Our guests having gone to work and left us to our own
devices in their home, our very basic plans today consisted of doing laundry,
blogging and catching up with some TV.
However, the weather here is glorious and, unlike Simon, I couldn’t bear
to stay indoors and miss it. As the RV
was parked outside in the street last night I had access to my bike, so did a
little research and found High Park not too far away. I devised a route heading there initially
before circling round to Lake Ontario and weaving my way back across the tram
lines to the house.
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| A glorious day in High Park, Toronto |
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| A nice sandy beach on Lake Ontario |
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| Crossing a busy Toronto free-way on the cycle bridge |
All of this was
achieved within the hour to enable me to arrive back at the house in time to swap
the next load of washing out before jumping in the shower. Simon had achieved one more episode of
Walking Dead.
During the afternoon we needed to finalise everything in the
RV. Ben had been reading the small print
on their local government website and it turns out you’re not supposed to park
RVs on residential streets, so chances are we would end up getting a
ticket. We made up the bed for our next
guests and our own temporary bunk so that the RV was smelling of fresh laundry
and looking lovely. Ben returned from
work around five and the three of us drove the RV over to Char’s Aunt’s house
in an extremely posh part of town where we parked Harvey on an unused
driveway. He should be safe there until we
need his services again on Monday.
We caught an Uber back into the city where Ben took us to a
few of his favourite haunts - beers in Opera Bob’s before grabbing a pizza and
heading to the Horseshoe Tavern for a gig Ben had got us tickets for. This venue can boast to having put on a host
of famous bands for its customers – The Rolling Stones and Foo Fighters just
two examples. But they are renowned for
being picky about the acts they choose, so we trusted that we would enjoy the
sets of ‘Ha Ha Tonka’ and support act Trapper Schoepp. Even though it was the
first time I had heard of either of them!
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| Trapper Schoepp (left) with his bassist |
Trapper played acoustic guitar and sang with a second guy playing bass
and providing excellent backing vocals.
Their songs were all based on life events and as a result were very
random – about fairground rides and being stuck in traffic jams, but we really
liked their sound. Charmaine had a previously arranged trip to the opera with
her Mum tonight, but still managed to join us in time to catch the bands. Ha Ha
Tonka were reminiscent of the Levellers or Mumford and Sons to me. A very talented 5-piece who looked like they
were having a riot of a time for a Wednesday evening. At one stage they all put down their
instruments and sang an a’ Capella track together which was very moving and a
total gear-change from the rest of the set.
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| Simon and Ben - reunited! |
The gig finished late and we
had a brief chat with the band, even obtaining a signed set-list, y’know, just
in case. We caught a cab back to the
house for a late night setting the world to rights session on the porch before
heading to bed.
Thursday involved more relaxing in the house. We watched a Beatles documentary called
‘Eight Days a Week’ which was mostly focussed on their touring history and why
they made the decision to stop doing live gigs at the end of 1966 to concentrate
on recording. This made perfect sense
having seen the chaotic scenes and media frenzy surrounding every move they
made up to that point.
We also booked flights for our next adventure, but I’m not
going to share any spoilers with you until nearer the time! You’ll just have to
keep on reading…..
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| Look at the size of that steak! |
During the afternoon, we caught a street car into the city
to meet Ben and Char after work in the financial district at a bar called the
Speakeasy. Another glorious sunny day, we
sat drinking on the patio for a couple of hours before walking up the road to
The Keg steakhouse for a BIG meal! We all had starters, steak and shared a
bottle of wine. A lovely evening with great friends.
Friday dawned bright again so I took a walk back to High
Park to get some exercise whilst Simon made further ground through the Walking
Dead series.
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| A different view in High Park! |
From 3pm we could access the ‘Air B&B’ apartment next door to
the Franklins' where Si's parents would be staying for the weekend. We took a peek to see what supplies they
needed and popped out to get them a few essential groceries, to make up for the
fact that we were not able to pick them up from the airport as Harvey was now unavailable.
Simon’s parents, Ann and Ray, turned up at the house in a taxi
just after 5pm and, after we showed them how to access their accommodation, we
sat in the sunshine in the back garden for a catch-up. We worked out that it was precisely eight
months to the day that we had last seen them in person when they dropped us off
at Heathrow airport. We agreed that it
hasn’t really felt that long. We have
spoken to them on Skype most weeks, so it is very different to travelling
twenty years ago or so when it was a long-distance phone call or having to wait
for a letter! The world is a much
smaller place nowadays I think, thanks to technology.
They hadn’t arrived long when Char got back from work
and joined us to discuss the evening’s plans.
A table was booked at a restaurant and Char’s Mother, Paula, and
her husband, Mike, joined us for drinks before we all got taxis to the Mariners for
food. No one managed to take a single photo of the meal! The food was good with some random dishes
becoming new favourites – the roasted Brussel sprouts were delicious! Conversation flowed and everyone had a lively
evening. It was great to see Paula and
Mike again as we had spent a significant amount of time with them during our
stay for the Franklins' wedding nearly two years ago. They are very supportive and interested to
hear all about our travels. At the end
of the night, the six of us staying in St Clarens Avenue got cabs back there
and, as is now customary, the night ended with drinks and chatter on the porch.
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