Audio bliss

We are coming to the end of our sojourn in Toronto. And what a sojourn it’s been!

Since the last post, the weather has been almost unremittingly hot, hot, hot and sunny, sunny, sunny. Collingwood, Georgian Bay, was a lovely town that we didn’t give enough time to, but moved on to an equally pretty town called Bayfield – obviously named after the England second row (and Young Hagrid) of the ‘90s. There was a strong cold wind the day we got there and we walked down to the beach of Lake Huron, which looks like the sea, with big waves and nothing on the horizon. We only stayed for the sunset, then nipped back for fire.

The following day, the sunshine started and has hardly stopped since. Awesome fire that night, but couldn’t stay for a third night as it was fully booked, so we drove a short distance to Goderich, sat in Walmart all afternoon watching the rain and reading, before walking into their lovely little town and visiting the theatre to see ‘The Compleat Works of Shakespeare’ in 1¾ hours. Very entertaining and very well-performed by a cast of three. We got talking to the director afterwards and it turns out we had a number of Edinburgh Fringe shows in common! What’re the chances eh? Anyway, the upshot is that we are now friends on Facebook and might be catching up when he comes back to the UK either next year or 2017.

At about this time, England were receiving a serious drubbing in the second test at Lord’s. The future looked bleak…

It was starting to get seriously hot the next day when we moved on and stayed with Hannah’s Aunt Marie and Uncle Stuart in their house in Burlington. It was so kind of them to put us up – after all, we had never met! And Stuart had a look at Molly Too on Sunday and put our minds at rest about the extent of the work needed to make her completely lovely again. Thank you so much again Marie and Stuart – hope the renovations are finished soon and you can get back to normality!

Another act of faith was occurring the next day as we arrived at Eva and Jeff’s house in Toronto’s Midtown suburb of Leaside (or near there anyway). They have a charming family – two boys: Matty and JP (?) and eight-year-old Kayla. They made us feel very welcome and Charlie the dog is great – very friendly and great to walk. The following day we met Eva’s parents before the family set off for two weeks in Italy. So we were on our own in a very spacious and hi-tech house, where everything can be controlled by iPads!!!!

After a couple of attempts, we managed to lose Netflix and had to send a desperate email to Italy, but were very nervous about doing too much to right the situation. It mysteriously righted itself a couple of days later, so we have been enjoying some interesting viewing. Gillie will bring you up to speed, I’m sure.

We celebrated the anniversary of our retirement by going to a very nice Italian restaurant just a short walk away and were very kindly treated to a lovely meal the next night by Jorgen and Helle, Eva’s parents, in another great restaurant almost next door to the first!

Toronto has been hosting the PanAm Games for the last three weeks and the city has been mildly ‘gripped’ by the apparently unprecedented sight of Canadians winning lots of medals. There has been a bit of a London Olympics vibe about the city, which has made it lively and cosmopolitan. It’s a really good city, with lots going on and quite manageable. Walks along the lakefront (Lake Ontario) and a free Jazz festival (over three weekends) have been most enjoyable (although the cost of beer at the festival was a bit of a piss-take). We also took the open-top bus tour around the city to help us get everything in perspective.

Can’t leave the blog without mentioning a trip that everyone who comes here must make – Niagara Falls. Although it’s very touristy and commercialized, the size and scale are absolutely stunning. After all, the best bits are natural and it’s not difficult to close the man-made stuff out of your mind. A great and essential day.

Over the past fortnight, we have experienced a number of frustrations trying to get Molly in for a service and oil change. Nowhere around here seems to be set up for anything bigger than a mini!!! Anyway, after three failed attempts, we took Molly to Autodoctor in Scarborough (!) and we’re waiting to hear now what the damage is and when we can collect her…

On Wednesday we went to the BMO Field to watch a rugby triple-header in the Pacific Nations Cup (shrugs shoulders in apparent indifference). It was tortuously hot for the spectators, so it must have been murder for the players. On the very slim possibility that anyone gives a shit, Tonga stuffed USA, Fiji just managed to hold off a spirited comeback from Gallant Little Japan, who, by the way, held the Fiji pack quite comfortably in the scrums, and Canada heartbreakingly, but clumsily, lost in the final seconds to Samoa. Nothing much there to worry about for the autumn [the Rugby World Cup is being held in England - Gillie!] Think Gillie was a bit bored!

At the same time, England were setting themselves up well for the third test at Edgbaston and we had found out that we could now listen to Test Match Special and as we write, Gillie is listening to The Archers Omnibus!!! Audio bliss indeed - and we have Jeff to thank for doing something clever with a website which apparently will allow us to listen/watch BBC radio & tv wherever we can get wifi.

This morning brought the inevitable disintegration of the Aussie attack and England take a 2-1 lead to Trent Bridge. How good (if unexpected) is that?! Bit worried about loss of Anderson though.

We set off on Tuesday for Montreal and have a target to be in Cape Cod on 4^th September. Apart from that, our time’s our own. More later. Stay well.

PS. We’ve had such a great time in Toronto, thanks, in part, to the location of our house sit, which has made access to the city so easy.  It really has felt like a holiday, with such glorious weather and a lovely atmosphere everywhere. 

