I had an oncology follow-up at 9am. It felt surreal. It had been ages since I’d had to go to the Cancer Care Clinic so early, but I got there in pretty good time. Going up in the elevator, I realised I didn’t remember what floor it was on. It’s 6? I trusted cell memory to know. The usual signing in with my health card, checking my details and giving me my armbands – the name one and the purple Risk of Fall one. I looked around at all the people who I supposed were earlier in their journey. If they had hair…
It was 9:35 or so before they called me in to get bloodwork. Once at seat 18 a nurse who I’d never met before welcomed me. Yes, I still had a port. I’d been wondering if the long three months without using it would set me back. In the beginning, it was so difficult to access. When they first insert a cannula (OK, needle!) blood should flow into the catheter. It tells them everything is OK. In my case, it rarely did, not without much “jumping” about, waving my arms, changing position, and coughing. Then one day it suddenly behaved and continued that way. Today was back to callisthenics and “cough forcefully.” Joy! The nurses cheerfully guessed on which manoeuvre had done it, while I was just grateful it had. Bloodwork and saline flushing accomplished, I could go back to the waiting room. I looked again around the big room, everything familiar in a haunting way, the nurses all bustling or in some cases, gliding about as if no time had passed at all.
It’s oddly satisfying seeing the routine at every viist
It takes about 45 minutes for bloodwork to be analysed, and the doctor would see me after that. I went to the pantry for some orange juice and fresh water. There were digestive biscuits today, that’s nice.
Exam room 2. Needs some cheering up!
No sooner had I reached my seat back in the waiting room than they called my name to go see my oncologist. That’s back near the pantry! I waited in exam room 2 to await the doctor’s words. I had a few questions
Dr Watson told me I’d done an amazing job for the year. Had I? (No, that wasn’t one of the questions,) I’d had some bumps in the road, but I’d made it – well done! Now I’d be seeing Dr Lim, my surgeon, and he’d pass me along to the special clinic. My mammogram was clear; they were still there for me, but they hoped I wouldn’t see them again. Amen to that. Answers to my questions – no, no need for the heart echogram since any heart damage reverses after treatment. No, I wouldn’t need the mammogram ordered for May. And no, it wasn’t unusual that I felt I’d regressed. Moving is hard. Be patient. My aches and pains? Those weren’t necessarily from the medication, but did I want to try another? I decided no. Everyone, he said, gets the pain; it’s normal. Ha, “good” to know. Goodbye and thank you, doctor.
They’d left the cannula in my port in case the doctor were to decide I needed it for something else. Like what? I was glad not to ask. Tess, the doctor’s nurse, showed up to let me know they didn’t have all the results from the blood tests yet, so sit tight. I had just under an hour to get the results, get my cannula removed, pick my drugs up from the drugstore, and make my 11:35 ride out of there. At the nurse’s station, there were two containers of cookies and a box of doughnuts all pointed towards me. Could I have one? I was met with stares. I opted for no, but noticed no one was smiling. Well, who needs the calories? Certainly not me. Yes, I made it. Print-outs secured, cannula removed, drugstore visited, drugs procured. Out!
Abadoned nurses station from ny chair. This was Pre Treats
Only after I’d left did I realise, wait! I wasn’t seeing him again. No yearly follow-ups? That wasn’t my path the last time. Well, I am seeing Dr Lim in about five weeks, and there’ll be more questions and hopefully all the answers.
The last time I’ll wear my “lucky” chemo outfit? You can see where my port is covered high on my chest
I was surprised at how emotional I’d felt. In retrospect, I could have felt happy at leaving this behind, but instead I felt lonely and sad. Things flooded back to me. This part was over.
Business first: There’s an update on Live! if you’re following my breast cancer journey.
Moving is a strenuous thing. It taxes your body, your brain and your emotions. I didn’t have to do much physical work, but one week later, I am not back to my pre-move state of mind or body. I’m waiting for that feeling to pass, while grappling with all the clinging thoughts about ‘will i ever’ and ‘can I ever’ Probably yes, I will and can, but there are moments…There’s an overlap here with the BCJ, but someone in my group, when I asked if I’ve regressed, answered ‘recovery isn’t linear.’ Well stated.
