Holiday Season

Hello everyone, thought it was about time for a new epistle. If you're on holiday I hope you're having a good time. It's holiday time here too. August is a quiet month as so many people are out of town at their cottages. There's plenty of activity around town at the weekends with sports fixtures, food events, etc but we don't tend to seek out crowded places like that. We have had a heatwave with temperatures in the high 30s when I really found it too hot to go out, but now it's settled down to high twenties. Thanks to the Great Lakes we also have high humidity which really adds to the discomfort factor. The authorities even set up 'Emergency Cooling Centres' in each neighbourhood. Thank goodness the subway and buses are air-conditioned.

Water Park in Barrie

The cottage culture here is interesting. It seems that many families have a holiday cottage where they can relax between Easter and September. It encourages outdoor pursuits of barbecuing, swimming, fishing, canoeing, boating, etc which is fine but some of these cottages are in very remote locations, even on private islands, so I don't know if I could stay more than a few days in such a place. The owners obviously invest a lot of time and money setting them up and maintaining them. But we recently had a taste of cottage life when a colleague at Eamonn's site held his annual 'Family Day' at his cottage near Orillia, about an hour and a half north of here. He invites people from work to bring their families to his cottage which he shares with his family throughout the year. This happened on the July 30th Bank Holiday weekend so we decided to take a leisurely drive up there, away from the 400 Highway which was a good choice because we later heard horror stories of delays due to the volume of cottage bound traffic. After stopping off en route for coffee we were in good time to get to his house but we ended up being very late because Eamonn thought he knew the address and it turned out he didn't so we spent an hour and a half looking in the wrong place! We have got really sloppy about checking details since we got here! Anyway, all  was fine and we had a great time, swimming in the lake and chatting with the other Brits from Eamonn's site. 

There were quite a few children there; it was the most fantastic playground for them: swings on the grass, a bouncy raft on the lake, kayaks and canoes to ride in and local turtles to observe. These families are planning to settle in Canada for good, having sold up at home so it's a very different situation for them. The lake was very shallow for a long way out so very safe and the water was warm! In the evening we shared a barbecue and the children got to toast marshmallows over the fire pit by the lake. To round off the night, Ron set off some fireworks, the old-fashioned way, which pleased me more than the children I think. It showed a wonderful spirit of hospitality and it was all done in such an understated way.

The next day we headed off to Peterborough, a town which is surrounded by more lakes and cottages. We had 2 days there, 'enjoying' the hot sun and seeing new places. The scenery was reminiscent of the Southern Uplands in Scotland with gentle hills and conifers so we warmed to the place immediately. This part of Ontario is known for its 'Trent-Severn' Waterway believe it or not, which is 386 km long, stretching from the Eastern end of Lake Ontario through 40 locks to Georgian Bay, 2 hours north of Toronto. At Peterborough is a famous Lift Lock which uses hydraulic rams to raise and lower boats through 20m so that they can continue their journey through the Kawartha Lakes. We enjoyed the museum and Eamonn enjoyed the technical stuff especially. It was opened in 1904 and the towers are solid concrete, without any reinforcement which was a very new technique then. It was fascinating watching the 'tubs' that held boats and water take just 10 minutes to swap places. 

Peterborough Lift Lock

At the furniture barn

The next day was Monday, 1st August, so we meandered our way towards Toronto stopping off to visit an antiques barn where I bought a chair for the bedroom (I could have bought something in Ikea but this was more fun) and a couple of colourful pots. We had a delicious lunch nearby and took in more scenery and collected a few more bites along the way. We even passed a place called 'Little Britain' and we parked beside this sign:

Hope the rubbish bin gets cropped off this group photo!

Another outing was to Kleinburg, just half an hour from here, which is a very pretty village. Considering its proximity to Greater Toronto it has avoided being swallowed up by the highways and there  is not a chain brand in sight. It is, presumably, very expensive to live there! There is a fantastic art gallery there, the McMichael Collection, which specialises in Canadian art and houses a permanent collection of the 'Group of 7'. Because it's relatively close I was hoping to be able to take myself there during the week but it's impossible to get there by public transport which is really annoying. After visiting the gallery and sculpture garden we had a lovely lunch, watching bridal parties arrive to have their photos taken in front of the pretty buildings along the main street. This kept us amused for a good while, watching bridesmaids sitting around, eating ice cream in their frothy dresses, while the wedding group was being photographed - in this case beside a hole in the ground and a rubbish bin!

 

Works by Ivan Eyre

 

We finally made it to the CN Tower in July with a couple of Carillion friends, Mel and Jack. We booked for dinner on a Friday evening in their rotating restaurant so that we could see the sun go down over the city. It was a lovely night. The meal was very good, expensive, but a lovely occasion.

We've visited a few parks around town - no-one does parks like the UK. We found High Park in the west of town to be a pleasant, interesting area with an excellent cafe so we'll be back on a cooler day. We actually had to scamper back to the cooling air con of the car. We tried another park area near here but it felt very neglected and it didn't feel safe so that's off the list.

 A feature of the summer here is free music. The Square here has music on Friday and Sunday evenings, featuring swing and jazz particularly. There are lots of enthusiastic dancers and it's a lovely way to spend an evening. There are lots of free music events around town, at lunchtime and after work. It's noticeable at events like this that alcohol is completely absent. I know at home we'd have groups of people sitting, sharing wine or beer and there would be stalls selling too probably, but not here. Alcohol is much harder to get hold of here; there are only 2 retailers who specialise in it and of course you have to be 19 years old to buy it, providing ID if necessary. We could really do with a tighter hold on things like this at home. You are much less likely to see anyone drunk on a warm summer's evening here. But on the other hand, this puritanical approach goes too far in that they are not allowed to transport alcohol across province borders so if you bought some wine in British Columbia you're not really supposed to bring it back to Ontario! This is a common complaint from local wine producers.

Accidental arty night shot of CN Tower

I listen to a lot of news here, especially on the BBC, and it's been very depressing lately. There seems to be so much bad news and now this news from London is very upsetting. Every summer now at home there seems to be trouble in London. It was mentioned on CTV here, helpfully pointing out that Totttenham is just 8 km from the Olympic site. The comparison between UK and Canada is stark: the population here is about 35 million in the 2nd largest country in the world; we have 62 million in one of the smallest. The UK would fit into Canada 40 times with room to spare. It's a testament to the British character that we are able to function so well and that we still have some of the best scenery anywhere. I hope things calm down soon and that people see sense.

I still have too much time on my hands. I wrote to a local school in June and rang a local charity last week offering to volunteer but I've had no reply. I'll wait until the end of the month and try again. September will be busier as my Newcomers Club will start again and we're expecting visitors on 17th so I just have to get myself through this lull. Eamonn's fine at work, busy, and enjoying Friday afternoons off. He's played a few games of golf but hasn't found any decent competition yet but he has spotted lots of ground hogs and even a coyote last week!

Coffee mug humour seen in Leamington: 'If it weren't for the caffeine I'd have no personality at all!' It was in Leamington that we saw an advert for 'Oil Wrestling' too!

Our Pool

It's time to finish now. I hope you're all well and look forward to hearing from you.

With love, Mary and Eamonn xx