slightly weird

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.

6th March 20236th March 2023

Birthday and the beginning of my memoirs – an indulgence

Monday, 6 March, 2023

I am seventy-five.

You know what. I have written that line in my head over and over for the past almost-year. I wanted to be able to say it but every time I could, I actually couldn’t. I couldn’t write those words. I knew why. I didn’t want to be that.

On this very day it’s my birthday, so I can write those words for only another few hours – according to the memory of my time of birth – what was it again?? Then it will be another number, a bigger one, a scarier one. And the birthday greetings keep coming so what can I do? Head out of sand.

I can’t put this number together with the reality of how I feel. I’ve read about this for so many years now. Age and how you feel don’t always go together. Sometimes I am in my mid twenties – I like to say 26. It’s the age I was when I got married and in some ways got stuck – and other times I say eleven – I am just so silly. I feel like I have no age. My mind isn’t connected to that.

At a very young age someone suggested that ‘When you get older, you will change your mind about that’ (whatever that was at the time) and I replied confidently: ‘That’s not who I am. I always like how today is and I think I’ll still feel that way then too.’ I was right. I don’t let myself get stuck in the past. I enjoy change and innovation. I do like to think back and some stuff has remained my preference, but no. I love today. I live around people who are stuck – what they wear, their music, their sense of what is ‘good.’ I can’t get behind that way of thinking. It’s too subjective.

What a time I’ve had. How many things I’ve been able to experience in their own time. How could I have been open to those things had I been stuck? I feel annoyed at how many things I will never get to see because I’m not here. We’ve created an awful world in so many ways but then we’ve also created some amazing things and I got to experience them. How lucky.

I don’t think this feeling of no-age is just mine. I’ve heard it from so many people throughout my life. I don’t think anyone has ever attached an age to me. They could call me child-like but they call me ageless. Whatever that means. I’m me – Janice. Is my agelessness really me or is it denial?

I’ll take a short detour to talk about appearance. Everyone in my family looks younger than they are. I’m that way. I used to love, now roll, with hearing ‘You’re HOW old? Are you sure?’ Sure, it can be flattering but it doesn’t detract from how I feel looking in the mirror at my softer and ever-softening self. I hate my baggy eyes, the pouchiness that is my neck and chin, any lines that appear anywhere (not that many, thanks genes) my weight gain, the way my body is crepey and ropey and falling towards the floor. The way my breast surgery, which at first hardly showed, now makes one breast look (to me) half the size of the other. I am vain and I know it. The way my knees hurt and my hips get stiff and sore. Not being able to walk, climb, get off the floor or out of the bath. My voice feeling weaker. The way I get dazed when I laugh too long or cough too much. I think, ‘Who is this person? Who have I become?’ And, yes, how much worse will it get? Then I try to metaphorically get up off the floor and on with living with who I now am.

I’m doing my best to live every day. I’ve lived with fear my whole life, or almost. It’s slowed me down and made me miss a lot. But I’ve still done a lot. The price of freedom and today-living is high, I won’t lie about that. I’m reaping some difficult crop now. Today is not the day to dwell on that. I’ve dwelled on it a lot. No choice. Life right now is very difficult but I have to live.

That’s my birthday message so that I write those beginning words before it’s not true anymore. I’m pleased that I did it finally. It was my last chance.

Back to being ageless now. Thanks.

I’m a scaredy-cat but I’m being brave and posting this. (Hit publish, Jan.)

22nd February 2023

Momentous Times in London

Sunday, 19 February, 2023

So sometimes I wonder if it was me that precipitated the Queen dying. No, not really. Sometimes, though. On 6 September I sent this message to my friends, Chris and Melodie:

The 8th of September there were rumours, then an announcement that the Queen wasn’t doing well and her family had been called. That day I had a gathering to attend and met my friend, Zofia, for lunch and then to the gathering. At 18:30 someone there announced, ‘The Queen has just died.’ The gathering continued, some of us talking about it. ‘I feel devastated,’ one friend confessed.

The day the Queen died was ordinary. Zofia and I had lunch then walked around Brick Lane. It was pouring rain on and off all day

The truth is my message on the 6th wasn’t random, nor had I had a true premonition. I’d seen a photo on BBC of the Queen meeting Liz Truss at Balmoral. It was significant this wasn’t at the Palace – I think this was a first – but even more significant was how she looked. She was shrunken and frail. ‘Look how frail she looks,’ I exclaimed, but no one really commented. And that’s why there really was nothing ominous about my message.

I was six years old when the coronation took place. My memory was that we had bought a television – our first – for that occasion. My mother was an anti-royalist and told me some years ago that this would never have been the case. I remember watching the coronation on the small nine-inch screen that sat by the fire in my grandmother’s home. Maybe that too is a false memory.

Mum must not have passed her anti-royalist feelings on to me, since I’ve always rather liked the royal stuff. I was interested in what they did, enjoyed seeing the children grow up and I was touched by the stories of how the Queen and Prince Philip met and married. When the Queen died, it was like a large part of my life died too – something had gone, things would never be the same, what would come next. Would Charles become king? How did he feel about that? Would people continue to mock and shun him? What did that mean for Britain? For Canada and the rest of the Commonwealth countries?

I remember the coronation parties – I think at the Aberdeen pub on Roman Road near our house. There were also street parties. The very next day, 3 June, she drove through our area and I remember seeing her waving from her car on that day. It was near Victoria Park and I was there with my flag. This is not a false memory.

Not my photo but a street party in my neighbourhood. Somewhere my own photos must exist.

Anti-royalist or not, my mum obviously wanted us well turned out for all the momentous occasions and I’m glad that I have some photos anyway. There’s another photo somewhere – my favourite from the day. I wonder where it went.

