Arriving in Toronto

As you will have gathered from the less than subtle clues I have just returned from a holiday in Canada and Toronto to be precise. The flight was pretty uneventful. We (I went with my friend Tina) flew Air Canada and we were pleasantly surprised that there was actually quite a lot of leg room. The less said about the food the better, dried and overcooked salmon with tasteless vegetables is not exactly cordon bleu!!
Just to set the scene -we stayed with an ex-work colleague who became a friend during the five years we worked together. Although Kim is English she went to live in Canada when she left school only returning between 2000-05 when her first marriage broke down. She is now very settled and happily planning to re-marry later this month. So even with all the last minute wedding preparations, and her family arriving next week, she still welcomed us and gave us a brilliant holiday.

The first thing we noticed on arriving was, the heat, it was so hot and humid it reminded me of Florida but with air conditioning it was not really a problem. Kim lives about 45 minutes from centre of Toronto, in Markham, and I can see why she has a better standard of living here than in England.
The equivalent house in England would cost at least twice as much.
She has a lovely park area just a few yards from her house which is ideal for her son as they do not have a very big garden.
Although the back of the house is small, as you can see she has space to relax and she has made it very attractive with all the plants.
This is Kim with her son (who was a bit shy when we first arrived but he soon got used to us) and her fiance, who is a really lovely guy.
Kim opened her own nursery school a year ago. She runs it on her Church premises and we went along on the last day of term to join in the celebrations organised by the Church staff.
This is Kim with her nursery staff. I can tell you that ice cream cake was absolutely delicious and it set the pattern for nearly two weeks of bad eating but more of that another day!
On Thursday I will show you photos of our visit to the historic village of Unionville which is a short drive from where K lives.