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 floorTop 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 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 cornerOutside 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
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 ParkdaleParkdale neighbourhood
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 Winter view from the balconyWhere we are
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.
Soepa from outsideSoepa inside
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 meQueen’s Supermarket – an Indian variety store with some interesting groceries. On this day they had green mangoes on the stalkMandala Corner is just off Queen Street and sells a small selection of Indian shelf goods, as well as snacksSamosa Chaat from Mandala Corner
Tibet restaurants and cafes everywhere. Momo heaven for someMezzBag of food from the community
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 neighbourhoodThere’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 favouritesAn 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.
Spring is finally coming
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”
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
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 lotOne-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.
Bloordale’s typical houses
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 panetttoneThere 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-inspiredDuring our stay a sinkhole opened just south of us. It closed the road for some timeCanadiana at the local Tim Horton’s
Colourful doors all along Bloor Street
We made a little trip a few streets north and finally saw some buses. It was such a cold and snowy dayThis 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.
What does home mean? Easy question – until now, for me. Moving from Hackney was hard. Physically, there was so much to do and I’m not as strong or stable as I want to be. I’m also short, which has limited me all my life in a way other short people will understand – attitude and adaptability counts, but if you’re short you’re short and that’s that. Emotionally was probably harder. More than likely, once the work is finished the physicality of the thing will end. The emotional stuff heals only as quickly as you allow it to.
London was my first home. I loved it from the earliest days of my memory. It wasn’t just about my family or the people around me, it was a solid feeling of belonging. I remember events from around the age of two or earlier, just snippets. It’s true that photographs have helped this. Perhaps I have created my own memories from them, but I sincerely believe they are real, or as real as they can be considering how much time has passed. At any rate, I didn’t just exist within the space but embraced it, inhaled it, became it. I’ve always been an explorer and so I discovered many things along the way about this space. When I was old enough, I would walk great distances including the eight miles from my teenage home in West Dulwich into central London, often joining up with my friend in Herne Hill at the two mile mark. At 17 I’d sometimes go in by train and sleep overnight on a bench in Trafalgar Square so I could spend another day there.
Photos were so tiny in those days and so was I. It’s my second birthday, mum and nana dressed me all in white, and I’m standing on the windowsill of my first home.
Until I was 18 I lived in greater London (Bethnal Green, Essex, Bromley by Bow, West Dulwich) and Woking. We moved to Toronto – another long story – and my parents moved to the greater Los Angeles area after a couple of years. I contemplated where home was when they left. I’d not been mature enough to live alone in London when they’d left, but now I was more independent. Should I stay in Toronto, should I follow them to L.A, or was this my chance to go back to London. I flew to London (my first flight ever) but quickly discovered that I just couldn’t afford it. Toronto wasn’t really holding me and my two-year boyfriend wasn’t clinging, so L.A. it was. I lived there and in San Francisco for two years. Despite my aversion to the U.S. lifestyle, Id count those years as the most carefree of my life.
Then I left and went back to Toronto – I meant it to be a holiday really but I stayed. I had another boyfriend then and eventually we got married. After nine years together my son, Robin, came along. Toronto was sticking and he was the glue.
In my thirties, in Toronto. The only time I ever had a whole house (rented) and this is where I was when Robin was born
All this time I never lost my longing for London. My marriage ended, a new boyfriend came along – Krish – and somehow he too was from London and we formed our plan to some day be there. And then we were. How we made it happen still amazes me. I did, however, leave Robin in Toronto and this is the only reason I do believe home is as much about the who as the where. No matter where I was something was missing. In Toronto, I missed Krish. In London, I missed Robin. I used to, and still do, think about this quadrangle – Me, Krish, Robin, and London. This is in no way to make Krish less, but if life forced me to make a Sophie’s (Jan’s) choice it would be me with Robin and London. But me, London, that’s a no-brainer. Why can’t I make my life about me? Being a mother is hard. And wonderful.
Skip ahead to late last year. Leaving London was heartbreaking but necessary at the time. We arrived to stay at my friend Judy’s home near the lake but after only one day I woke in the night to sense something wasn’t right. Krish had a fever. He’s prone to them when he’s sick and burns hot and fast for a short time before recovering. ‘You’re burning up,’ I said – what a cliche. He needs to test, I thought. ‘I’ll do a test,’ he said next morning, surprising me. He’s usually unconventional about such things. Positive.
