Bright eyed, bushy tailed.....and nuts!

a black squirrel in High Park, hide your nuts!
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Well, it’s day 6 of our trip. Me (Jon) and the boys are in a park, packed lunch at the ready, schoolwork in the rucksack (honest Mrs Crouch), the sun is shining and Sam is at work with Adam (composer/musician), the genial host for our stay in Toronto and whose wife  Amy (teacher) is also working.

It’s been a relaxing start to our adventure which is what we thought would be best for the boys. Jet lag has come and gone and the stresses of getting here are a distant memory. We are staying this week with Adam and Amy in a beautiful leafy suburb of the city where everything is spotlessly clean, the streets are safe, drivers are polite and those who don’t work, jog. The house is a cheap journey by bus and subway to the city and you can be right in the heart of things in about 20 minutes. The last three days have been spent exploring the city and we have visited some of the more child friendly attractions. The main attractions such as the CN tower, the Science centre and the Hockey Hall of Fame (eh?) we are leaving until we return to the city the week after next when we will buy a Citipass which discounts all the admission fees but lasts only 9 days so it seems sensible to wait until we are more settled before cramming in all the touristy things.

Note to self: pick up some anti-squirrel spray.

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Yesterday our trip into the city included a visit to the old Distillery which has been renovated into a museum/shopping arcade/micro brewery. Sadly for me more of the former two and less of the latter but the other three seemed happy especially as the Chocolate shop enabled them to sample the most incredible hot chocolates on god’s earth. So good in fact that it took the boy’s sugar-highs to a new dimension and left Sam and I glassy-eyed smiling and bumping into things.

A visit to the Lawrence market proved even more delicious. Again a refurbished building a few minutes walk from the very centre of the city it houses the finest collection of fishmongers, butchers, delis and sandwich shops we have ever seen. Think Fortnum and Mason meets the market in Eastenders. The ‘drooling’ left us quite dehydrated as we wandered around open-mouthed at the beautiful cuts of fresh meat, seafood, cheese, fruit and veg on offer. Crabs legs a couple of feet long, shrimp too big to get your hand round and steaks thicker than a Gideon’s Bible left us feeling quite light-headed. Of course we had to indulge in heavy bacon rolls and seafood salads before we left. It would have been rude not to.

chipmunk - beware, deadly!
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A trip earlier in the week to High Park on the outskirts of the city proved to be a relaxing day. Being very quiet on a weekday and out of the school holidays we were allowed free reign to roam as we liked (our bellies full of the park Cafe’s $2.99 breakfast) the kids playing in the adventure park and the exhausted adults sitting in the sun just within earshot (we think). The boys invented a new pastime of chasing squirrels. Back in England this would have required at least a couple of days with a pair of binoculars finding a squirrel to chase. Not in Toronto. In fact it seems that no matter where you are, here every grassy square foot and every tree houses a writhing mass of beady-eyed bushy-tailed squirrels, both the grey and black (yes it’s a new one on us too) varieties staring at you with a mouth full of acorn. It’s almost out of control. In fact had god decided to give the Israelites (?) a break for good behaviour halfway into his curse of plagues he could have done worse to send them to modern-day Toronto where it would have been welcome relief from the locusts and pestilence et al, but they would have all had an uncomfortable feeling of being constantly watched. “You know Moses, I kinda miss those frogs.....”

nice beaver! The boys named him Hungry Henry, the guy in the big truck named him roadkill.
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So here we still are, in the park, surrounded by Vietnamese nannies looking after Canadian toddlers. It’s lunchtime and then we will do some school work. Tomorrow we pick up a cheap hire car and travel north into the wilderness, firstly to stay in Adam and Amy’s cabin for the weekend and then to camp in Killbear (gulp!) park.

Note to self: pick up some anti-squirrel spray.