It’s been a bit strange spending a whole weekend in Toronto. For I’m not sure how long, we’ve either been away for the weekend (dog-sledding, Ottawa) or else skiing on Saturdays. So when I went to St Lawrence Market on Saturday, I felt like I was visiting somewhere new. It helped that Saturday was such a beautiful day with blue skies and a warm 2°C.

Glen went to a conference while I spent the morning preparing more food for the party we were having in the evening for my birthday. I’d done a lot on Friday but had some more to get done. Preparing everything so far in advance certainly kept me calm.

About 11 I went down to St Lawrence Market to buy some herbs and a few other things. It’s been a while since we’ve gone to the farmers’ market there so it made a nice change from buying everything at the supermarket. I came away with a couple of big bunches of basil, capsicums, ginger, spring onions and mushrooms.

I then raced up Yonge St to the movies at Yonge-Dundas Square as I had a ticket to watch Corialanus, as part of NTLive. I’ve never read or seen this play of Shakespeare’s and admit to being drawn into it because Tom Hiddleston was playing the lead role.

When I arrived at the cinema, I picked up my ticket from the machine and then joined the three-person queue to gain admittance into the theatres. I was a bit flustered and having to watch the ticket-ripping guy talk to his other colleague about something else (even if it was work-related), while ignoring us in the queue got a bit much for me.

“Can you hurry up?” I snapped. He whipped around and started ripping tickets. I didn’t get so much as a word out of him as he thrust my ticket back to me. I admit, I could have handled it better, but bad customer service gets on my nerves.

As punishment, I was one of the last to get into the cinema and had to sit in the third row from the front.

The (recorded) play was good, and I was surprised I could get the general gist of what was being said, considering it’s Shakespeare. The acting helped as the actors’ delivery and body language carried a lot of the meaning. Tom Hiddleston was wonderful, very strong, very delicious and an excellent Corialanus.

The other actors were also very good. The one thing that struck me as a bit strange was the broad range of English accents the actors had. There was Tom’s quite proper accent, which was shared with a few others of the cast (including a Danish actress who played Corialanus’ wife), but there were also Scottish, Geordie, Cockney and Jamaican accents too. I found it a bit hard to suspend disbelief when a new accent was thrown in.

I’m glad I went though. I’ve seen it now, liked the themes and it’s a joy to watch Tom. And in stark contrast to how I was greeted at the entrance to the cinema, on my way out one of the staff said, “Thanks for coming.” How nice.

I went back home then and Glen arrived two minutes after me. I prepared the final few things for the party while Glen tidied and rearranged furniture.

People started arriving a little after 7 and I was pleased we were able to fit everyone into our apartment comfortably, without it feeling cramped. The food I’d made went down a treat, and included French onion dip, hummus, stuffed mushrooms, pizza (I made the dough while Glen was in charge of rolling it out and putting toppings on), a chocolate tart and chocolate ice-cream. I also made two alcoholic drinks, which were consumed with gusto.

There was plenty of chatter and good times, though we didn’t get around to playing board games as planned. That will just have to happen next time. The last guests left about midnight. All in all it was a fun night and I’m looking forward to doing it again. We have a good group of friends here.

This morning I didn’t get up until 10, sleeping right through Glen’s rousing sometime around six. The rest of the day has been fairly relaxed. I’m doing another edit of my book, starting at the end and working backwards. I got through a third of it today and am hoping to have the rest completed by Tuesday evening.

Glen and I also went out for lunch today at Lola’s. I’m a bit over this whole “brunch” thing. It’s misleading. We got in there at 2:15pm and were given the brunch menu. All breakfast type things except a burger. It’s weird. Brunch happens between breakfast and lunch, not lunch and dinner. Anyway…

I don’t think we should leave the house anymore.