Janice

19th July 2023

Toronto Necropolis

Tuesday, 18 July, 2023

Some years ago I went on a Toronto cemetery tour to visit during Black History Month. It sounded interesting because we would be visiting the graves of prominent black Canadians and abolitionists. I learned a lot and I liked how the areas where most of these graves were had a casual feel, like a local village graveyard. It was on my list to visit again and, since my brother and his wife were in town, it seemed a good place for a touring suggestion.

I think his photos are better than mine, but I haven’t stolen them. I have instead stolen some history for my captions – begging forgiveness for that theft. Think of it as flattery. My brother, John, is my loyal reader and editor and today he’s my unknowing co-blogger.

I wish I had a better memory or had done more research before going this time. I couldn’t find a single grave from that BHM tour. Many of these graves are just markers, as you’ll see.

The cemetery is the Toronto Necropolis. From John’s notes: “The Toronto Necropolis opened in 1850 to replace the Potter’s Field (the Strangers’ Burying Ground) which had been since 1825 the first non-sectarian burying ground in the town. The chapel, lodge, and lych-gate were built in 1872. The crematorium here opened in 1933 as the first in Ontario — 32 years after Canada’s first cremation, in Montreal.” Interesting that it really wasn’t that long ago and this puts some perspective on how very recently the immigration from the south by the underground railroad actually was.

Toronto may pride itself on its multiculturalism and ability to live alongside many cultures, but racism is real here. Some of the stories, while stirring, were stories of immense courage amidst prejudice. I probably shouldn’t talk too much about something I can’t even show here, but despite not finding the graves, I felt their presence during my walk.

It was a very hot day and the cemetery is a good walk from the bus, but we made it, passing through Cabbagetown with its many beautiful houses. Around the cemetery they seem particularly picturesque and for some reason I don’t seem to have taken many photos. Was it the heat? My phone battery? Did they not ‘click’?

1866 Gothic Revival house on Sumach Street. The exterior has been made ‘quieter’ since several years ago when it had 18 different trim colours. Gothic Revival is a very popular style in Cabbagetown

Park Cafe on Sumach Street. I was tempted by ice cream but avoided the calories This doesn’t look like a city cafe at all

John and I were amused by these two signs so close together. It felt like we’d walked for a while and there was another long hot road to get along now

This is the very lovely chapel at the entrance. It was built in 1872 in the Gothic Revival style popular throughout this area.

Looking east from the chapel and just past the lych-gate is the caretaker’s cottage, which I somehow missed photographing

Enter through the lych-gate, where the coffins would be set and later brought through for the burial. Lych is an old word for a dead body

More than 50,000 people are buried here. The graves are somewhat haphazardly placed, which adds to the atmosphere of this cemetery, one of Toronto’s oldest. There are some notable people in this place, although most are known only to Canadians: Anderson Ruffin Abbott, the first Black surgeon born in Canada, honoured to be part of the medical team that tended the fatally wounded American president Abraham Lincoln on the night of April 14–15, 1865 – his house was on the street where we lived in Parkdale; and Peter Matthews and Samuel Lount, the rebels hanged for their part in the Mackenzie rebellion of 1837. You’ll also find George Brown (one of the Fathers of Confederation and founder of what is now The Globe and Mail, and whose name graces one of Toronto’s best known colleges) and Joseph Bloore (a fierce looking man, who founded Yorkville Village. One of Toronto’s main streets, Bloor Street, is named for him.) The first person to be buried here was Andrew Porteous. The cemetery’s registry says that his body was stored in the “Dead House” until it was buried on May 22, 1850. He had been Toronto’s first postmaster. You won’t find his grave easily. It’s been eroded over time so that only the base remains.

The cemetery seems orderly compared to the last one I saw in London (Abney Park), but it has an intimate feel

I’m going to guess these are cremated remains. This marker looks very different to the others in here, almost like a catalogue

It really was a hot day. I hadn’t brought any water. I had wandered over to the back of the cemetery to see if there was any sign of the graves from my last visit and I looked to see houses I’d remembered from that time too. Only they weren’t there. My memory must be faulty, or I was too hot and tired to wander to another corner to discover them. Walking back towards the entrance, there was a tap. A man in a wheelchair was filling up his water bottle and I remarked that he knew all the good places. He winked and said he did, and this was his favourite filling station. I managed to get a nice, cold drink before we walked on.

