Back and Forth

Hello dear reader. Since the last blog we have been over to Ireland for a wedding and then home - all too briefly for Eamonn, and now we are on the point of returning for our summer holiday! I'm beginning to get used to flying at last, especially having done it on my own for the first time!We've been watching and listening to the news from home, describing the terrible weather you've been having over the last 3 months whereas, here, very hot weather has arrived earlier than normal and is causing different problems. Recent temperatures have been in the mid 30's which is even more uncomfortable with high humidity and it makes air conditioning essential. The drought is affecting many states of the US as well as Southern Ontario. This is the worst drought here since 1988. There are serious problems for the corn and soya bean crops. This seemed strange to me as water is so plentiful here - there are so many lakes it must be impossible to count them. But I was listening to CBC radio recently when it was explained that the infrastructure doesn't exist to provide irrigation and permits for using lake water are harder to get. Because droughts don't happen often it doesn't make it worthwhile to invest in irrigation systems. Aquifers don't exist in Ontario so they cannot draw water from below ground. The USA is the 2nd biggest corn and soybean producers so there will be an impact on food prices. Ontario needs 6 weeks of rain which is unlikely! A tragic result of the high heat levels has been the number of drownings. Over the Canada Day holiday weekend there were at least 9 deaths in Ontario alone. We have only rarely seen safety equipment on lake shores as there is too much water to cover. There is a stronger culture of taking responsibility for oneself here but there are always people who think it doesn't apply to them. There has also been a rise in the number of toddlers drowning in backyard pools which are very common here.

 

  

Some of our Newcomers' photography group went to see an exhibition at the AGO. A fun day!

At the end of May we visited Toronto Botanical Gardens as part of Doors Open weekend. This was a bit of a disappointment, partly because no-one does gardens like the British, but also, most flowering shrubs were finished and the grass, which should have provided pleasurable walking, was covered in goose plop! Canada geese are as common as pigeons back home and in some ways more of a nuisance! It was also much too hot for me.

We flew back to London on the 31st May and while browsing the in-flight magazine we discovered that Air Canada were about to begin a direct flight from Toronto to Dublin in a week's time! How convenient that would have been. We flew the next day to Knock and had a lovely weekend relaxing on the coast, enjoying real sea at last, having a lovely day at Lorraine's wedding and seeing Eamonn's cousins as well.

There seem to be donkeys everywhere in Mayo! People used to buy and sell them but now everyone has them there is no-one to sell them to!
The wedding was in Bohola and the reception was outside Westport. Everything went really well although it was so cold! It was fun to meet people and realise we had other people and places in common.


This is the cemetery where many of Eamonn's relatives are buried.












We got back on the Monday of the Jubilee weekend, in time to enjoy the concert on tv. Gemma had cooked a lovely meal for us and her visitors and Michael and Charlotte came over too, so it was a lovely evening before Eamonn went back. I then had 2 weeks of catching up to do!
Gemma had booked for us to see Da Vinci's anatomical drawings at the Queen's Gallery - amazing - and then we visited the Royal Mews. On another day I went on  a walking tour with Eileen around St. James' Park area.You can see what I mean about our gardens! On Whitehall we saw this new memorial to women who served in WW2.













And in keeping with the patriotic mood, our Olympic tickets arrived, pictured here with souvenir Marmite, on its way back to Toronto for some fellow Brits! I also had a lovely train journey to Dorset to visit Joan and Brian in their new home.

Back in Toronto we went to another  National Theatre Live event: a screening of 'Frankenstein' with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller (who going to play Sherlock Holmes in the US version of 'Sherlock' with a female Watson!). It was extraordinary, requiring such energy, directed by Danny Boyle.

