After I’d been to an appointment today, I took a very short detour to check out the Allan Gardens Conservatory. It’s so close to where we live that I’m a bit ashamed I hadn’t checked it out sooner. I stumbled across it while looking over the list of available garden wedding ceremony venues operated by the City of Toronto.
On the corner of Jarvis and Carlton Streets, Allan Gardens Conservatory is over 100 years old and is made up of a number of interconnected greenhouses, the main one being the historic Palm House. The whole thing reminds me of the greenhouses at Kew Gardens in England – only much smaller.
Around the greenhouses is a large park with an off-lead dog area. The park is covered in snow at the moment but once you step inside, you enter a warm and colourful world that is so welcome in winter.
Inside there are giant palms, a spring flower display (with daffodils and tulips), orchids, a whole cacti display (which is just strange to see with the snow outside the windows), and lots and lots of greenery and colour. I felt better for just having gone inside.
Unfortunately, the space available for wedding ceremonies is small and wouldn’t suit our purposes, but it’s a beautiful place to visit nonetheless.
In other news…
We have a table and four chairs. I helped our friend, Pauline, pack up her apartment on Wednesday. She was giving away things, one of which was the table and chair set, and I realised we needed one. Now that it’s here I don’t know how we did without it. Feels like our apartment is complete. And I warned Glen that it’s not to be used to dump his clothes on.
I’m working on the edits for my book as they came through this week. I’m nearly done with the first pass and am making good progress. There are some nice comments from my editor and not too many changes required, so it’s not bad. I can’t do more than about five hours of editing though. My brain gets too tired and I miss things.
We skipped our final ice skating lesson last night. It was a make-up lesson for one that was cancelled in January. We’ve been skating down the Rideau Canal and we’ve already got our medals, so we weren’t too upset about not going. All we have to do is make the effort to go skating, though I haven’t had any lately.
Glen’s research poster has been accepted for a radiology conference in Salzburg, Austria, in June so we’re now looking into travel plans for that. Very exciting as we’ve never been to Austria. And it should be beautiful in the summer.
We’re also tearing through the second season of House of Cards. It’s so good!
And that’s the news.
Travels with Dan 
What do you say, eh?