Can’t finish this without talking about how much I love the old, rough grave markers. I hope I’m not alone in that. Most of the graves have become anonymous, the engraved letters long since worn down. There’s a sadness but also serenity in that.

The way in is also the way out, so I had to stop cursing about retracing my steps and get on with it. Across the road is the Riverdale Farm, with its animals. There were some cute pigs. A child asked an attendant what sort of pigs they were. ‘Tamworth,’ she answered. Without even thinking, I remembered a lovely meal at the Smoking Goat in Shoreditch and said that ‘their meat was delicious.’ I don’t think John will ever quite forgive me for uttering such blasphemy ‘in front of a child no less.’

Suitably told off, I walked with him back to the main road, passing many houses that will fall under the ‘things I didn’t photograph’ category. Each garden was green and full of colourful, often wild, flowers. At the main road, Parliament, we chose our route home and had to wait some time for a bus to arrive. I took the opportunity to buy a cold drink and linger much longer than was polite in the air conditioned shop. A scorcher in Toronto and our tour was done.

5th July 20235th July 2023

The Danforth – Greektown, Toronto

Monday, 3 July, 2023

Many years ago I crossed the bridge over the Don Valley Parkway to see what was there. Bloor Street becomes Danforth Avenue here and everyone calls it The Danforth. At the very start of Danforth Avenue I saw a Greek restaurant and in I went. What I remember was that I was the only woman in there. There were groups of men sitting with coffees and smoking (that’s how long ago it was, smoking…). I hadn’t much of a clue about Greek food so I asked the server what I should order. He led me into a small kitchen and started to tell me what was simmering in each pot. I loved this experience and didn’t have it again until I went to Porto a dozen years ago or so. It was just as thrilling then.

I remember I chose a lamb stew with artichokes and lemon. I also ordered a Greek salad (sounds like a lot of food now, but I was keen to try things) which arrived as juicy red tomatoes, red onion, cucumber, black olives, and topped with fresh feta cheese and an oregano dressing. No Greek meal I’ve had since then has measured up or even pleased me, although years later I found a place near College and Yonge Street who grilled calamari perfectly. So yes, this blog starts and ends with food.

I don’t really remember walking along the Danforth much after that. It got the name Greektown for the people who lived there. This was once the biggest Greektown in North America, and although the Greek population and Greek-run business have declined, people of Greek descent are still the largest ethnic group here. The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) boasts about 2% of its total population are Greek, the highest concentration in Canada. If you’ve seen the original My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you’ll have seen the neighbourhood masquerading as Chicago’s Greektown.

What I remember for the most part about the area is the Playter Estate where my sister shared a tiny apartment while still in art college (grand houses), a lovely fancy grocery store that I couldn’t find on this new visit, and a very popular little mall with a good health food store called Carrot Common that I didn’t visit this time either. I’ve been along this street a bit, but it’s never been an area that I was desperate to visit. Here it was 2023 and it felt like it was time to go back and see what changes there were.

I didn’t see any reference to why Danforth Avenue is known as The Danforth, so fill me in if you know. I did find out that it’s named after Asa Danforth Jr., who was originally commissioned to build a route that headed east from Scarborough towards Trenton in the 1850s. At first it was known as Danforth’s Road and was well used until nearby Kingston Road became the more popular passage between Toronto and destinations to the east.

We got out at Chester Station and walked over to the main street. It’s an easy journey just one train all the way from the bottom of our city block right across Bloor Street until it becomes the Danforth. The subway line is called the Bloor-Danforth Line and stretches from west to east right across metro Toronto.

I had two goals – to find the grocery store and to find some grilled calamari that was as good as that College Street version. Food! Greektown is about food, it’s true for most people. As usual, I set my goal low knowing that it would be warm and it would be more walking than I could easily manage. I hoped there were benches.

We arrived at Chester Station, ready to explore

The Danforth looked bright and clean. It felt like a bit of a treat to be walking along this obviously more well-heeled area

Although I didn’t find my fancy grocery store, I did find Rowe Farms so we browsed and came out with nothing

These butchery displays always remind me of Spain. In Rowe Farms

Does the area look Greek? Well, some of it does, I suppose. But then I’ve never been to Greece. A Greek friend who saw the street sign photo was very puzzled. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘it says Logan Avenue in Greek. Why? Where is this?’ So I needed to explain that this was common in Toronto – for street signs in ethnic areas to be displayed in both languages.