Inside Judy’s kitchenJudy’s neighbourhood at Bathurst and Lakeshore. A far cry from HackneyJudy walking Annie on Bishop Tutu Boulevard, HarboursideWalking in Judy’s neighbourhood near Lake OntarioOur room at Judy’s, We were in chaos from travellingMy test on the left, Krish’s on the right
Judy considered this but mostly considered how she couldn’t stay in the same space. She offered to go elsewhere and I insisted that we needed to go elsewhere. I remembered that Krish’s parents were on holiday and suggested we stay in their apartment. They agreed and so we gathered what we could for our ten-day stay and took an Uber to where they lived.
Driving up to Krish’s parents. This was nice, seeing all the Fall colours from the Don Valley Parkway (DVP)
Krish’s sister in law – I suppose mine too – met us there. She gave us some fruit, some leftover take away noodles, a huge sack of potatoes (that was weird!), and two packs of disinfectant wipes. And she left. Judy had pushed a bag into my hand earlier – she’d packed butter, cheese, milk, orange juice, bread…but we were on our own.
Where Krish’s parents live is in the suburbs about 18km from central Toronto. It’s a condo they’ve been in for a couple of years and we’d never seen it before. I actually loved the space. It wasn’t ours but it was bright and large and I mentally refurnished it. It was, however, isolated – too far from everything.
Nice Fall view from the long balcony
Halloween night arrived and Krish was feeling up to a walk so we had fun cruising down the street we could see from our balcony. I had looked forward to seeing the festivities and we took the scenes in.
After five days Krish complained about chest pains and off we went to the closest Emergency department. He had pneumonia. We were on our own, took buses and mostly walked to the hospital, to the drugstore the next day feeling the weight of it all. I’d hoped that help might be offered. We could do it alone but it was hard. And then his brother told us we had to go, that we were endangering his parents by staying. We despaired – his brothers hadn’t offered any help during our isolation, we felt very alone, and his parents hadn’t stepped in to defend us.
Things got foggier in more ways than one
Luckily, Judy agreed that we could return now that all tests were negative and my nephew in law (is that a thing?) voluntered to drive us back down to the lake. The temporary home was gone and so was the trust that Krish had hoped to rebuild with his family. I’ve deliberately skipped details out of respect for them, but I don’t suppose I will ever be able to forget the feeling of betrayal, abandonment, and lack of caring. In all our travel plans we had held tight to the idea of family support. We let go as best we could now.
Back at Judy’s house, Krish struggled. We’d always known that his psoriasis would be a problem wherever we went, but he wasn’t coping. So we looked for somewhere else to be. We found it in a new area of Bloordale, booked two months and packed our things once again.
Our third temporary home gave us a haven. It had issues – our bathroom and bedroom were in the basement, down some steepish stairs with no handrail. It was scary and sometimes I’d lose my nerve and bump down on my bum like a child. We knew we didn’t want to stay too long – it was expensive and the basement was getting very cold (with no heat) as the winter progressed.
Just before Christmas I went to a pantomime with my niece and felt ill during the show. I’ll never know how I sat through the performance but I made it. We took a cab home afterwards and I vomited on the steps outside in the cold. The next morning it was my turn to test positive for Covid. Now those stairs were a bigger problem. I could either stay in the cold basement near the bathroom but without kitchen access or entertainment, or I could stay in the warm living room, with the distraction of Netflix and food close by, but no bathroom. I muddled through.
Christmas was cancelled! It would have been my first Christmas with Robin in six years. It felt like we couldn’t catch a break. We justified it all by saying how lucky we were overall. We had means, although they were gradually dwindling, we had a roof over our heads, we were eating regularly, we had friends, although not 100% we were relatively well. Blah blah blah.Of course I recovered – Paxlovid helped – we had a Christmas get together with Jenn and Robin, and we started looking for somewhere else to be.
I found a place being sublet until May. We’d save money and have a breathing space. We interviewed and got clearance to be here. We packed our bags again and slowly moved over in the first week of January. And here we are. Our fourth temporary home.
Is everything OK now? Well, the place is crammed with the owner’s belongings so we are living from cases and bags. We scattered our things around and Krish is part way through his usual cleaning and disinfecting frenzy. We will need to start thinking ahead to our next move in another four or five weeks and we still don’t know where that will be. Can we stick it out in Toronto, can we return to the UK. If so, where?
