Who's in the house..........

Dr F Kelly in the house!

She came on a mission to save our souls from eternal sloth, turns out we are in work while she's in the gym everyday, the one thing we were hoping she would whip us into shape with.

But she is a calming influence no doubt. We are definitely marginally improved since her  landing.
Our evening glass of wine is every now and again replaced by a mint tea and our saturated fat intake has lowered considerably.

So here's to the herald of the new us, with special thanks to our curator, mentor and best Toronto guest!

A Room-a with a View-a

Our home, fondly also known as the shoe box, is really quite small. There may be a bedroom, a bathroom, a hall, and a open plan sitting room cum dining-room cum kitchen cum second bedroom, but when all of these areas are not sound proofed it is hard to feel the distinction between them.

 Moving in day, our lovely landlords left us 2 chilled beers in the fridge to toast on the balcony!

But our shoe box has something very special, not only a view, but a view that almost replaces our lack of TV!

 

Our first night in the apartment as it got dark we were beyond excited to see the city lights sparking up and a brand new vista appear. We originally thought the pizza slice sized section of lake Ontario that appears in our extreme right hand view was impressive but every day without fail since moving in, I find myself standing at the window staring at something new and surprising.

It might the building across from us going up in flames...

or an apocolyptic rainy day....

We don't get  a view of the sunset in the evening but just before the sun disappears it gives one last major explosion of light that illuminates the bulidings in our range of sight.It's almost teasing because you know there is a wonderful sunset happening beyond your vision and all you can see is it's reflection. But the glow off the buildings facing us relects again and gives our apartment a comforting rosy hue.

And then the red fades and it's night time in minutes...

 

Just remember...don't look down.....

The vertigo induced urge to jump can be pretty overwhelming

 

 

For a big city, the stars are quite visible from the balcony and with a full moon you feel like you are that bit closer to the sky!

                                      Panorama...!

The sun rises directly in front of us but to date I have yet to muster the where-with-all first thing in the morning to get out the camera and capture it,....it's nice though. You'll just have to take my word for it!

On a sunny saturday afternoon the blue sky is like a slap in the face, you can't help wanting to get up and go outside!

This afternoon however, it is so misty you can't see beyond the balcony rail, and as a result no inclination to go outside!! I think a day of tea, toast and the newspaper is in order!

Fred's not here.

Canadian Thanksgiving today!
So we all had a day off to spend quality time with family and friends, HA! Who are we kidding we spent the day recovering from our boisterous dinner party last night. Our apartment block has a party room which can be booked by residents. We had originally concocted a very complicated plan to get the girls to bring their kitchen table over on the street car so we could host a proper sit down dinner in the actual apartment. Seemed very logical until we realised that's what the party room is for so we scrapped that and hastily reserved it.

For all the amenities here in our block they are very rarely used by any one else. The billiard room has always been vacant when we've gone to play, the pool and jacuzzi area, the bbq terraces, the movie room, and of course the party room are always free when we want to use them. The only place that sees some action is the gym, but unfortunately for us we don't frequent there very often!

So we had some trouble finding a turkey in St Lawrence market on Saturday and ended up going with a castrated rooster called Fred. He did us proud, a very succulent fellow so he was! Who knew you can eat rooster, I never did! We had great difficulty trying to figure out which side of the fella was his breast. This exploration involved standing Fred up and walking him around the kitchen island, which in turn led to him sporting a pair of sunglasses and taking  a few pics!

As per usual things got a little side tracked and with our guests expected at 5pm, we stood in Dollarama at 4.53pm watching the till lady move in slow motion to individually wrap each and every item we bought. Unfortunately some of our guests are still getting to know us and still think the best of us. They optimistically take our estimated time for arrival as a realisitic time. It's nice to have people still believe we can do it but not so nice when you're still in the shower, Fred's still in the fridge and the apartment would be grounds for a science experiment. 

As per usual the guests were put to work, peeling potatoes and cooking the turkey while hair was dried and war paint applied. The party was well on the way by the time I arrived!!

But we pulled it together. Fred was so moist( thanks to a breast side down cooking) that we couldn't even carve the meat, it was just falling off the bone. Mr and Mrs K started us off with a winning bruschetta  and with a wicked combination of the girls 3 different homemade pies- ( pumpkin, Apple and strawberry cheesecake) and a fine selection of cheese from the lads we were finally ready ( approx 4 hours past our original time) to sit down and eat a feast.

Well the carnivores were, I had somehow forgotten to cook the broccoli patties for the 2 veggies. It was only as we were literally all sitting down to serve up the ham and turkey that I remembered. Sure a hot a pan, a load of oil, some garlic they'll be ready in no time. Em...how do you feel about a frozen broccoli pattie that's charred black on one side but still cold in the middle? Not very good, I don't blame you. Sorry guys!! I also forgot to cook the asparagus and carrots, so now we have 5 bunches of asparagus to eat this week. Our pee will be glowing!!!