The chaos of moving is slowly being tamed
The new place is also an old place, so there’s a ‘fitting back in’ feeling. There’s no strangeness to very much. It’s all familiar if slightly faded. There aren’t that many boxes and bags to unpack now, but where is my heating pad? I must have developed an addiction to getting up on any cold morning to that lovely heat source. This space is large, and down the long staircase to the outside is a glass door that lets in light but also the cold. And it’s been a very cold and snowy winter. We’re still working on how to keep the temperature pleasant. We had never been here in a cold month before. I imagine a little electric fire, the one I grew up with. To imagine a roaring fireplace would make me too sad. (Going to fill my hot water bottle now.)
Joy looks a little different hereLong view from the couchView from the couch. The grey days are receding
Our space expanded from toytown to mansion proportions – well, not quite, but it feels like it. I’ve filled closets and drawers, and there’s still space. It feels weird to walk across two or three metres of wooden flooring to grab the salt – I’ve started creating an island on the island, where such things can sit within reach. Interestingly, the pantry filled up quickly. Where on earth did we put it all before (Answer – in boxes packed into a spare wardrobe). The luxury of space.
How can our pantry be this full already? The bigger question is where did we put it all before? i
The snow and ice outside, the body pain and fatigue is keepign me indoors, but I can see ‘out there’ out there. Krish stands at the kitchen window looking out, moan-wailing ‘dead zone.’ He says the man opposite (occasionally joined by a woman) stands outside smoking in the cold, ‘waiting to die.’ Ouch, I think. Thanks, I say.
The corner. The house in the dead zone.
However, I was here in the Spring and Summer before, and I think about the flower-filled walks and hope to do them again. Only three months to go. There’s a coffee shop one block over and two up. It’s quiet there, maybe too quiet, but it’s ‘out.’ The restaurant downstairs is a reminder we’re not alone. It’s winter so they’re eating inside. Sunday through Tuesday, all is quiet. On Wednesday morning staff show up. They’re a friendly, chatty bunch, getting on with the preparation for the restaurant opening days ahead The bread person shows up with five or six sourdough loaves, placed on a metal shelf outside. People start arriving to eat, and music and chatter drift up through our floorboards. It’s not loud or rowdy, but like a cocktail party being held by neighbours. By 10pm there’s close to silence again except for the quiet clanking of cleaning up. I know that on Saturday night the staff sit down and eat and drink together. That can get noisier, and tonight we’ll find out. In the warmer months, the woodfire lights up, and everything moves outdoors to the back. It seems to bustle more. As I told someone yesterday, It can feel like I’m in the middle of a Bear episode. I do love the energy.
This is the last day of February, 2026. The world is out there, some of it more out there than others. Enough said. (Or not?)
I won’t say that we are happy here in Toronto. I will say that it’s brought its blessings. It feels stable compared to other places right now. It’s safe, polite, ‘nice,’ of course, the government is reasonable, people live somewhat without hate – debatable, always. Nice, safe, and reasonable can also feel dull. A friend told me, bloom where you’re planted, and it’s a bit harder to do that during the Toronto hibernation phase. Things tone down. Krish was rhapsodises yesterday about what he would eat if he were in the UK – go to Ambala almost every day for samosas, drink an Aspall at least once a week, buy chocolate eclairs a few times a week, gorge on sticky toffee pudding with cream, have a plate with cheese, pork pie and picallili, walk along the street with some chips and cod bites, eat LAMB. I could only smile. Here, there are smiles rather than excitement, that’s for sure. I have a couple of weeks of appointments coming up. I won’t feel like doing much else, but most of the year is ahead, so I’ll seek out some adventure, no matter how subdued.
I’m going to do Friday photos. Shots from the window to see the season changing. I’ll start here with the ones from yesterday.
From the front window. Beneath here the bus arrives, announcing the destination. We can’t hear much with the window closed but spring is comingThe oak tree at the window. It will be fun to watch itransform. It will fill with chirping birds and plump acornsThe side entrance. In the warmer months we’ll see diners down here. Meanwhile, it’s just one of our entrancesOn the left, the awning over the back garden dining area. They put in that awning the last time we were here. On the right, the garden next door. It was really fun watching the neighbour tend to his garden every day. We hope he is still there.
We are moving again. It’s the way things have been since we got here. I’ve actualy lost count of the number of places. Let’s see – Stadium Road, Kingston Road (briefly) back to Stadium Road,, Margueretta (I;m going to lose the order now), Dowling, Ossington, Roxton downstairs, Roxton upstairs, Shanley, Cabdy Faciory, Euclid, Brock, Dufferin, St Clarens, King West. Fifeen! We’ve made thirteen moves in about three years. Being nomadic has pros and cons. What we haven’t liked – the packing and unpacking, the actual moving, the places that we wanted to leave but couldn’t, the bad landlords, the smelly places, the too-cold places, the poor selection of kitchenware, the places with no storage, no counter space, the noisy places, the two-steep staircases, the owner’s belongings encroaching everywhere, the too-small fridges or stoves, the ‘creatures,’ the list goes on.