My first glimpse of anything European didn’t look Greek at all but this Italianate bell tower a short distance away. It surprised me

The area on and around Logan Avenue has luxurious views. At the Danforth it starts at Alexander the Great Parkette with its ATG statue and fountain, columns and flowers. Built in 1994 it’s considered to epitomise ‘the local flavour’. The streets then branch northwards into the Playter Estates, an area to consider for a cooler day’s stroll.

This vista was somewhat breathtaking to me, really. I wished I had the leg power to walk down the entire street. Green, sumptuous and I suppose wealthy

Another view of the same street. The first one must be very small in your view

We kept walking along the street and met some construction. Roadworks are plaguing Toronto and creating many transit diversions, but the Danforth has a subway and no bus so it’s a bit less of a bother. We got closer to the Italianate church and visited the faithful Dollarama, window shopping along the way. We were finally getting hungry, but hadn’t seen anything that beckoned us in.

Sign across the road right where the construction was. The street hosts the Taste of the Danforth each year in mid August. Traffic will be halted and the street will be full of Greek food and celebration

The most impressive building is definitely the church whose bell tower I had spotted earlier. It’s a Catholic church called Holy Name, established on September 11, 1913. In August 1914, construction of a proper church began only to be interrupted when, that same month, World War I was declared. They could do no more than lay the great cornerstone on November 14. Services were held in the basement, the only completed part of the building, until in 1921 a hall was built, then in March 1926 the main church was finally finished and opened. Today the church conducts services for the African Catholic community along with its other services.

A bit annoyed that I didn’t take more photos Holy Name church (the one with the bell tower). It was quite majestic.

Billboards along the street

I’d done some research into where you could get good grilled calamari and nothing had looked like it could promise more. So we retraced our steps when the way ahead seemed to thin out from interesting shops and sights. At first we went into a place just to see what they might offer but it felt too formal and fancy, so we went to the place I’d read about. No room on the patio so we went inside. If a place can be judged by how busy it was, this would be OK or better.

The busy patio where we ate lunch. It was more casual here

Dips as a starter. Taramasalata, hummus, tzatziki, baba ganouj

Grilled calamari with onions and a lemon wedge

OK. So the review. The dips were OK, and the pita was pita. Compared to our dips at the Paramount, the dish fell short. As soon as the calamari arrived, I knew I’d be disappointed. There was no charring. This looked bland and tasted that way too. It seems fresh onions or leeks were normal with this dish. We ate it because it was in front of us. No more than that. My favourite lamb chop recipe is a Greek Canadian one from Toronto chef Christine Cushing. I’d replicated it in the land of cheaper Lamb (UK) and it was always perfect – thanks, Christine for the video lesson. This chop wasn’t as good as the one I’ve made myself, so although it was nice to have it, I always prefer when I buy something better than I can do myself at home. So this meal gets a 4/10. Sorry! (Yeah, I’m a harsh critic but it’s my money after all.)

We walked a little bit after our meal, over to Broadview Avenue at the beginning of the Danforth. We considered ice cream, rejected it, admired Danforth Church from afar, and were ready to go. My legs were done, and so was our visit to the Danforth.

This impressive building is Danforth Church, known for its inclusivity and very active community involvement

10th June 202311th June 2023

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.

Moving confusion as usual with the dreaded box taking up a lot of living room floor

Top left yellow circle is us, Robin to the right, pink

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.

The living room – never looks as spacious in a photo. Here we’ve already started to make ourselves at home (euphimism)

The kitchen with its massive island — The massive kitchen island overlooking the living room

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.

Walking towards Actinolite, the space on the right hand corner

Outside the restaurant side entrance, some sour dough loaves cooling

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.

A strip of new townhouses on our way along Hallam to the little shops. It’s very residential here over by the school

Sometimes quiet but also with some busier times – weekends – Dovercourt and Hallam is nice to walk over to. The Portuguese bakery, Progress, is our regular spot, while across the road trendier Santana has the best pasteis de nata we’ve had in Toronto

In a garage area behind Dovercourt, someone is a collector

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.