We then prepared for our 4 hour drive to Algonquin Park for the Canada Day long weekend. We stayed in 2 beautiful B&Bs near Huntsville, which meant there was a fair amount of driving to reach the Park and then to see the sights. Most people visit the trails and campsites in this south west corner
via Highway 60. There is another Highway which skirts the northern edge. The scale of the place is mind-boggling. It occupies 7,630 square kilometres of land and water, with water making up approximately 12% of the area and providing an extensive network of canoe routes - that's about 1/3 the area of Wales!! In 1800s pioneer loggers came to the area for the white pine which was needed for the growing developments of Eastern Canada, driven by a booming British economy. The Park was established in 1893, not to stop logging but to establish a wildlife sanctuary, and by excluding agriculture, to protect the headwaters of the five major rivers which flow from the Park. Soon it was "discovered", at first by adventurous fishermen, then by Tom Thomson and The Group of Seven, and many other visitors who came by train.  On our first drive in to the park we were so lucky to see this moose with her calf feeding at the side of the road. Apparently they need sodium and after rain salty water collects in the ditches, resulting from winter salting of the roads, so it's one of the most likely ways to see them but more usually in the early morning. There is a calf in the shade on the left! I couldn't get my long lens on in time!

There are many short trails accessible from the road and after going to the Visitor Centre we walked the Beaver Pond trail. There are many lodges here and we actually saw a beaver swimming!

View from the Visitor centre:

White Admiral Butterfly

It's wonderful to be able to appreciate such a natural resource but there is a down side: you have to go well prepared to prevent being bitten by bugs and mosquitoes. It helps to wear long sleeves and long trousers and sensible boots. We spray our hands and faces and our clothes too and this is on top of suncream and having to wear a hat! I get far fewer bites than Eamonn and he also reacts more to them than I do. For me, it's the microscopic bugs that can get through your clothes and inside your spectacle frames that are the worst; at least you can usually see mosquitoes! I had no bites on this trip until our last morning. We had gone out at 6am hoping to catch moose unawares and to see the mists lifting from the lakes. We soon realised we should have gone an hour earlier to get the best pictures as the mist lifted very quickly. We didn't see any moose but I did have a strong  feeling of unease walking a deserted trail at 7 am. What if we disturbed a bear? The stillness was beautiful but it was hard to relax. The wooded parts of trails can also be stifling and claustrophobic, probably because you know it would be tricky getting away quickly! I was relieved to get back in the air conditioned car and return to the B&B for a shower and delicious breakfast. We ate on the deck and it hadn't occurred to us to spray up! So that's how I picked up some bites and Eamonn even more. It would be a great place to go in the autumn for the colour but then male moose can be dangerous as it's the rutting season! The information we were given about the Park was excellent and went into clear detail about how to behave if a bear approaches! Apparently it's very rare for people on trails to come across a bear; I think you're more likely to experience a bear if you're on one of the campsites as they are smart animals and can associate humans with food and some humans are very careless. We saw a sign at the entrance to one site: 'Bear in area' ! Apart from the moose and beaver we  saw 2 types of woodpecker and some other birds new to us and some turtles and deer - running across in front of the car, but no harm done.

One of the best things about travelling here are the B&Bs. Hotels can be very few and far between as you get further out and we have always found them to be of excellent quality. We used to hate the idea of breakfasting with strangers but we have met lovely people and there's always something to talk about! And practically speaking it's either that or camping!  Of course it's a very sensitive environmental area but they have to accommodate technology too. Here we discovered a phone mast disguised as a tree! Very clever.

On one drive out of the Park we were caught in a terrible rainstorm which forced us to stop as we couldn't see. These were the rain clouds building.

This area is known as an inspiration for the Group of Seven, a famous group of Canadian artists. There are many panels like this around Huntsville showing a selection of landscapes.

Sunset over Fairy Lake:

  

Back in the City:

Canada rightly has a reputation of being a safe country but there has been a worrying increase in gun violence here with a recent spate of shootings. So far this year 21 people have died due to gun crime and there have been 147 non-fatal victims. The gun laws here are much tighter than in the US but there is a problem with the number of guns that are brought in illegally from there along with an increase in gang violence. You might have heard about the shooting in the Eaton Centre in Downtown Toronto: a young woman who escaped injury there was killed in the dreadful attack in the Denver cinema yesterday.

There are often impressive skies here and this was the view from our living room one evening:

This is a building at a local junction:

 

This is what's wrong with Toronto: the urban landscape is a complete muddle in most areas.  

 Not far from where we live is Eamonn's site. This is the project he's working on - a Coroner's Court and Forensic Laboratory.

 

This is a house finch, one of a pair that's been feeding on our balcony.

Well, in a few days we'll be home. I do hope it turns into a good summer for everyone and that London performs well!

With love, Mary and Eamonn