Yes, this is a London, Ontario suburb!

It may be city land but adjacent landowners maintain the wide trail.

London was a small, compact community when I first moved here almost four decades ago. London never fell for the ring-road concept and so the city grew mainly around its edges with no ring-road attracting development even farther away from the core.

I live in a London suburb: Byron. It is a classic subdivision plan with lots of crescents and courts. It takes fifteen minutes to drive approximately 10 kilometres from my driveway to the downtown core. It takes about the same amount of time to walk to the supermarket, the drugstore, the bank or a number of other businesses.

The nicest thing about walking to the store is that there are short-cuts. One doesn't have to walk along the street but can take pathways that cut between and behind area homes. These pathways link streets and courts. The walks are very pleasant in the non-winter months. As they are not maintained during the winter, they may be blocked by snow in mid-February.

I love the colours and textures encountered walking to the store.

Of course, in mid-February the pathways may be in use by others, such as kids with sleds and families with toboggans.

My point here is that London suburbs are not all dull, boring, stale places to live. They are not places to escape from as some of the writers at the local paper seem to believe.

I love my neighbourhood, my now grown children love the area and my 3-year-old granddaughter enjoys it, especially the pathways to adventure.