New neighbourhood – new beginning

Saturday, 10 June, 2023

I have a feeling all the time like I’m forgetting to do something. This is what comes of having little to no routine.

Packing up to leave Parkdale was a big job. We’ve accumulated stuff, way too much in my opinion. I wanted so much to just leave it there, but of course it had to come. We did manage, however, to sell our coffee table. It might have been handy in the new place but it was also large and just one more heavy thing to move. As it was, it took three days, three trips to get everything over here. Maybe it could have been done in less but the truth is we didn’t have enough packing bags or boxes so each time things arrived here everything was emptied out and the bags and boxes went back for repacking.

Our biggest fear was to transport any bugs with us. We bought a large heating box and everything we owned that could go, went into that box to make sure we were OK. It took up a lot of floor space but it just had to be done.

When the owner met us and showed us upstairs I was surprised by how nice and large it was. The photos didn’t show it well, and mine haven’t improved on them much. As Krish put it many times afterwards, this is a very grown up space. Adults live here. There’s a large open plan living room with a big kitchen space and a huge centre island for food preparation and the stove. There are two bedrooms, one we are using to store our things. And there are cupboards. Everywhere. Every room has a ton of storage space. In the living area, the cupboard space holds a microwave, laundry area with washer and dryer, a cleaning supply area, and a pantry – all floor to ceiling. I’ve never seen so much storage space and I’m enjoying that.

We are above a restaurant called Actinolite – it’s open four days a week for dinner and it’s all chef’s choice tasting plates. The people who own this aoartment own the restaurant too and they lived here before they bought a house in this neighbourhood, better suited to their two young sons. Downstairs beside the restaurant patio is a herb garden where we can help ourselves. The biggest crop is lovage and we’ve had quite a bit of it.

Before we moved here, I was a bit worried about how I’d handle being in this neighbourhood. There are four supermarkets but all are a good walk and none are handy by bus either. When we first arrived, though, I discovered that there is a small collection of shops five minutes away to the west – no fresh food really but two bakeries, one restaurant, and a pharmacy.

The streets can be very pretty. It continues to surprise me that many of the houses are the same vintage as Hackney houses, yet look so very different. If I walk east there’s a coffee shop quite nearby. Amazingly, I haven’t checked it out yet but really should.  If we walk 15 to 20 minutes we are at the Meghan and Harry love nest, as I call it. I keep meaning to do that trek but who knows if it will happen. After a few months of quite a nice reprieve from knee pain, it is back. Not as bad as before, but enough to slow me down and cry out for more frequent stops on streets that have nowhere to rest.

When we first moved in, we went down to Bloor Street to find something to eat and go to Fiesta Farms, another supermarket. Adjoining the very popular Indian restaurant, Banjara (wish I loved it) is a cafe, perhaps mini Banjara. We sat and shared a thali and a lassi right next to Christie Pits, a large (sunken) green space by Christie Station just at the edge of Little Korea. Fiesta Farms was always a favourite for me – a neighbourhood Italian market with reasonably priced food and independent, so nothing like the more dominant chains. I once lived near there temporarily with a friend, so it’s nice to revisit. The prices have shot up, but it’s still a bit of  a treat. When I go back, I’ll take more photos.

It’s worth mentioning that, although the neighbourhood feels quite ‘white,’ it is in fact surrounded by ethnic areas – Little Italy is to the south east, Little Portugal just slightly south west, and Korea Town also slightly south east but closer. Along the road here are Middle Eastern, Indian, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Portuguese and good old Canadian spots. In Toronto the lines can blur and overlap and it’s not unusual to find plenty of, say South American, spots dotted in Korea Town.

To the north is Dupont Avenue. It’s very industrial and you can walk a fair way before you hit anything much other than big storage facilities, warehouses and the like. The bus up there runs only every half hour, so when it arrives it’s pretty crowded. The thing is that three of the four supermarkets anywhere close to us are along there, so I rarely shop and it falls to Krish to keep us stocked.

The bus in front of our apartment runs frequently and has been really handy when going out. It takes us north – a direction we rarely travel – or south down to Liberty Village, with a handy stop at the closest subway, Ossington. Farther down Ossington is very trendy, with loads of restaurants. We haven’t gone down but I really must one day because there are a lot of people on the street and it feels alive. For a while there was a lot of restrictive construction there but it’s finally opened up.

By bus, down by the station along Bloor Street, there are some good spots to visit and look at. I walked along and discovered a couple of coffee shops, a small buzzy Vietnamese snack bar, two Italian butchers, a handful of churches, a colour-organised vintage shop, a waxing shop, and more. Plenty to photograph and consider finding out more about.

Another thing we do like about being here: There’s some noise. There is traffic, and people passing by, and there’s the restaurant downstairs, which has a nice buzz of sound on open evenings. It’s something we really missed while at the other places. There’s even been some drama outside – a car crash, not too serious happily. We also see groups of school children going over to the nearby school.

Finally, in case you were wondering…A couple of weeks after we got here I woke up with itchy bumps three days in a row. I was scared, we both were. Then it disappeared. Perhaps I had been anxious and this was stress, but thank goodness it was not bedbugs. Bye bye to those but keep your fingers crossed for me.

(And finally finally, I’m conscious of not having included background info on these photographed places. Forgive me. It’s been an age. My brain is tired, My emotions are all over the place. I hope to do better but no promises.)