Here we are at the tail end of the year, preparing to come home for Christmas! This year has gone so fast! 
November has been quiet but the weather has been fine enough so far and we're still waiting for the first heavy snow. We try not to hibernate too much - it's very tempting to stay indoors on cold, grey days but there are still a few places we haven't explored yet though we do miss the variety of outings at home. We went out for a walk to Rouge Park,
Toronto's 'urban wilderness park' which stretches from North Toronto to the Lakeshore. It has trails for walking and cycling alongside the Rouge River. A common wild flower here is milkweed. Here it is in seed, once used as kindling by First Nations people to light fires. These plants are an important source of summer food for insects, including monarch butterflies. Another weekend saw us visit Unionville, a 200 year-old little town, surrounded by suburban Toronto, which attracts visitors to its galleries, restaurants and shops but we didn't find much to interest us, sadly. 
One of Eamonn's birthday presents was an evening at a wine tasting class! This was held in a condo building down by the Lakeshore. We had a very pleasant evening tasting Canadian sparkling wine, then white and red wine - my sips got smaller and smaller as the evening progressed! We learned a few things including the effect of wine with certain foods and it had very little to do with slurping and spitting! I also had a very enjoyable morning at the Art Gallery of Ontario with fellow Newcomers viewing an exhibition of work by Diego Rivera and his wife, Frida Kahlo. It was an interesting mix of art and political history. He was already a renowned mural artist in Mexico when they met. She had a very tragic personal life suffering polio as a child then having a dreadful accident as a teenager which affected her for the rest of her life. Many of her paintings are uncomfortable viewing as they deal with her physical pain from her injuries as well as her inability to have a child. They were both high profile supporters of the Communist party and this is reflected in his work. They had a very stormy relationship but they always went back to each other. Some of us then enjoyed lunch together where I was talked into taking on a job on the Newcomers' Board - they need a replacement secretary but it doesn't seem too onerous a task.
My Neighbourhood Walks group had a very interesting trip to the world's oldest, still functioning, double-decker theatre! The Winter Gardens Theatre sits several storeys above the Elgin Theatre in Downtown Toronto. Built in 1913 the building has been cleverly restored using cheap materials to reproduce the Edwardian style of its vaudeville days. The lower theatre is traditional plush red and gold colouring while the upper theatre is styled as though it were in Mediterranean Europe with walls decorated with flowers and the ceiling hung with lanterns and dried beech leaves. Quite bizarre! Some of us were a bit disturbed by the thought of sitting below the dust-laden leaves! The Ontario Heritage trust took it over in 1981 and has worked hard to remove the 27 layers of paint and to replace the balconies etc. which were removed when it operated as a cinema in the 1970s. The upper theatre had been closed off since the late 20s so was left in a more original condition.
The Newcomer ladies do like to help out newly arrived members and one of my British friends organised a get-together so that some new Spanish members could meet each other as well as us. The youngest girl is looking for work as a civil engineer and it turned out that 7 out of the 8 of us there were married to civil engineers! It happens that a large Spanish company has contracts in road construction here. Some of the women with teenage children accept that their children's future lies here or in the US due to the problems in Europe now.
Having seen the new Bond film, 'Skyfall', we were delighted to get to the exhibition, 'Designing 007', transferred from London's Barbican where we enjoyed the display of memorabilia and film clips. A pity that the text panels were so badly lit and written in small gold font on black! Not much fun if you have poor sight.
A very pleasurable Newcomer event was held at the national ceramics museum in town. The Gardiner Museum, founded in 1984, has a huge collection of china and porcelain which was donated to the city by the Gardiner family who were collectors on an impressive scale. At this time of year they hold an exhibition of '12 Trees' for Christmas which are dressed by the museum and then auctioned for charity before being given to a home or organisation. The theme this year showed countries around the world. There were two British trees, one laden with little cups and saucers and teaspoons and the other one showing a very nostalgic look at past Christmases.
British tree
Australian Tree - upside down of course!
China - with dragons, fish, pandas, etc. hung on a pagoda style tree.
A lovely Polish tree
Netherlands tree - very pretty.
Here is the Phillipino Tree - these are real cookies. A few of them had been nibbled or had a corner snapped off!
The Canadian tree represented the Arctic region so here's a snowy owl.
British nostalgia - board games, toy soldiers and humming tops.
A lovely Swedish tree.
The US tree was very colourful, but covered with toys and sweets rather than with any national or religious symbols.
Mexican tree
As I left to go home I passed this beggar lying on the street. I took his picture on impulse. I didn't know how to react - surely we all want to feel compassion for those who are so desperate that they go to these lengths but something about this man's pose irritated me and I can't decide if I'm being unfair, after all I was able to go past him to a warm home. He had deliberately positioned himself in the way of people crossing the road and his gesture with his cap in hand outstretched was almost aggressive, almost daring you to walk over him. You often see beggars here, even in the coldest weather, often sitting on the grills where the warm air from the subway rises but mostly they sit quietly, some even wishing you a good day. Perhaps one of you will tell me what you think.
My last Newcomer outing was a Foodie event, touring the St. Lawrence Market and making cookies in the market kitchen. This popular food market is held in a building which originally housed the first City Hall of Toronto. During the tour we saw areas below the market floor which used to hold men's and women's jails. We could still see where chains were fixed to the wall which once held the male prisoners, some of whom drowned when the area flooded. The Market, sitting on Front Street, once faced Lake Ontario which is now about 3/4 km away. The women's jail was covered by a street level grill and it became known as the 'Snake Pit' as the women were seen reaching through the bars to passers by. They sell a wide range of fish and meat here. Some of the more unusual commodities are: crocodile, kangaroo, musk ox, buffalo, elk, ostrich and camel.
We visited an old meeting place next door, St. Lawrence Hall, built in 1850, which has this brightly painted ballroom which still uses gas lighting! It is so unusual to find genuinely old buildings in Toronto!
A good feature of meeting women from different countries is the opportunity to exchange information about each others' cultures. We were comparing the US Thanksgiving holiday and our Christmas. In the US Thanksgiving always falls on a Thursday which is a bank holiday and many people take the Friday off work to make a long weekend. I was explaining that it's very common for us to have some or all of the week off between Christmas and New Year whereas they only have Christmas Day and New Year's Day. Ontario has different holiday arrangements to the other Canadian provinces too so it's all very confusing! The other topic of conversation is often about language differences and we realised recently that here it's quite ok to go out in your vest and pants but to us it would mean something completely different!
I might look as though I know what I'm doing but of course it was pretty basic and you'll notice I didn't stop to put the camera down!
We had fun decorating ready prepared gingerbread 'persons' - it reminded me of art classes back in school! I went for the minimalist look.
So there we are, almost another year over. I still have my choir concert to take part in this weekend and then I'll be getting ready for Tuesday's flight. I look forward to seeing many of you but those I don't see I wish you a very Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year!
With love,
Mary and Eamonn
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