Our street in Parkdale. Winter has set in
The fourth temporary home will do for now. We are OK. Except for the bedbugs… Talking about them makes me itch so I won’t but…damn!
Our fourth temporary home in Parkdale
You can consider all of that. I feel too old to do this, certainly too tired and disheartened. I feel the years ahead are limited in more ways than one. I feel this pull and need for home again very strongly. So I keep coming back to the question – what is, where is home?
I’ll confess to daydreaming. In my daydream I am not somewhere new. I am sitting on the couch in Hackney and my TV is over there, my window is over there, all the artwork is on the wall, the sun is coming through the leaves of that wonderful tree and through the tissue paper tree on the window. Outside people are walking, traffic is passing, daily life goes on. But now it’s going on without me. I try to remember that I was lucky to have had it and that losing it means I had it in the first place. I philosophise and I rationalise, but I am also angry and heartbroken. Can I reconcile this? I have to.
Winter is hard. We tend to forget but it’s out there so it becomes top of mind very quickly
Our mutual love of food has helped us. Toronto is a wonderful cultural mix of people and customs. I want to blog about the food, but for now I’ll just add a cheerful note. Grocery shopping is horrible – more about that in time – but going to restaurants is fun and worthwhile, almost always. We’ve had good meals out and good meals in, helped along by that multiculture. I don’t want all our bright spots to be fattening but for now I’ll take it.
There’s so much else to say. As far as writing goes, I’ll talk about Bloordale, and I’ll talk about Parkdale, where we are now. I’ll talk about our explorations here. I’ll do all that. I want to minimise the misery but I also want to speak the truth. And with any luck, it won’t be too difficult or boring to write or to read.
Kangan is also considered the ‘farewell’ but is traditionally the day the couple removes the amulet tied around their wrists. The amulet is used to protect the bride and groom so that they can enter married life ‘void of any evils.’ The religious part of the whole thing is over and now it’s time to celebrate before beginning normal, married life. From what I’ve read this is often done separately by the bride and groom’s families but in Moh and Sharon’s case, the two families came together for a back yard party at Moh’s.
Since Moh and Krish’s time as children at the house, the back yard has changed quite a bit. From the kitchen, there’s a generous porch-landing with stairs leading down. And from the basement, you can step straight out to the yard itself. There are paving stones where there once was grass and a vegetable garden. And there’s a bar, a firepit, and lots of seating. A grand place for a party!
Front of the houseThe patio leading from the kitchenThe seating area, bar, and barbecue
Guests arrived steadily through the night. I helped with food preparation and serving in the kitchen. By now the family members were no longer strangers to me, although some still suspicious. Moh went to China Cottage to pick up appetiser dishes to begin the evening, and this was followed by the usual array of meat and vegetable curries and a table of desserts.
Activity in the basement kitchen and food tableAppetisers from China Cottage
Tulsi’s best friend and his wife are going to Barcelona in October and their visit overlaps mine by a few days so we made plans to meet. That should be fun!
People came and went. Some people arrived long after most had left. It was mostly the smaller family unit – the brothers, the nieces – Ariya and Annabelle, Naomi and Rana, and Tulsi and Karne sitting together, chatting and relaxing. We lit the firepit and dodged mosquitoes. Krish had bought Annabelle some gifts throughout the months and this was probably the time that reticent little girl tore down her barriers and bonded with her ‘chacha’ (uncle). We thought it might never happen. I’ll confess that the gifts Krish had bought for her weren’t my taste. I’d wondered what Annabelle would think of them – but I’d reckoned without him having a clue about his family’s personality. Every gift was a hit, every single one.
Sitting around the firepit late at night – Gop, Ariya, and Sharon
It was getting late and the remaining guests had eaten and drunk their fill. Everyone was invited to stay overnight and so we fell asleep with a house full.
Christmas was cancelled! It would have been my first Christmas with Robin in six years. It felt like we couldn’t catch a break. We justified it all by saying how lucky we were overall. We had means, although they were gradually dwindling, we had a roof over our heads, we were eating regularly, we had friends, although not 100% we were relatively well. Blah blah blah.Of course I recovered – Paxlovid helped – we had a Christmas get together with Jenn and Robin, and we started looking for somewhere else to be.