In case you wondered, there have been good things. It’s quite exciting to be in different places, it can give you a taste of different decor, different architecture, different room arrangements, even different dishes can be interesting. You learn something from each place. What you like, what you don’t., and what you don’t is sometimes more important than what you do. We keep learning.
We’ve had our favourites. Three, in fact. This place has been one of them. The space is small but so economically designed. I’m a fan of that. We’ll also miss this view, which connected us to the world outside.
It was easy to be messy in a confined space, but it’s worked here. I’ll miss itI’ll miss this even more than the indoor space. The windows opposite with their individual, imagined stories were inspiring
There were two others. When we saw the ad for a place in The Candy Factory, Toronto’s first loft-condominium. The pictures were amazing and the price lower than we’d have imagined for such a place. We went over within the hour and were greeted by the current nomad-renter. Quite honestly, the apartment was stunning, the kitchen and living room wowed. We said yes, and within a day or so, we were approved and had it booked.
I can’t believe I didn’t blog while at the Candy Factory. It was a stunning place and the photos don’t show it well. We were there for two months and would have gone back – the owner goes away during the winter and again in the summer – but she raised the price by over $1,000 when she got some shelves affixed to the exposed brick wall.
The space was gorgeous, and the view was fantastic. It was a dream. And that kitchen…
The Candy Factory loft apartment was eye-wateringly gorgeous right from the start. That kitchen! The city view was opulent
Another place was an apartment above a restaurant, Actinolite (and how we named the apartment). We booked it on Airbnb. From the pictures Krish shared with me, I wasn’t keen, but with days to spare on our current rental, it was the only choice, so we took it. When we walked up the stairs from the backyard, I was shocked to see the space. I wasn’t expecting how large and well-furnished it was. The kitchen was a dream – the owner was the restaurateur downstairs. After the first month, we made a private arrangement, lowered the rent, and settled in until we had to move again.
One of the best things about the apartment was living upstairs from a busy restaurant. We couldn’t quite bring ourselves to eat there. It was a pricey menu.
Photos from the Actinolite apartment – and our next one. Captions are from our last stay. The living space was ‘grown up,’ as Krish said.
The living room never looks as spacious in a photo. Here we’ve already started to make ourselves at home (euphemism)The massive kitchen island overlooks the living room. oChef-owners get my vote. Also note – gas stove
We had come very close to booking a place for seven months, but weren’t happy at the prospect. The upsides were a good size, a bright living space, and a good long stay. The downsides were that the owners weren’t very warm and the location was problematic. On the very last few days before we needed to commit, I saw a new listing on Facebook. The location was good and the price cheaper than the one we were considering. We agreed to go over within a few hours. We liked the space, although we thought it a bit small, but the owners were warm and positive. We had a good feeling but took the weekend to think about it. Then we sealed the deal. We’ve loved being here. It isn’t too small at all. The location has been perfect. We’re close to a small supermarket (with a Starbucks counter) – so good for me when I’ve not been able to go very far, a large drugstore, hardware store, furniture store, and a bargain fashion store. I’ve even gone to the McDonalds a couple of times – I’m no fan. Just across the street, I’m in a neighbourhood with retail I can visit on my ‘good days.’ The streetcar stop is at the bottom of the road, just steps away. Perfect if I want to be independent.
But every place comes to an end when you’re a nomad. Telling the story of this rental’s ending will be cathartic.
We liked it here enough to want to stay in this building, if not in the actual apartment. We started looking at a few rentals here and even some in the next building. One was available too early to take advantage of, one of them was rented before I could view it, and then I saw one that might work. The problem was that it was in bad shape and needed some work before it could be released for rent. After a bit of thinking, I said that as long as I could see the place before signing, to make sure the work was done, I would make an offer, less than asking. There was some back and forth, the owners wouldn’t cave to a lower price, and I agreed to pay the asking rent. An agreement form arrived at 8:30 pm (how I wish I hadn’t opened or acknowledged it, but it said Congratulations, they’ve chosen you over another offer), and I was told I had until midnight to sign and return the form, after which I’d have 24 hours to go to the bank and get a bank draft for the deposit amount. I signed. We had a blizzard, and the city shut down. I let the real estate know that I couldn’t get to the bank, and it wasn’t open on a weekend anyway. Then Krish read what I signed and let me know I’d signed things that we should never have agreed to. Again, I asked to see if the repairs had been done before agreeing to anything else and was told, ‘it will be.’ Not good enough. I got an extension due to the weather, and the real estate agent said that Krish should decide what he wanted to change, but reminded us that we’d already agreed. I felt the blame and the shame. We never got to see the apartment with its work finished, we never got to change the agreement, and we never went to the bank. We let it fall through and the agent fell silent. The apartment was gone.
