Well, it’s the Thanksgiving long weekend. And I thought that it might be a good idea to look around me, and take stock of all of the things that I have to be thankful for, particularly here in my adopted home of New Westminster.

Theatre does not have to be a faraway and inaccessible activity that happens mysteriously somewhere else. But rather, theatre created by those living in the same community can be something that brightens the cultural landscape on the most direct level possible. It takes a city already enriched by its own history, and makes sure that the history goes on for current and upcoming generations of those interested in artistic expression.

You can now access free wifi in Queen’s Park, the New Westminster Public Library, and the Uptown business district, courtesy of the City of New Westminster.

Vancouver may have Bard on the Beach, but New Westminster has Bard in the Park, and it’s free to boot.

Shadows & Dreams Theatre Company returns to the Queens Park Bandshell every Saturday & Sunday at 2pm from July 17 to August 1 to perform William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Leaving the house with kids can be very hard work. Such hard work that it is often tempting to just not do it. I can’t get away with staying home anymore; my kids need to be run like dogs and if we don’t leave the house in the morning, that morning will end with me getting tied up and scribbled on with Sharpie or with a guitar being smashed over someone’s head, ’70s-rock-band-style.

This is a guest post by Rob Jones, who shares some of his first impressions of New Westminster as a new resident of our city. You can read more from Rob on his blog, The Delete Bin, and also find him on Twitter @clippernolan.
There are elements of every city that makes it unique, makes them feel like home.
My experience with big-small towns is well established, even if I am a recent resident of New Westminster. Like New West, my hometown of Oakville Ontario was founded next to a busy waterway; …

Note: Updated at 8 p.m. with new information from the Globe & Mail, CBC and Province websites.
New Westminster’s Canada Day celebrations took an upsetting turn towards the close of the Queen’s Park festivities when an elderly driver crashed a car into a park bench in the Rose Garden, injuring at least two people – one critically.
News reports about the injuries vary. CBC says four people were hurt in the crash, but the Globe & Mail and Province say only two. All sources agree that a couple in their sixties were …

Our family unit and other Tenth to the Fraser crew are heading out to Queen’s Park today, like so many other Royal City citizens. I have been attending Canada Day in this park almost my whole life. For a long time, I thought of it as a big town party just for me – and a thousand of my closest friends.
The boys and girls from town would stampede from one end of the park to the other (unsupervised – this was the 1980s) looking for flag pins, balloons, cookies, cake and …