Toronto and environs

I've spent the last 2 days being brought around Toronto and surrounding areas. I started to say that I had been exploring the area but that wouldn't be correct. Exploring would imply that I was in control and doing what I wanted to do, but this wasn't the case. However, it was good to see what I was shown.

On Sunday a colleague who lives in Toronto brought 2 of us to see around the city. It is a clean place, and there is an unusual mix of high buildings and ordinary-sized ones. Our hotel is located near the university. It has buildings that seem to be modelled on Oxford and Cambridge, which makes the area look very English. Opposite our hotel is a museum that has what Prince Charles would call a carbuncle sticking out of it. The building is old and this sticky-out metallic structure has been built onto it. It is actually quite nice, though it wouldn't have got planning permission in Ireland.

We also saw:
- the CNN tower, from below
- the Distillery area, which is an area that presumably used to be a distillery and is now occupied by craft type enterprises, but has retained cobbled streets around the red brick buildings
- an area called Beach, which is near the Lake Ontario waterfront and has nice lake walks. One woman was walking 6 well-behaved dogs there, and they weren't getting mixed up in their leads. She said that 3 were her dogs, and she was "dog-sitting" for the other three.
- the harbour-front in Toronto city, seeing some nice boats, though not as many as I would have expected to see. A short visit to the Tilley shop was nice, but my colleagues weren't too interested so I felt I couldn't explore it fully.
- China town. This is an amazing area of small shops and there were loads of hippy type people as well as Chinese buying from fruit and other stalls.
- and, we finished at a jazz session in a small pub, with a pleasant jazz group playing Django Reinhardt music.
On return to the hotel at about 6pm we were too tired to go out to eat a meal, so stayed in for one. I was asleep by about 8.30pm.

Yesterday I went with a UK colleague to Niagara Falls. We went on a tour bus. A lot of time was spent travelling, though it was the first time I had done the touristy type of things when visiting Niagara, so was quite interesting. The highlight was the trip on a boat right up to the base of the falls. We were kitted out in plastic macs as it was very wet! The power of the water is amazing, and it wasn't possible to see all of the top of the falls due to the amount of misty spray.

Today meetings start so I don't think I'll get to do the shopping in Tilley's that I would like to have done. However, you never know - maybe if I can escape this evening.....

Since then...

We've been to Wales and had a lovely weekend, C has been offered a job in the Civil Service fast stream, and now I'm off to Toronto tomorrow. I'm sad to be missing a nice long weekend at home but will make the most of it by using the free day before business starts to explore Toronto. We might even get to Niagara Falls on Monday as one of my HR colleagues is keen to go there.

I know it is hard to believe but this week I have been home every evening - no committees or other commitments, just a nice trip home to b and I. The weather hasn't been superb so I haven't made great use of the evenings, except for watching Heroes yesterday! I came home promptly today and did some gardening. The men of the house are under instruction to water plants and to pick up the dogs' unmentionables while I'm away. I must take photos of the greenhouse and post them here. I've managed to grow lots of seeds successfully and hope to have almost too many plants to set out. Today I planted out runner beans that had grown nicely in the warmth. Tomatoes are doing well, though I'll keep them in the greenhouse to ensure a good crop.

Other seeds that are growing in the greenhouse include leeks, broccoli (there is a great crop of purple sprouting broccoli to eat from last year's sowing at the moment), lettuce, peas, sweet corn, courgettes, herbs.

b is off exploring canals with various people who have travelled down in their barges to Limerick today. We'll probably go out for a meal when he gets home.

That's it for now.