We emerged from the metro on our first forage around the town, to be confronted with the Harbour Castle Hotel, which is where I used to stay in my ‘flying’ days, 30+ years ago!!  I have bored Andy silly, by going down memory lane at every opportunity!  It is such a good place and I’m so pleased to be back and explore it further.  (I didn’t however, need quite so much time exploring the ‘delights’ of three rugby games in a row, in 33C heat. To be fair, the Canada game was exciting, as we were supporting Samoa, much to the consternation of our neighbours!!)

Dad da da da da da daa, dad da da da daa daa…  anyone recognize this?? Yessssss the theme tune to the Archers!!  What more could a girl want than to be sitting under a tree, with a lovely breeze ruffling the leaves and listening to the good ol’ BBC!!!  Strangely enough, I could still follow the ‘plot’ even though I haven’t heard an episode for over 10 months!!  [plot??? – ed.]

As I’ve said before the tv is rubbish, so it’s lovely to have the BBC and Netflix for Kevin Spacey’s ‘House Of Cards’, which is our ‘Breaking Bad’ replacement.  It’s set in Washington DC so we are looking forward to visiting all the sights there, probably by the end of September.  We will be sad to leave next Tuesday, especially to say goodbye to Charlie the dog, who is just gorgeous. (Also George the fish, who is a bit of a prima donna as far as his eating routine is concerned… he’ll take one tiny grain of food and then you have to wait half an hour while he chews it before he’ll accept the next one!! (He has five grains!!)  So I use the time in between, to make a cup of tea, read the paper etc, etc.  As Emily says – Very high maintenance!!

I’d better stop now or my PS will be longer than the blog.  Love to all G  xxx

holding up the sunset!

Beautiful Bayfield

Beautiful Bayfield pt II

Notice the clever reflection shot?!

Yawn, yawn

Start of the 30-minute feeding regime for George. Even Charlie looks bored!

Tropical Toronto - with Charlie

Beautiful Bay - oh no: Niagara On The Lake

Love the pacamac!

It really is quite awesome!

Rainbow Bridge indeed

We were in that boat - scary!

Lilies - see previous post.

Lilies, Lupins and lakes. And more lakes.

Since our last post, we’ve driven over 2,000 miles across the Badlands of Canada. Do they live up to their name? Oh yes.

After posting our blog in a rather pleasant little car park at Brooks Walmart, we motored on to what sounded like a very nice campground at Swift Current, Saskatchewan. It was punishingly hot so we decided to get our washing done. As one of the washing machines didn’t spin, we had little choice but to employ that rarely seen (in North America) household item – the washing line. Seriously, the weather is perfect for drying clothes outdoors and everyone uses tumble driers. There aren’t even washing lines at campgrounds, unlike Australia and New Zealand. No wonder N. America is in denial about climate change. Honestly. 

About half an hour after leaving Swift Current on the Monday (29^th June, if you’re counting), we came across a very strange meteorological phenomenon. Smoke haze covering the sun. Apparently there were at the time more than 100 separate forest fires blazing in northern Saskatchewan and the smoke was drifting as far as Kansas in the USA. This strange atmosphere was to stay with us for more than a week.

On the same day, we pulled into a tiny little (as we thought) town called Caronport for some fuel and didn’t start again. The alternator had packed up and as the mechanic later said, after 27 years it didn’t really owe us anything. Fortunately, this no-horse town boasted nothing other that a fuel station (with attendant Subway), a hotel and a car repair centre, to which we duly limped and, looking all English and helpless, got them to fix it for us that afternoon. We discovered that the sleepy hamlet of Caronport also boasted a huge Christian seminary/college/institute type thing. But term had ended, so we weren’t preached at while eating our Subway lunches. Very odd day.

Soon after this we crossed out of SK (can’t be bothered to keep spelling out Saskatchewan) into Manitoba.

As well as the haze/smoke in the atmosphere, this time of year is also prime time for all types of flying and crawling and biting insect things across the Prairies in Canada, so all things DEET-based have been employed lavishly, especially as most of the campgrounds are either in the woods or next to standing water! Fuckin’ nightmare.

We had planned to stay at a place called Delta Beach, on the shores of Lake Manitoba, for a couple of nights, courtesy of Barry Heal, the chap we mentioned from the Vancouver campground in the last post. When we arrived in the late afternoon, though, we daren’t leave the RV for more than 30 seconds for fear of being eaten alive by bugs of all shapes and sizes. A haven for birds and you can see why. A never-ending supply of flying food. But the bugs have to eat too and when there’s human blood around – well…

Exit, chased by blackflies, mosquitoes, little flies, big flies, fuckin flies, bastards, bugger, bit again, bollocks.

Actually, we came across yet another very interesting and somewhat disturbing phenomenon on our way out the next day. In a shallow stream coming away from the marsh, we saw literally dozens of fish all about two-to-three-feet long and of commensurate girth (not being a fisherman, I don’t need to exaggerate this) splashing around by the edge of the ditch, with probably 40-50 equally large, but very dead, ones floating in the middle. Not wanting to donate any more blood to the local insect population and not being able to find anyone stupid enough to be standing outside feeding the flies, we haven’t been able to fathom the cause of this phenomenon. Anyone help?