I enquired about a different apartment through a website. An agent called and spoke to Krish. We saw a few and liked one. It was the same brokerage, and we feared trouble. This agent heard our story and felt the first agent had let us down by not drawing our attention to the clauses we didn’t like or letting us have proof that the work was done. ‘Never take their word for it.’ The apartment we wanted had the same broker. We anticipated problems, but our new agent ran interference and felt positive. He said that our agent had thrown us under the bus. I was only slightly surprised. She remained silent, anyway. After signing a new offer, with this new agent vetting the wording, we waited. Silence. We asked about the one with the repairs and the agent said it wouldn’t hurt to ask, and he would. After two days, the agent let us know they ‘weren’t going forward with us.’ It hurt.
We decided not to try for anything else. If it was the same broker for this building and the one next door, it would be a useless exercise. It was 10 February, and we wanted to move on the 21st. Despair set in. I couldn’t move. I got in touch with Claudia, who owned the flat above the restaurants. We’d had to move out because they were moving in while their new house was being renovated. The 3-6 month renovation turned into a year, and then they had promised to rent the place to a friend for a while. Claudia had messaged me in the fall to ask if we were interested in renting for the new year. At that time I said I’d had a tough year and was not sure if I could manage the stairs again and would have to revisit it. So I revisited on the spot.
Chat with Claudia:
Jan: Hi Claudia, what’s the status now? We are looking for a stopgap rental.
Claudia Hi Janice. It’s vacant- I was going to post it tomorrow.
Jan: Can you show me the posting first? We can’t commit long-term. We want a one-year option, but our budget is XXX for the long-term option.
Claudia: If you would like to be there long term, we would be willing to have you and Krishna return and can accept XXX. You took such good care of the place and were a pleasure to have around.
Jan: Would you consider short-term at all? A few months… And maybe stretch it. I’m not as able as I was.
Claudia: Yes, we’re good with that. I remember you sharing that you had a tough year. Is there anything offhand that could help you in the apartment- besides an elevator!
Jan: Ha. I think it’s a wait-and-see to see how I cope.
Claudia : You can move in on the 21st. [I’ll touch base with you on Tuesday. Either way – you have a place. Yay! I’m so happy it finally all worked out!
Jan: You have no idea
Claudia: I was literally opening my laptop and starting to link photos for the post to rent.
I call this Serendipity.
Krish has doubts. Things he’s not happy about: The location – not near the stores he visits and he’ll need to take transit. The windows – they face west and ‘there’s no sky.’ The neighbourhood – it’s quiet, no people traffic to speak of and very residential. He knows the pluses. He really didn’t want to move out when we did. He does that thing before we move out of anywhere. He moan-wails the name of the place we’re living in, many times a year. Back then, he moan-wailed, Oh, Actinolite (the name of the restaurant) many times a day. This time, he’s moan-wailing, Oh, Joe Shuster. It’s pointless to stop him. It’s part of the ritual of moving. Are we making the right choice? he asks. Help me decide, he says. What are the bad things, he asks. He agonises. I tell him we’re moving, we have a place, and we will decide when we get there. I persevere. Oh, Joe Shuster.
Krish is obsessive about moving too. Once he starts, even a minute away is a crime. But I have to take a minute pr ten away. My fatigue level demands it. Yesterday I heard a shout from the bedroom, ‘There are still clothes in your drawers.’ ‘Yes, there are still days in the week.’
(There’s more to this, but as I tell Krish, I’ll wait to get into that when we’re there. I’m sad to leave here. It gave me such independence. But I see the advantages and serendipity has saved me once again.)
