Wednesday 22 July
Caught the big train into the city today, travelling solo as Toni needed to be home with her youngest. Caught the very easy to use (because it's very small) subway to St Patrick, and then proceeded to walk west - east instead of south to go to the textile museum. Fortunately realised my error when I reached the subway station that was the stop before I got off. Sigh....my city map reading skills are really going to have to improve in time for September.
For my final dose of transatlantic culture, went to the Textile museum of Canada to see an exhibition of artists and textiles - 20th century fabrics designed by Warhol, Picasso, Dufy, Sutherland, Dali and a host of others - and a display of photographs of Frida Kahlo taken by Nick Muray. Both were excellent, with a great little shop and it's a small but perfectly-formed museum I'd really recommend.
Made a quick visit to the Art Gallery of Ontario shop but didn't venture into the museum this time round. It was a lovely day and I decided to stride out in my Birkenstocks and take a walk through the city via Dundas, Yonge (one of the major shopping streets) and Queen Street (which runs parallel with Front Street and the more industrial part of the waterfront) to soak up some atmosphere at the Distillery District. I only took one wrong turn, and that was an overshoot.
I passed a few straggling athletes in their national tracksuits, doing a bit of last-minute sightseeing as the PanAmerican games were drawing to a close - don't think they'd find much along Queen Street, although there is a Bulk Barn which has every dried ingredient and sweetie you could shake a scoop at available to buy loose by weight. Damn those baggage allowances....
The Distillery District has been developed quite a bit since my last visit - there are lots of chichi shops, art galleries and restaurants, and a place where you can book a Segway tour. I sat and ate an ice cream (today's flavour, lemon meringue) and watched some punters being trained on the machines and couldn't help but remember a great episode of Frasier where a Segway is Niles' latest toy and Daphne eventually manages to wrestle it off him so she can have a go - the comic timing in and out of the lift is quite brilliant! They're probably a lot of fun, but people do look a bit daft riding them.
Walked back along the Esplanade to meet Donald to head back to Mississauga. It's been lovely to eat outdoors each night, midge-free, and watching the black squirrels chase each other up the trees.
Thursday 23 July
My last day, and a final dip and lounge by the pool after packing, then Toni and I went for a walk into Oakville, a pretty and very rich little town further west along the Ontario lakeshore. We'd intended to walk along the waterfront but unfortunately much of the land is owned by the rich buggers in the humungous properties along the stretch, so only short bits are actually open to the public and we ended up walking along the main road for the most part, where we got to see even more humugous properties - including a faux French chateau. Have noticed that the Canadians and Americans aren't very good at public footpaths which is a real shame as the ordinary Joe is deprived of seeing pretty bits of countryside as a result.
There was a longer stretch to promenade in the town itself, so after lunch we strolled to the waterfront for a wander down to the pretty marina and watched the kids jumping off the pier into the water. We wandered back along the high street (and yes, I did detour into Anthropologie - after all, so much cheaper with the current exchange rate...), had an iced coffee, then headed back.
After dinner, Toni and I said our tearful goodbyes and Donald dropped me off at the airport and I joined the massive queue for Air Transat flights. And the massive queue for security. And then got ripped off for a beer and for a bottle of water and a bag of crisps too salty to eat and still ended up with shrapnel in the form of small coins. I hate airports.
The woman next to me on our overnight flight managed to sleep for virtually all of it, waking up in time just for the food (which was ok. For airline food, ok.) I think I may have got 2 hours, much of which was during a very predictable Vince Vaughan film as I'd run out of options having watched the best movies on the way over. I did see a nice film with Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman called 5 floors up (think it may be Ruth & Alex) in the UK - not much happens but it's a nice positive story and just for once the focus is on older people who still have their marbles and haven't yet become incapacitated.
Back into Gatwick bang on time. Got a train straight off, and walked out from East Croydon station with the skies a shade of slate and the rain coming down in stair rods. Welcome back to Blighty, Fake Blonde - but only 6 weeks to the next adventure....