But despite the setbacks, we had a wonderful meal. Thanksgiving was I dare to say a success!

Of course things took a  turn down rowdy street when we discovered that the dining room chairs has smooth and very fast wheels.....race me please! But we managed to get away with no breakages or serious spills...a big liability when there's cream rugs and sofas and red wine a-flowing. Not to mention the 750 dollar safety deposit!

We had 9 in total for dinner and it was a fine feast I must say, with a great effort from everyone involved.

I wanna take you to the island...

Day trips-R-us, we took it handy on Friday night and awoke early on the saturday morning to the unfamiliar sensation of clarity and clear-vision.
In an effort to get us and 'out and a-bouut' here in Canada land, we decided that every week or so one of the five of us would pick a trip or place to go. They are in charge of finding out how to get there, opening times etc and whoever wants to go tags along!

So our maiden voyage was under the watch of Captain H. Mac Allister. The ferry out to the Toronto Islands stops it's summer timetable at the end of September so we just made it this year!

Its $6.50 return and is packed to the gills with childrens, bikes and grannies. But wierdly enough, the children of Toronto are not unbearable in large quantities. When I first regarded the rows of under 5' and family dogs crowding around the ferry terminal, my initial instinct was to about turn and head back to bed but they were all remarkabley sweet and mercifully quiet. It was freezing but the wierd thing about the ferry crossing was the lack of salt. I'm used to ferry crossings involving a fair amount of residual salt! An Irish sea breeze whipping your hair and face usually leaves a pleasant enough taste of salt on your cheeks and lips so that you can reward yourself with a discreet but very pleasing lick as you disembark the vessel. But nope, just soft, chilly and altogether polite Canadian lake breeze that doesn't ruffle one's feathers half as much as an Autumnal crossing to the Aran Islands would have.

The sun came out and we hit the paths. Only in rules land aka Toronto would somebody go to the bother of designing, building and errecting a sign to stick in the grass which said...'Please walk on the grass'. And no, it wasn't the result of a crafty teenage graffiti artist who manipualtes a 'P' into a 'B' thus providing much hilarity...'No  Barking'.  I mean it wasn't just a Please Don't Walk on the Grass' with the "Don't" tippex-ed out.This sign was brand new, clean, encouraging and suggestive without being pushy.

We took a trip on the chair lift, swaying merrily over the shallow river and petting zoo. The 'amusement park' that had bobbi jumping for joy turned out to be a under 7s playground with rides designed with smurfs in mind, so we had to give that a miss. Lucky we didn't go over the height restriction for the chair lift. Bobbi said it was the first time she was ever concerned about being too tall for something as we approached the height guidelines at the entrance!

That's what it's like here in Canada and at first I plain despised it. I was mistaking their politeness for insincerity but it turns out they really are that nice. They did a test recently in Toronto where a series of wallets stuffed with cash and credit cards were left lying in random spots around the city.  Something like over 85% of them were returned with everything still there and a number of the returnees were homeless! But anyway back to the welcoming grass.

Well now, it might sound strange but even though we were in a lovely wide open grassy area, it actually hadn't occured to me to walk on the grass. So following it's kind recommendation I did just that and found it very pleasant. Thanks sign!

Further across to the other side of the island, the white sandy beach and blue sunny skies looked like a holiday resort and we sat barefoot on the sand stockpiling on some vital vitamin D for the winter ahead. What a lovely day we murmured and took a full crane of the neck to look around.

'Oh God'
'Look over there...'

The sky behind was black as night and rapidly approaching so we high tailed it across the island  unfeasibly hoping to outrun the encroaching rain storm. We actually managed it and celebrated by renting a 4 person Quadricycle. What a joy. We cruised along the cycle lanes and taking it in turns to steer and headed for the bohemian community that live year round on the islands. They have had to fight hard to keep their residency and were only recently granted the right to stay with a 99 year lease added in to boot.

They are a community of artists, writers and designers. It was idyllic. An absolute dream of a place to live. Right on the shores of the islands with a water framed view of the Toronto sky line. We cycled up and down the small pathways between the rows of houses and marvelled at their quirky front garden sculptures and installations. Every available spot was bursting with blooms and fabulous plants and each unique cottage had a swinging seat or wicker chair on the porch. Even the family pet cats and dogs looked contented beyond belief, lying across our path with a smug expression and a curvy figure.

We got a bit rowdy and started drag racing a pair of middle aged women back to the bike rental stall, and just before we got there decided to do some off-roading...as we fired along about to mount the kerb and cut the corner over some grass we all noticed the large gutter cut into the ground below the grassy knoll.Amid a medely of girly shrieks we managed to throw ourselves out of the bike and stop it before we wrote off the bloody thing completely!

All in all, our excursion was a great success. Next venture is to Niagara  Falls.........