So here's a very belated update to let you know what we've been up to over the summer. We've had a brilliant summer with a constant temperature of over 30 and a high of 49! We've been to most festivals that Toronto has to offer; including the Festival of India, Jazzfest, Caribana, Taste the Danforth, Buskerfest and the Canadian National Exhibition. Here are the highlights:
We kicked off the summer by spending Canada Day up in Caledon with the Ratcliffe clan. A day complete with red floral garlands, Canadian flags and a BBQ - true Canadian style!
A little while later Tejneet, a friend of David's from university, was in town on a business trip & we met up for lunch downtown on a rooftop patio, followed by a walk along the boardwalk down at the Beaches where we saw someone balancing stones in very high piles (take a look at the picture below) and a taste of the Beaches Jazzfest.
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| Kate & Tej on the patio |
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| Stone balancing on the beach |
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| Jazzfest |
Then was time for our first house guest to arrive! Megan, a friend from Leeds was visiting her Grandma in Toronto and spent the weekend with us. We went to Caribana with Molly & Patrick whilst she was here. This is a festival of the Caribbean complete with a parade of amazing costumes, crazy music and lots of booty shaking!
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| Molly & Patrick at Caribana |
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| The Parade's just getting started! |
Some of the costumes were so big they needed wheels! This is a costume for one person!
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| Enormous Costume! |
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| Ornate outfit |
The next day we headed to the Distillery district for lunch and then walked to Ed's ice-cream parlour (http://edsrealscoop.com/default.aspx). We have never tasted ice-cream like it! Megan couldn't make up her mind so she went for four flavours in one enormous waffle cone - omnomnom...
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| Megan eating four flavours of Ed's ice-cream! |
But alas, the visit had to come to an end and we were very sad to see her go. :-(
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| Time to say goodbye. :-( |
Now, on to August. As our 3rd anniversary fell on a day when Kate was teaching and David was at his French course, we celebrated the weekend before. We went to Yorkville, a very swanky area of town, for a lovely meal followed by a walking tour of the area and finishing with people watching whilst drinking a refreshing ice-tea on the 650-ton Canadian Shield rock in Yorkville park. Our 1st anniversary was celebrated in Belgium, the 2nd in Scotland and the 3rd in Canada. Suggestions for the 4th on a postcard...
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| Sassafraz - a trendy café in Yorkville |
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| David in Yorkville park |
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| Anniversary meal |
Whilst on our walking tour, we came across some quite random sculptures, including an enormous white inflatable horse (if you can call that a sculpture) and this cow driving a tractor.
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| A cow driving a Massey Ferguson |
Next was Buskerfest. This is a festival in our neighbourhood where street artists from all over the world gather together in aid of Epilepsy Toronto. Among the acts there we took in a magic show where David got picked on to take part and a sword-swallower who also juggles knives blindfolded on top of a 10 foot unicycle!
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| David taking part in a magic show at Buskerfest |
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| Street artitst - nutter! |
Towards the end of the month we went to the Canadian National Exhibition (CNE). It's hard to explain what this was, but here goes - an enormous varied exhibition with shows, a fairground and an enormous foodhall.
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| Canadian National Exhibition |
We started off the day with a visit to the cat show - OMG! These people are crazy (and also quite scary)! Here is an example of how one owner had decorated her cats, their cage and even the table it was on. Words fail me!
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| There are no appropriate words to describe this! |
Next we walked around the international trade section before heading to see the Superdogs show. Here we saw dogs race over obstacle courses, dance and do various other tricks. David laughed joyfully like a small child...
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| The Midway (fairground) at the CNE |
After taking a wander through the Midway (fairground), we took in another show - an ice-skating and gymnastic Broadway extravaganza! It was a bizarre but strangely entertaining show.
From here we made our way to the immense foodhall - we have never seen so much variety under one roof. Below is a picture of the most talked about item of food for sale! Gluttony has taken on a whole new meaning!
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| Yes, you read it right.... |
And just when you think the day could not get any more bizarre, we went to see a human cannonball! Here he is, getting into the cannon.
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| Human cannonball! |
We also took in some sand sculptures and an indoor farm.
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| Sand Sculpture |
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| Hungry animals |
Needless to say, this was possibly one of the most random days that we have ever had!
Thanks for taking time to read this section of our blog. We will update again in the next few days with what we've been up to this month so far.
Hope you had a good summer too.
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