It's always a pleasant drive, along the Eastern Parkway for the half-hour duration that takes us to downtown Ottawa. Once we veer onto the Parkway we never know what we may see. On occasion a red fox, a deer, a flamboyant wild turkey, once even a browsing coyote in a field that the National Capital Commission leases out for agricultural purposes.

This time we had to be satisfied with the sight, once again, of flourishing wildflowers. They're in their prime and glorying in nature's gift to them this spring and summer; rain in abundance, rain that never seems to miss a day. Despite which it did miss yesterday and we had a full day of sunshine under an oceanic blue sky.

So there were ample lovely landscapes to admire as we drove past them; from densely forested areas to open fields with forested backgrounds. In the distance beyond eyesight the presence of urban streets and homes. And then there are notable sites as well that are passed, from the RCMP's paddocks where their beautiful black stallions graze, and where geese love to settle to peck about their droppings. To a small museum overlooking the Rideau Falls.

And of course there's the aeronautical museum and vintage planes on display that draws thousands of tourists continually, and most especially during the summer months when tourism is at its height. This is, after all, the nation's capital, and there is much to see.

There are open vistas of the Ottawa River, with powerboats scudding through the placid waters, leaving their typical wake, just as jet planes do with their contrails. And small, privately-owned and -flown aircraft, propeller-driven, sometimes biplanes and other vintage types buzzing across the sky from the small airfield adjacent the aeronautical museum. It's been in place there longer than the museum.

To our delight, we came across quite the scene. Traffic was light, and in front of us travelling in the opposite direction, a vehicle had stopped briefly. The only traffic behind it was in the far distance. It had stopped long enough to give a troop of goslings following the mother goose the time they needed to disappear back in entry to the forested brush they had exited from the opposite side.

We passed 24 Sussex Drive, the most famous address in Canada, as the stately yet relatively modest home of our prime ministers. The building has been long overdue for remedial work undertaken to upgrade its heating and cooling plant, its electrical and plumbing, its roofing, its windows, and come to think of it, just about everything that will restore its functionability after a too-prolonged period when maintenance had been inadequate to neglected, leaving it in a parlous state of disrepair. The current prime minister and his family have been living in alternate quarters nearby.

Our arrival at our destination greeted us with colourful displays of stalls selling fresh local fruits and vegetables, flowers and maple syrup. It's a busy place, bustling with people frequenting the many and varied cafes, shopping at the outdoor stalls selling unique jewellery, clothing, baskets, artwork. A livelier place couldn't be imagined.

To add to the colour there are huge planters containing a wide array of plants, some flowering, others valued for the colours and shapes of their foliage, some of which reach towering heights, all of which are well cared for and extremely beautifully lush. Again, our abundance of rain, and of sun, neither in short supply of late.

On our return home we passed my husband's old work place, one of those much-heralded new architectural styles when it was built almost 50 years ago in the Brutalist manner, and which I'd always found unattractive. We also passed quite a number of foreign missions, many of those taking up prime positions on or around Sussex Drive, owed by Arab nations.

Passing the estate of the Governor General, the usual ceremonial guards in their red-coated uniforms and overheating headgear of traditional bearskin (now substituted by a manufactured fabric to resemble bearskin) were in place at the gates, with curious bystanders taking the usual tourism photos for bragging rights back home.

From there, back onto the Eastern Parkway, and the sights repeated with forest and wildflowers, and people bicycling along the Parkway, and on paths woven into the forest and fields alongside. There were people picnicking, walking dogs, or infants in strollers, enjoying perfect summer weather.