Familiar sight – the moving boxes. Oh, Joe Shuster
A note about serendipity. In 1990, I separated from my husband. It was an awful time, but the best decision. I was a single parent with a part-time job and nowhere to go. I had hoped that my friends would have reached out to me offering help. They knew I was in a bad position. No one did. Then I remembered something they taught us at my work at the hospital when we were being acquired by a bigger hospital and were told a third of us would be gone in a year. The lesson was this: you have to jump before your parachute will open. So I jumped, and my parachute opened. Two friends offered me places to stay and made sure Robin could get to school, and we were safe. Then a friend of a friend needed a summer housesitter, no charge. Then a friend of another friend was going away to study and offered their house at a low rent. With only a few weeks left in my short lease, a friend told me she had a letter for me. The letter said that if I called, I would be offered a new apartment on a rent-geared-to-income basis. I had been on the list for eight years, the letter had reached my friend just days before my mail forwarding service expired, and I’d received the letter just days before the housing offer expired. The apartment was fantastic in the best neighbourhood possible. Serendipity became my friend.)
Today was my follow-up mammogram – at last. I got ready, remembering not to wear deodorant and choosing clothes that were easy to take off. The scan was at Women’s College Hospital, where I worked for so long – although this is a new building now. Continuing from the Live Page:
I love WheelTrans. Even when they are late, I still love them. They’ve opened up my life. Today it sped me down to the hospital, no delays. In fact, the driver was, I told Krish, ‘driving like a bat out of hell. Great, he said. What? But I got there alive so that’s OK.
Proud of Women’s College, always a champion for women, although all genders are welcome here
The breast centre is on the 5th floor. I was early and thought maybe that would mean I’d have time afterwards to get some shopping. They sent me off to the changing room. This was all so familiar. Grabbing a gown, undressing, putting the gown on, throwing everything in a locker, and off to the waiting room. There I need to fill out a form, considering carefully how to show all my surgeries, all my results…and all the time thinking, why can’t I have done this at home, online, ready for me when I got here? There are always questions I falter on: When was your last menstruation? Hmm… Some things don’t change.
The technician came to get me. I was pleased to see that she was the same person who had done my last three scans. She’s an older lady with a calm manner. I let her know that I was worried this might hurt more than usual, since it already hurt anyway. She promised she’d be careful. She was. All the turning and arranging myself, it’s all familiar, yet the technician has to push and pull and shift your body and breasts as if you’ve never done this before. I had forgotten I was concerned about my port getting squished when the right breast was scanned, but she noticed it and said it would only be a little pinch. She was right.
Instruments of torture, I mean breast (squishing) plates for the machineTechnician’s area, safe from the scan raysMammogram machine. Many women fear it. Luckily, I’ve never found it difficult.
And I was done. The technician took me back to the changing room and as she said goodbye she lightly stroked my arm. I went into overdrive. What did that mean? Was she consoling or reassuring me? I pushed off the feeling and got dressed.
Emails from and to Denise:
Denise
12:56
Xx Jan
13:04
Thanks. Waiting. I’m not usually scared. This one might hurt. Hope hope hope 💕
Denise
13:07
I just want the best news in the world please. xxxxxxxx Did you take any Clonazepam before? Marla gave me a morphine pain killer for before! (it made me sick so now I do MRIs) Jan
13:11
Don’t have any drugs except Tylenol. I meant to take one. Oh well. It doesn’t last long. I’ll warn them
Jan
13:13
Took a Tylenol. It won’t kick in in time but I took it anyway
Jan
13:49
Will blog about it. The worst part is the food prices downstairs while I wait for my ride
Denise Grant
13:52
You’re still thinking of food??
Of course I am. That’s me. My cab arrived to take me home, this time more slowly.
View from the front door of Women’s College Hospital. In the background to the left, the Ontario Legislative Buildings (Queen’s Park), to the right, government offices. The Women’s sign in the centreWheel-Trans accessible taxi
I had just sat down to check something in email when I saw there was already a test result:
BILATERAL MAMMOGRAM
INDICATION: Surveillance. Status post left lumpectomy.
COMPARISON: Multiple priors, most recent May 2025.
FINDINGS:
The breasts show scattered fibroglandular densities. Stable post therapeutic changes are seen in the left breast.
There are no dominant nodules or suspicious calcifications seen in either breast.
IMPRESSION: No evidence of malignancy. Routine follow-up is recommended.
There it is. And the aftermath:
Judy that’s most excellent Jan congratulations❤️ Me Celebrations. Not sure when. First a nap
There’s a LIVE update to my Breast Cancer journey here *This is how I’ll handle updates to my Live, putting them at the top of any new publications. If you love me that much (awww) you can bookmark that page and visit it every few weeks if you see nothing here. This feels like a vanity post. No excuses, although I’m longing to make a few.
(That’s that done.)