The prize winner house on Shaw Street (one small street west). A true Greek paradise. There’s a story here

Continue reading “New neighbourhood – new beginning”

8th April 2023

Parkdale Living

Friday, 7 April, 2023

I didn’t have much recent experience of Parkdale when I first came here to the flat we sublet from someone who planned a winter getaway from Toronto. There’s a reason for that. Parkdale has always been a west end neighbourhood with a bad reputation – drugs and prostitution, that’s what I heard. I’d passed through it on my way to the Polish neighbourhood of Roncesvalles. sure.

Green marks Robin's place and the pink is Parkdale — Green marks Robin’s place and the pink is Parkdale

A very long time ago I even lived here – on a street called Spencer perhaps in 1967. I wasn’t there for long and my memory is vague, but in those days the bad reputation wasn’t there, it was just a family-oriented and easy for single living, an almost suburban area on the edge of Toronto . I llived for a while with a group of guys from Salford (Manchester) – they had a band. One was a boyfriend of a friend of mine, Angie – her parents owned a nudist colony near Hamilton, but that’s another story. That one was very handsome, out of my league I thought. Then there was another – and how shameful that I don’t remember the names of either one – Geoff, Ray? I lived in this apartment with ‘the other one,’ there was no love but it was convenient and friendly… It was here I met my first serious boyfriend, Jimmy, a young genius musician – at a party and again that’s another story. My biggest memory of those days is that I was carefree, it was a rock n roll sort of life but more everyday, and that was a store on the corner where I could call and order groceries and they’d show up at my door. Maybe it was just a few months but I was cocooned from the reality of the neighbourhood, it was just a place to stay.

This is Jameson Avenue – a street with apartment buildings on both sides. Each one is different. Krish read that it’s the most multicultural area in the world. Could be, I suppose

Fast forward many years, and Robin and I once bid for an apartment a street or two away from where I am now – Dunn Avenue. It was the ground floor of one of the very large Parkdale houses and there was a patio off of one of the bedrooms. I thought I had that apartment in the bag after I found out that the owner was a cyclist and talked with him about my cyclist ex husband. Then I was stunned to not be offered it. Not long afterwards, my mother died and the shock of it, the reality of what life stretched ahead of me and my need to go for what I needed and wanted in my life, meant that I left Toronto and headed for London. Crazy days.

The desk I thought I would use but haven’t. I’m too used to the coffee table

So here I was and still am in Parkdale, not far from these two places, and in the first several days neither one of us was happy with it. ‘Don’t walk alone here,’ Krish asked. ‘Always take a cab home if it’s dark, no matter how early.’ He was referring to the many people who prowled and lounged on the streets, homeless, sometimes drunk or high. I reminded Krish of our early days in Hackney when it was derelict and neglected, and tried to make light of it. Then we grew to liked it. Like many such neighbourhoods, Parkdale had its share of community and pride. The shop owners were friendly, the mix was eclectic, people spoke to each other here and there.

We found restaurants, shops, the library, the community centre. I explored the streets as much as the winter weather allowed. In one shop, Soepa, I met Jenna and her family – husband Karma who was a chef, and little daughter Suki. She may have singlehandedly won me over, immediately knowing my name and remembering everything I asked her about, ‘That parsley you asked about? I’ve got some in now.’ Suffering a little from the price of food, we went and still go every week to get a box of food – they’re given out without question from the community centre on a street corner on the main street – keeping what we know we needed and giving away what we didn’t. It all helped us feel more welcome.

Food-centred as always, we found two Indian shops, Soepa of course (it’s a specialty food store), a restaurant called Mezz which is a bar with a daily changing menu, a Filipino takeaway, a hole in the wall shop where they make fresh samosa chaat, a Tibetan restaurant called Himalayan Kitchen that makes a great lassi… this area is called Little Tibet, one of the largest Tibetan diaspora outside of India and Nepal/ There are so many Tibetan cafes and shops – Tibetan, Nepalese, Indian. i already knew about the Skyline diner where I’d eaten with my friend, Leslie and who served the breakfast Krish would get sometimes – steak and eggs – I’d get a small Greek salad and a few pieces of the steak, enough.

