It’s proving to be a little too easy to spend all my time indoors. There’s always something to do, some spot of admin, some email, some tidying (though I struggle to do that to be sure) or else read my book. Yet, yesterday and today have been so beautiful, weather-wise, that staying inside has felt like a crime. So, as well as doing all the stuff at home, I’ve ventured Outside.

Yesterday I walked to the Toronto Necropolis, which is about a 20 minute walk from where we live. To get there you go down Wellesley St for a bit, which is filled with high-rise council flats, the kind you’d find dotted all over London, yet only two streets away I walked down Winchester Ave which is a tree-lined street with semi-detached houses and beautiful gardens in bloom. The difference is stark.

Across the road from the Necropolis is the Riverdale Farm, a small hobby type farm in the city that’s owned by the city. There’s also a big parkland next to it where people were having picnics. The farm has a few animals on it, including chickens, horses, goats, cows and sheep. It’s probably a very popular destination for school visits so kids can learn about farming. There were one or two mums and grandmothers with very small children, and the farm is probably the place they go every week for an outing.

Pleasant to walk around and strange though it may sound, it was nice to see some animals (other than dogs and squirrels). There’s a farmers’ market there on Tuesdays in the evening but it’s not exactly convenient. Plus Tuesdays are cheap movie days so unlikely to make it haha.

Inside the stable.

Goat!

Goats!

I then went into the cemetery, which is all very nice, lots of graves from the 1800s and early 1900s. I did a loop around one of the paths and decided I’d seen enough. My favourite cemeteries (if one has to have favourites) are Highgate in London and Père Lachaise in Paris. So Gothic, so overgrown and monumental. And full of famous people I’ve heard of. Here, there are a few famous Torontonians, which don’t mean much to me unfortunately. But it’s a nice cemetery to visit and take a walk around.

Toronto Necropolis: for all your deadly needs.

Entrance to the Necropolis.

Henderson was here.

I like the lions on this tombstone. I also know someone called Robert Walker (but he’s not in his 70s).

The chapel. I think the shadows make it look like a face.

Can you see it too?

In the evening Glen and I went to see Top Secret! at Harbourfront as part of their free summer flicks season. From the guys who did Airplane!, Top Secret! is a similar kind of spoof film, starring a very young and pretty Val Kilmer. It’s full of dad jokes like “Yes, I know a little German. He’s over there,” so I was pretty happy. I think it got funnier as it went along but I can see why it bombed when it came out in the 80s. I’m glad we went out though and took advantage of the fine weather and free entertainment.

Today I caught a train and bus out to Eglinton Square for the Caribana BBQ. Caribana is a big Caribbean festival held in Toronto every year. The street parade is supposed to be epic but unfortunately it’s happening while we’re in Montreal. There are various side events being staged and one of them is the Caribana BBQ. It was meant to start at 12pm and I arrived at 12:30, ready to be amazed by Caribbean delicacies and people in bright costumes.

What I saw was an empty carpark with seven stalls dotted around (two of which just had people sitting at them but no food). It all looked rather sad. I did a quick walk around what was there (one of them was for a restaurant that was at the carpark’s shopping centre, only fifty metres away) and then went to join other similarly non-plussed bystanders looking from under the shade of some trees.

I stayed a few more minutes to see if I could discern any movement, any possibility that things were going to get better, but when nothing did, I turned, went into the food court and ordered a chicken shawarmi. Caribana had become a cari-bust. I hope for their sake that it did improve after I left.

I went and waited at the bus stop, and got poked with a stick by a small children. Her mother told her off and apologised. To her credit, the child didn’t poke me again but she did hit other things on the bus shelter. The mother, while looking at her phone, kept saying with little effect, “Stop hitting that with the stick or I’ll take it off you.” PUT DOWN YOUR GODDAMN PHONE AND PARENT! Anyway…

On the plus side, I found out there’s a shop in Eglinton Square Shopping Centre that imports and sells British food. Including Jaffa cakes and chocolate digestives. Not that I bought any.