My sister Ruth on the left, my cousin Louise on the right

With my mum’s dad. In my memory, he was a generous and affectionate man

It hadn’t been too long before that I’d been at the 70 Year Platinum Jubilee parties. Krish, like mum, has nothing good to say about the monarchy so I always did these things alone. I wandered with Melodie through the streets looking for parties and headed for Wilton Way, where I knew there was a party. I also remember that there were far fewer parties than there had been at the Golden Jubilee and wondered where everyone was. Was it the pandemic? Were people partied out? Had the Queen lost popularity? What had changed?

At 9:45 pm on Thursday 2 June, beacons were lit across the country and in local areas. The Hackney beacon was on top of the Empire Theatre. I watched it completely alone. There wasn’t another soul who was interested. Weird

I sat for a while at Navarino Mansions where they were setting up their Jubilee party, all welcome

At Wilton Way it was vastly different than the last time too. People were meeting in families, not as neighbours. The community spirit seemed lost. There were no shared food tables but some venues set up with things you could buy to eat. It was very busy though. Melodie and I found a seat at a picnic table and had a snack, but we didn’t stay very long. The pandemic had changed everything and I felt sad about that. On my way home I looked for random street parties but saw none. Such a very big difference than 2002, my first year back in London. I’m good with change, excited even. Change is inevitable and brings the bad and the good along with it. This one I wasn’t so keen on.

Every little girl wanted to be a princess

Pretty crowded on Wilton Way, but without the togetherness/family feeling of 2002

But anyway, she’d reached the 70th Jubilee year, something she’d apparently dearly wished to see, since it made her the longest reigning monarch. And then she died.

It was a strange time in the UK. Things went on as usual but on television, there was little else than what had just happened on this small island. We watched ‘The Queue’ as people queued and then paraded past the coffin lying in Westminster Hall. On the 11th we went to see the local proclamation at Hackney Town Hall, on the 19th we watched the funerals, both of them. I was so impressed with the precision of everything. And yes, we. Even Krish couldn’t resist the history and the ceremony. (The proclamation video is below – can you spot the error by the Speaker?) And now we had King Charles III and I’m left wondering if I will ever be able to say that and not find it completely alien, so I just say Charles. No argument with the man. I’d seen him in action a couple of times and was wholly impressed with his presence, his ability to engage the public. Underrated, I thought. God Save the King, they sing and I think, what?

At the Town Hall to listen to the proclamation. This had knocked Hackney One (the local carnival) off the calendar. Many protested, but it was the law of the land

Carrying the coffin to Westminster Hall. The precision…and hearing Krish telling me as always about how the crown (or parts thereof) were stolen.

At first I thought I’d stay away from central London. Every day we watched the funeral preparations and the street scenes. There were thousands there every day, and more arriving all the time. Who’d want to willingly be there? Then one day I decided that we should go. I had two goals – to see the floral displays in Green Park and to check out the crowds outside the Palace.

It’s easy to get to Green Park from Hackney – only one bus, the 38. It’s a longish journey but there’s so much to see along the way. We got off at Fortnum and Mason and walked through, and out the side entrance to stroll through Mayfair, checking out all the posh shops and places to eat. We walked past Clarence House and on to Green Park.

Inside Fortnum and Mason there was no sign of anything other than the usual

Approaching Green Park by Clarence House

There were some flowers surrounding the trees at the edge of the Park, bordering a path that led to the Palace. There were wooden hoardings set up and I didn’t know if they were there for the occasion or there had been construction but the crowd was heading along the path anyway. I decided that I would walk that path too, look at the palace and come back to Green Path. Unfortunately, I hadn’t counted on a strict one-way system that had been set up. There was no way to get back into the path. You had to get to Pall Mall and then head along the road for some distance before the allowed crossing. From there you could walk along to Buckingham Palace and back to the park. The crowds were thick and steady and the atmosphere was a curious mixture of sombre and celebratory. It was a long way for me to walk and we decided against it.

Instead I stopped and took photos of the crowd from a distance, gave up the idea of being anywhere near the Palace. Foiled in each instance! We walked along the way we were allowed to go, watching people being stopped from crossing where they wanted to and routed properly. I was tired from walking and found a tent set up with hot drinks and biscuits and some chairs. What a fabulous idea. No charge, I was told. At least it wasn’t hot.

From our side of the road we were heading towards Admiralty Arch. On the other side, we could see people who had reached the allowed crossing point and were heading towards Buckingham Palace

At the crossing point, I found a spot to photograph the people close to the palace gates

Hot drinks and biscuits for all. Love the London volunteer system

Seemed stormy that day and looking down Pall Mall towards the Palace was a gloomy, almost foreboding sight

We walked towards Trafalgar Square, stopping to look at the Mall from Admiralty Arch. Trafalgar Square was fenced off and looked abandoned. Police officers patrolled here and there, the flags were at half mast.

At Trafalgar Square police patrolled the fenced site and looking South towards Big Ben all was closed and quiet

Then came the funeral. We watched from our dwindling home. A very different TV than that one I’d watched the coronation on.

Amid all of this was our continued disassembly. The chaos around us, necessary as it was, added to the feeling of things ending and moving on

What a time to be in London. (It wasn’t my fault. Was it?)

10th February 202312th February 2023

Where is home – An enigma

Wednesday, 8 February, 2023

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.

Judy’s neighbourhood at Bathurst and Lakeshore. A far cry from Hackney

Judy walking Annie on Bishop Tutu Boulevard, Harbourside

Walking in Judy’s neighbourhood near Lake Ontario

Our room at Judy’s, We were in chaos from travelling

My 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.

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!

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.