Noon on the Common Again

11"X3.5" Watercolour pencil in moleskine

Another view that gets somewhat overdone due to the location of a strategically placed bench.
I remember having a conversation with a friend, someone that I had thought was fairly enlightened, who couldn't understand why the Common was so jealously guarded by the town. It seemed to him that, in a community surrounded by farmland, it was quite unnecessary and should be made available for development. I remarked at the time that people may once have felt that way about High Park in Toronto or Central Park in NY City, and that in a hundred years the people of Niagara-on-the-Lake would be glad that the Common had been protected.

That was about twenty years ago and suburban sprawl is already hemming in the town on the West. There is water to North and East so this pastoral haven to the South is a very precious thing. Long may it remain protected!