Not long after we reached Ontario and stayed at a lovely little campground near Kenora for Canada/Independence Day celebrations. Still searingly hot and muggy, we found out that our little campground was having fireworks on the Saturday (4^th) July, so after repleting ourselves with another expertly-cooked bbq and supping an elegant sufficiency (cheers Mike) of beer and wine, we strolled along at about 9.30 – just getting dark – for the fireworks.

No sooner had the first squib launched into the air, than the heavens started to drop big fat drops of water, making all the rest of the squibs rather damp. We stuck it out for as long as we could then legged it back for some restorative beer (and wine) while listening to and watching another spectacular and natural firework display from the comfort of Molly Too.

Very strange campground the following night in a place called Ignace, complete with massive thunderstorm again. Suffice to say we did not take advantage of the kind offer of a free canoe on Lake Agimak as we would have been drowned without going in the water.

More Walmart and pleasant campgrounds followed, but by now we were moving into Great Lakes country. If you’re not driving past lake Superior for about five days, then you’re driving around one of its little friends. The only trouble is, we can only catch glimpses of the lakes as we drive past, as they’re hidden by miles and miles of pine forest. It’s lovely when we do see them, but otherwise lots of miles of more or less decent, flat, straight, endless road.

There are lots of lovely lupins to see by the side of the road, though – pinks and purples and all colours in between. Over the last couple of days, we’ve also noticed ponds rammed full of lilies, all coming into bloom and no doubt harbouring a few zillion mosquitoes each too. So that’s justified today’s title.

Sault (pronounced Soo) Ste. Marie was a bit of a dump – at least the bit we saw where we were treated to a new form of torment – the ‘only-started-today’ Shad Fly. WTFF???!!!

By the end of Thursday, we were a bit twitchy. Well done Moeen for getting us up to 430 and of course Rooooooooooooot, but the Aussies still had some firepower even with five wickets down.

By the end of Friday, with new (damp) firewood in a very expensive campsite - $11+ reservation fee!!!! We still weren’t safe, but woke up Saturday morning to the comforting realisation that the Aussies were falling apart. For a team that wasn’t given a chance, well it could all still go horribly wrong, but…we’ll see. These last two paragraphs have mostly been about cricket – in case you didn’t know.

Sudbury is also a shithole – a bit like the one in England I hear you say?!, but we moved on quickly after a night in a noisy Walmart car park and have found ourselves in a lovely campground by Parry Sound, where we took a boat trip in gorgeous weather around the 30,000 Islands, but only counted 28,946 – cheating buggers these Canucks. Staying here tonight, then on to somewhere else before taking advantage of Hannah’s lovely Uncle Stuart and Aunt Marie and staying a night, on Saturday, at their house in Burlington, before going on to our house sit in Toronto next Sunday. Will keep you posted.

PS.  Gosh, it’s hot.  I never thought it could be this hot in a country that has snow just about everywhere from November to March!  Last Thursday we drove through a tiny place called White River, which has 2 claims to fame. First, in 1935 the temperature dropped to a mind-boggling -57 C (-72 F), the lowest ever recorded in the whole of mainland Canada…Wow!!  Second, it was the home of a bear cub called Winnipeg, who was exported to London Zoo in 1914 and became the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh!!  Who says I don’t read my Rough Guide…  I had to do something during the nearly three weeks of plains, plains, forests and even more forests. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love forests particularly, but when you know there is one of the biggest lakes in the world, just out of sight, behind the trees, grrrrrrr!!  Anyway we emerged finally, to be able to cruise on said lake and proceed to have the most wonderful Monday morning you could possibly hope for, bliss… I’ve mentioned before that the campsites in the US and Canada are not a patch on those in NZ and Australia.  Well on Sunday we found a lovely one in Parry Sound that we can say is nearly as good, it was really well run, with a lovely swimming pool.  While bobbing around in the water I came across a couple from Camberley (very near Fleet!).  They said we must go to Nova Scotia, so on their advice we are rearranging our plans a little and after Toronto will be heading north, to see what all the fuss is about! 

Four more nights sleeping in Molly and then two weeks in a bed!!  As much as I love Molly and she is soooo comfortable, after two months, the thought of a bed in a real house, ooh…  On 23^rd July it’ll be exactly one year since Andy and I retired, so we are going to hit the hotspots of Toronto to celebrate (it’ll also be just over ten months since we left the UK!)  Wow!!  Bye for now, keep your comments coming in, we LOVE to hear from you.  G  xxx  

See - I told you they were big...

Mosquito heaven

A walk amongst the wildflowers

Kakabeka Falls, not mentioned in the blog

There's a moose loose about this house - sorry, couldn't resist it!

I suppose Sault Ste Marie has to try something to appeal. 

A lovely stroll among the falls

Two of the 30,000 Islands

Does this really need a caption? Alexander Keith's was tasteless. Otherwise quite palatable

Lake Superior. The water was freezing!

The road. And pine forests.