


When I did the LGRAB Summer Games, I had planned to go to Sugar Beach on a Bixi bike but due to time constraints, I turned that into a visit to Harbourfront instead. I also meant to use it as a location for one of my Me-Made-May photos, but didn't. It's taken me two years, but I have finally managed to hang out at Sugar Beach. How?