Bells at one of the Buddhist temples in large houses on the side streets. This one is very close to me

Queen’s Supermarket – an Indian variety store with some interesting groceries. On this day they had green mangoes on the stalk

Mandala Corner is just off Queen Street and sells a small selection of Indian shelf goods, as well as snacks

Tibet restaurants and cafes everywhere. Momo heaven for some

Something else about Parkdale – the homes. There are streets of large houses, with so many different architectural styles it’s bewildering. The roofs are my favourite, but also the balconies and verandahs The ice and snow has kept me from wandering or lingering too long, but now our days here are getting shorter but warmer I really do have to take the time to do that. There’s a lot of history here.

Parkdale was founded as an independent settlement in the 1850s, became a village in 1879 and ten years later amalgamated with Toronto. It was originally an upper-income suburb and that’s why there are so many grand houses. Maybe of these have interesting histories. With any luck, in the warmer weather approaching now, I can look more closely at some of them. It seems that the building of the Queen Elizabeth Way (highway) in 1955 changed the neighbourhood. It became denser, apartments sprang up, immigrants and lower-income people moved in. In the 1970s it was an area where inpatients from the psychiatric hospital to the east were released to be integrated into the general population again. That’s in part how it gained its reputation as a neighbourhood with poverty, crime, drugs, homelessness, and large numbers of people living with mental illness. It’s commendable that a caring community has sprung up to help Parkdale’s very mixed population. There are definitely characters on the streets, you get used to seeing them, but I also know that they are clothed and fed well if they know where to go.

One of many of the large houses in the neighbourhood

There’s a penchant for these conical shapes on top of small buttress-type additions, with some being what the internet tells me are Frustums (flat sided cones). This is one of my favourites

An example of a grand house with many verandah styles

We are also close to the lake. The train tracks and highways (two of them) stand in our way but there are pedestrian bridges that go across. While I’m not really a lake person here, I do have a thing for the water (looking at rather than being in it) and so we have gone down there to take photos. On the day we went it was snowy and icy so I chose the route with the least slip and fall possibilities. There’s another bridge at the bottom of my street but the parkette area is much bigger so I avoided it. The bridge further west was my choice. On the way I was struck with the curve of the bay and the number of transport routes stretching below me, the suburbs looming across the sweep of the lake, not so far away. The bridge was a long pedestrian one and covered in graffiti. Once across there was a parkette and a rugged wooden fence bordering the road. Then walking back the view of central Toronto seemed stunning with the setting sun at my back.

There may be some more talk about Parkdale but for now that’s it. We’ve had hard times here – the bugs, the space we’re in and how little of it we were actually given, the way the building smells of (many) dogs, the noise from neighbours – crashing about, heavy feet, loud arguments that worried me, the way I hear the wind howling when I open the window at night, the cost of laundry…we hope these things are temporary, especially the bugs (how we fear taking them with us). These things apart, we will miss it here.

We’ve been here since early January and so I’ve taken a lot of photos. I can’t choose to feature all of them, but I’ll try to be guided by what’s written here and more may crop up if I’m inspired.

I’ve been reading a blog for some years written by an American woman who goes to Venice every year for a month or two at a time. She’s also called Jan, and writes every day while she’s away – six or seven paragraphs with five or six photos. I enjoy seeing how she spends her days. She’s very different than I am, filling her days with museums and art galleries, usually eating one meal out and one meal in (I found her on one of my foodie sites, The Hungry Onion, after all). Should I do this? Would it work better? Jan’s Continue reading “Parkdale Living”

16th March 202318th March 2023

Bloordale

Tuesday, 13 March, 2023

I’ve been in Toronto for four and a half months now. It’s a strange limbo existence much of the time and I’m tempted to say I’ve done nothing. I have, of course. There are far too many photos to share, things to say, so I’ll simply have to abbreviate the whole thing.

We moved to Bloordale into an Airbnb for two months in the middle of November. It’s not an area I have spent any time in so it was all new.

Bloordale - pink marks the spot where we stayed — Bloordale – pink marks the spot where we stayed

We had two rooms upstairs – a kitchen and living room, and downstairs was a bedroom and bathroom. It was nicely done but we had some issues. Mostly with the downstairs – there was no rail and I often felt very unsafe and scared. Secondly, it was freezing down there. Krish’s parents gave us a little heater and a rug for the cold tiled bathroom. We had a washer and no dryer (we spent a while feeling sure it must be there but no) so all the washing had to be done and hung across some cleverly installed clotheslines that ran across both floors from wall to wall. I’d laugh at how that looked and would say, this is our luxurious accommodation!

