High Park Adventures.

Yesterday we visited our favourite corner of our favourite park. It's called High Park and is smack bang within the neck of the woods we've chosen to live in. It is a testament to Toronto's commitment to green space. This park is about 15 minutes from downtown and it is huge!

We have always referred to this playground as the 'castle playground'. You can see why. 

Poppet has been wanting to return to it for years and was very excited to visit at last.

And guess what, monkey bars are in abundance!

After an hour or so at the playground (which was built by the local community) we visited the free zoo around the corner. There are some very different rules in Canada regarding zoos. In fact, we saw some extremely exotic animals at the local pet store the other day, think Macaws, Frill Necked-Lizards etc.

I don't really like that kind of thing, but there are some wonderful zoos here which exist purely to rescue animals and replenish species. We will visit plenty of those later.

But for now, you can have your Bison at the zoo, or you can grab a steak at most pubs if you prefer...

That's a lot of steak right there!

After so many days of hotels, apartment hunting and scanning the net for a new car it was lovely just to get outside in the sun.

Naturally we got all excited about the squirrels and chipmunks, receiving weird looks from the locals. They regard them as pests, and rightly so. I've seen a squirrel open a zip-lock bag on someone's stroller in a few seconds flat.

We finished the day by choosing an apartment (more on that later) and grabbing a bite to eat at a local diner. What looked like a dingy little pub actually served quite reasonable fare and the service was excellent (because they work for tips!). Millie had a kids' meal, you can't go anywhere without having a menu and crayons for kiddies here, and everyone talks to kids like they're grown up and deserve respect. Millie's meal was a bargain because it was Tuesday.

We're off now to measure up the apartment for the mammoth (or perhaps I should say 'bison') Ikea run. Blech.

And then we might bore ourselves silly looking at cars for a while.

Double blech!

J.

Keep On Trucking...

Here is a little ode to North American driving.

AAARRRGGGHH!!!!

I am eternally grateful that we've lived here before. Some kind of muscle memory seems to have taken over and is keeping us on the right hand side of the road, no problem. It can take months to stop getting into the car on the right, looking uselessly for the steering wheel.  Usually you will turn on the windscreen wipers with your right hand whenever you want to indicate, and bash your left hand into the door looking for the handbrake. In fact, Husband and I quite often put the hand brake on from the passenger's seat. But at least we haven't turned left into on-coming traffic!

This is our hire car. The little Fiat. We absolutely adore it, so zippy and easy to park in a big city.

picture from here

Now, in Australia we have a sedan and we're always moaning about not being able to see because of all the SUV's on the roads (yes, we're those anti-SUV-in-the-city people) but on Canadian roads you're more likely to see heaps of these. 

picture from here

We were explaining to Poppet that these vehicles are not called 'utes' as they are back home. They are called 'trucks'. You can see why. They are very common. Especially on the 12-lane highways with all drivers doing in excess of 110 kms. 

 

traffic images from google

Yesterday it rained, and visibility was very poor. Canadians don't slow down in the rain, they continue to 'merge' and duck and weave and tailgate. It truly is an adventure.

The trick is to concentrate on what is in front of you and beside you and keep reading the road signs (whilst trying to understand what the GPS wants you to do). 

Forget what's behind you.

It's usually a 'truck' clinging to your tail.

J.

A Very Belated Farewell...

So, it's been a while. 

I'm going to step back in time (pre ridiculous jet-lag!) and say farewell to home.

On our last day in Perth we visited the beach. Ironic, considering we never visit the beach as a rule. But it was a nice overcast day and we thought it was fitting.

We were packed and ready hours before our taxi was due to arrive. It was a rather relaxing day which was nice. Poppet was awesome on the flights, though the 30 hours of transit took it's toll on us all. What a relief it was go to get ourselves and our 9 suitcases to the hotel. (on a side note, a guy in our shuttle from the airport took a photo of our suitcases with his cell phone, guess we're the laughing stock of his facebook buddies by now)

It has been crazy and lovely to be here in Canada. The jet-lag has actually taken more days than I expected to recover from, but we've hit the ground running.

On our first day we had to pick up the hire car and get onto the other side of the road in it in MAJOR traffic. Next was getting our ID cards and banking organized, then looking at apartments (still doing that) and finding some winter clothes for husband before he hit work today. It's lovely and sunny and about 18 degrees here, but the wind has a real Toronto bite to it. There'll be more of that to come!

The next few days sees us trying to decide where to live and then we can get on with buying a car. I don't want to think further down the 'list' than that for now.

Loving it!

J.

Sunday At The Cemetery With Poppet.

We had a nice outing this week. We went to see dad. Well, his plaque anyway.
I have taken Poppet to the cemetery before but not when she was old enough to understand it all.

We took Grandma out for lunch and on the way home decided to pop in on the old fella. It's not something we do very often, in fact we had to go to the office and get the map to find him. 

I don't find it a particularly emotional experience going to the cemetery, it was just a nice spontaneous thing to do. Dad's little plaque is there next to his parents, the plot is lovely and it was a beautiful sunny day. It's important to me that Poppet sees what it's all about and I think Grandma was happy to go as well. 

So that's just what we did.

But it's not farewell, we did that years ago. Dad will be with us in Toronto. He'll share the excitement of seeing and hearing new things, something he was quite passionate about. I see him in myself and certainly in my daughter. I see him in the seasons and I see him in every gin and tonic.
Cheers Dad!

J.

Exhale...

ex·hale.....To blow forth or breathe out.

It's been eleven weeks since we gave our details to the lawyer in Toronto. Nine weeks since he submitted our application to Services Canada. And two and a half weeks since we left our lovely house and started living out of suitcases in the suburbs.

Finally, on Saturday morning, we received the email giving us the go ahead to get on a plane. Total relief.

But people were asking me if I was excited. I wasn't. I'm still not, exactly.

What I have felt over the last 24 hours is mostly fatigue (think jaw-cracking yawns every ten minutes) and deflation. I thought I would feel like posting about it immediately, but my brain wouldn't co-operate.

It's been such a mad month, I don't think I've allowed myself the full emotional response. I've been frustrated, depressed, exhausted and angry but only experiencing that on the surface. 

I still had washing to do, meals to cook and a family to keep in line. And I think that's what got me through it so smoothly. I had to remain calm for my husband and my child. Mostly I did that, with the occasional bout of ill temper, though I'm not really one to hide all of my emotions from my daughter. I want her to know that it's ok to feel and articulate emotions. On the other hand, there's no point sitting in a corner and rocking when there's life to be lived. Just get on with it.

As the adrenaline seeped away the first emotions to emerge were the frustration and disappointment that I hadn't given way to before. And complete mental numbness followed.

Today, I'm better able to process what it happening. No doubt packing eight suitcases to 23 kg each probably helped. It's starting to sink in. We really are relocating to Toronto. This week, in fact.

It will be hard work and crazy, but also wonderful. We've always known what we were signing up for.

Even all this stupid waiting hasn't come as a real surprise.

I'm just starting to breathe again, to really exhale.

via Pinterest

The excitement will come. For now I think it's on a slow burn....

J.