We had a lot of snow. The most recorded. That isn’t to say there weren’t larger, deeper snowfalls before, but we didn’t record them back then. Things shut down. I didn’t hear any traffic- none! Schools, universities, and community centres closed their doors. Some of the bus routes couldn’t run – too hilly – or were diverted. Sections of the subway system that were above ground just stopped. Our north-south highway, the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) wasn’t accessible. We’re used to it, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy or that everything carries on as normal. There’s a modestly grumbling, politely Canadian. acceptance and that’s it.
The snow kept me indoors and, when I did go out, it was ‘interesting.’ Not easy to get through the snow with a walker, even when paths had been dug through the deepest areas. I had definitely been feeling housebound and fidgety, so it was worth the trip.
I got as far as Longo’s, the local supermarket. We managed by buying markdowns in the otherwise pricey store. It’s a habit we acquired in the early London days when we had little money, heading straight for the ‘on offer’ stickers and often amassing really great buys at very low prices. It’s not as much fun here, the reductions not nearly as generous, the selection not as ‘exotic,’ but we still do it. At Longo’s I check the ready meals first (rarely find anything) then head to the meat counter for anything best by today or tomorrow, then off to the bakery mark-downs. That’s almost a story of its own, so I won’t. Food shopping is very expensive in Toronto and we’ve found our pattern to survive it and try not to think too hard about the adventure which is M&S Food Hall shopping. To be fair, we now think longingly about Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose, Morrisons, and yes, Co-Op. (We never had an Asda close by, or we might have considered it.) I did appreciate them when I was in London, but of course would sometimes weary of them, and now they’ve moved into the nostalgia pile. Last week, trying to watch Whitechapel (we didn’t last) the scene shifted to the Turkish store on Ridley Road. We recognised it right away. Our jaws dropped as we remembered the shelves full of treasures.
The little piece of cambazola was $10. We have had it once or twice, at someone else’s house, and can’t figure out why it lacks flavour if it’s the same as we had in London. Krish has pointed out that unpasteurised milk can’t be sold here, and that may be part of why there really isn’t any ‘stinky’ cheese. Or is it the travel time, etc? It took us a couple of years to discover a cheddar worth eating so the search for another variety that we can enjoy continues.
Piece of soft cheese 3.5x5cn at how much? (It’s around $7. Welcome to Canada.
It made for lots of snowmageddon posts. It always does when it really snows. I imagine all those souls in the snowier parts laughing at us, pretty much the way we laugh at the UK when they come to a standstill with what we’d consider ‘nothing.’ It’s all what you’re used to and set up for, of course. This isn’t Iqualuit and the UK isn’t Toronto, let alone Montreal, Edmonton or Winnipeg (it’s much worse there). We sort of have fun with it even if we aren’t the sporty type who owns snowshoes, skis or skates. We curse and feel weirdly a little proud and heroic. I wasn’t on public transport to hear the gossip, but the WheelTrans drivers had a few stories.
There seemed to be ‘nothing’ on our streaming services. We watched what we could. We just finished Black Bird. Powerful stuff that gave me one sleepless night and a creepy feeling of finding such empathy for the serial killer at the centre of the story. It was hard to sleep that first night.
The light in the winter can make everything goldenAfter days and days of pearly white cloud cover and grey days that made me sleepy, the sky turned blueBack again to what I call Hospital Row in Toronto. Discovery District is its actual name. I was there to talk about my knee and pick up medication. It will be a good day when I’m not there anymore. A visit to get my knee examined and pick up some medication
After the hospital, I had them drop me at Churrasqueira do Sardinha – Portuguese chicken shop just to buy some potatoes and bread. It felt decadent, like I was back to normal. Then I planned to get a streetcar over to the next major street, but the wait was too long. I walked. The cold was incredible, and even though I didn’t have far to go (400m) I had to stop halfway for a hot drink. When I got to the store I needed to visit to pick up my blackening spices, it was gated and closed for ‘vacation.’ Oh no! I’d have to come back another day and pray the set-aside spices were still there. My ride home wasn’t for at least an hour, and it was freezing. I looked around for somewhere warm to wait and decided it would have to be where I could buy a quick snack. So there I was in a burger place (A&W) with a bag of French fries and a coffee. OK, I was seduced by the Pret name. $8.99 for this. I noticed a sign in the window that promised a burger, fries and a large soft drink for the same price. Duped. The coffee wasn’t good. I saw my ride arriving across the street, and I dumped everything and hurried towards it. Temperatures were heading lower, the lowest so far, minus 29. The only way is up.