We did have a bit of an oasis there for a while, though. It was nice to have our own space. There was a decent couch and a TV and I set about decorating a little for Christmas, not spending much but borrowing lights from my sister and a few dollar store items to round it out. I was actually looking forward to Christmas and having people over.

Then Covid hit me. It was out of the blue. I’d been careful but I had been on public transit more than usual and in more restaurants than usual and, of course, I was somewhat run down so that was that. And it hit on a Friday. There was no way to get to the doctor, and the walk-in clinics were all closing early. I was advised to take Paxlovid but again it would have to wait till Monday when a doctor could see me. I’d be out of commission until the 28th. Skipping over these details, of course I recovered, and I had my Christmas dinner with Robin and Jennifer – a meat pie, not turkey, that’s all – just a bit late.

Bloordale is in the west end of the city, a bit north of the centre. It’s six kilometres from the centre of town and it is a relatively easy journey to Robin’s place. Bloor Street, that gives Bloordale its name, has no bus or streetcar but is on one of the two main subway lines . It takes less than ten minutes to reach Yonge Street, the main Toronto street that divides Toronto east from west. They’ve called it the longest street in the world at 56 km. Toronto lays claim to a lot of ‘biggest,’ ‘longest,’ ‘first,’ etc. Who knows how many of these are real?

Bloordale, though, is an area that’s considered up and coming. These days every city seems to want to name its separate areas into village names. Bloordale a highly diverse, mixed-income community of Portuguese, Caribbean, Italian, Bangladeshi, Latin American, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Burmese, Chinese, and Vietnamese people, many of whom speak a different native language than English. What we noticed most was Latin American and Portuguese. We could have tacos every night if we wanted and we liked getting the boulinhos de bacalhau and pada. We tried not to eat all the pasteis de nata, though. Many nights we would get the little $1 tacos of the day – five to eight of them – and I determined again to learn to make horchata. There were thrift stores and a vintage record store. There were two health food stores.

The health food store, The Nut House. We were in there a lot

One-dollar tacos. They were nice to grab on busy evenings

On our very first night we looked for something that was open and discovered Latin World. We shared a really large plate of something

What there wasn’t: a supermarket, a little grocery store. That made things hard. We also had Dufferin Mall, with two supermarkets – Walmart and No Frills. We didn’t like either but we’d go there sometimes, and my friend Leslie would drive me to the bigger store every couple of weeks so I didn’t have to struggle home in the snow.

And, yes, now we had cold temperatures with snow and ice. It made walking harder. I started to hate the subway which had no escalator or elevator in the entrance closest to us. I moaned about there being no seats on the platform as I waited for my train after navigating three sets of stairs with my winter clothing and cane.

We did find the neighbourhood colourful and quirky in its own way. The streets had those typical Toronto houses you find in Little Italy and Little Portugal. Semi-detached, two storeys with a basement and backyard, and little porches to the front door. Every now and again I’d come across some crazy Christmas illuminations. In typical Canadian fashion, the storekeepers were cheerful and friendly for the most part. We were quickly remembering that customer service here is a different level than we had become used to in London.

There was a huge concentration of pot shops in Bloordale. I’ve forgotten how many – should I say cannabis dispensaries?

I loved this little Italian shop. The owner was very friendly and we bought jams and panetttone

There were two Latin World stores and in this bigger one I found this door and flowers. Like a shrine.

On our first trip to Dufferin Mall Krish found this table hockey game and it’s now ours

A little street art. Never very clever but definitely colourful. Lots of it seemed Innuit-inspired

During our stay a sinkhole opened just south of us. It closed the road for some time

We made a little trip a few streets north and finally saw some buses. It was such a cold and snowy day

This restaurant Sugo is probably the most popular Italian in Toronto – at least the trendiest. We didn’t eat there but I did buy some eggplant parmigiana. It was dry and awful so I didn’t bother going back

We decided not to renew our contract in Bloordale. The rent had been expensive and those stairs were a problem. So mid January we moved to our next destination, Parkdale. That’s another blog entry.