Toronto
July 27 - August 1
Monday - Day FiveThe next major stop on our road trip is going to be Barrie, sometime on Wednesday, but today we get to do a brief visit there because we have been invited to a lunch at the residence of the Honey's (Tasha's family). We also have to take Keva there because this is where she will stay from today until after the wedding when she goes back to Nassau. We get up early and get a little food and then we head over to the hotel to pick up Keva who has checked out and is waiting downstairs for us when we arrive. We start our drive to Barrie but the ramp that we are going to take to get us on to the correct highway has been closed for construction so that sends us around the city for a while until we can gain access the proper highway heading for Barrie. It's a relatively short drive, compared with the ones that we have been doing, and once we get on the highway, we are there in just over an hour. We are definitely in the suburbs with their manicured lawns and we are in an area that reminds me a little of the area where Stephen lived in Colorado. I have been saying to Nico during the past two days that Toronto to me seems to have less the feel of a Canadian city and more the feel of a city in the United States. Apparently this is not something that I should say around people from Toronto but it's the feeling that I get. It feels quite different from Victoria, Montreal or Quebec City. Another way the approach to Barrie reminds me of Stephen's area are the strip malls that we pass just before we enter the town. Anyway, we follow Eddie's map from the wedding invitation and we find the house with little problem. The Honey residence is lovely. It is tucked in a crescent at the end of a road, and is a split-level house with lots of space. Tasha and her mother, Eleanor, show us around the house and out into the garden, where a patio has just been laid in preparation for the wedding reception, and whose lawn and flower beds are neat, freshly edged and lovely. It is a grey and humid day, and we all worry a little about the possibility of rain on Saturday.
Eddie and Brian, Tasha's father, are busy in the kitchen, preparing the lunch. Eddie is making sandwiches and Brian is baking something. We are invited to sit down at the kitchen table while the rest of the lunch preparations are carried out, which we do, chatting and laughing and (of course) snapping photos to sift through and put on this page. Lunch is nice, a selection of sandwiches (egg, tuna and salmon), a cold soup and salad. There is angel food cake with an assortment of fruit and ice cream for dessert. After lunch we have coffee and chat a little more, then Nico and I have to drive back to Toronto. Tasha and Eddie leave as well to drive Keva to her bed and breakfast and we follow them to see where it is, as we will be staying there as of Wednesday. Then we get back onto the highway and drive back down to Toronto's. This time we get into town with no problem, and we remember the route (no construction) for future reference. Margot is out when we get back so we rest for a while. When she comes back she tells us that Toby Lunn, Nico's cousin and Adrian's brother, who is going to the wedding, is going to be here later in the evening. Margot is going to go and pick him up from the subway station because he has been staying with his girlfriend Nicole, who is Canadian, up to this point but now that she has gone to Vancouver for a course he is moving to Margot's. She does so. Nico goes downstairs to play with Bone and then I go down a little later. We discuss what we will have for dinner and decide to order a pizza. This becomes a much more complicated process than it should. Margot takes out the menu, tries to set up a order for the four of us to choose our various desired toppings. I go first and pick what I would like, and Margot writes the toppings down as I go. I pick five or six possible toppings, which surprises Margot, who doesn't expect me to pick that many. Then she starts to get a general feeling from the four of us which of my toppings we would all like, after which she begins to come up with the order. Nico does not let it go at that, being a UWCer, as she feels that the democratic process is not being followed. After a lengthy discussion, we settle on the toppings, call the pizza place, only to find out that they have either closed down or their phone is out of service - the line is constantly busy and we cannot get through. So Margot scours the yellow pages to find another pizza place that will deliver to her neighbourhood. She finds a place, places the order, which includes two cokes for me (and insists that they have to be Coca-Cola). In forty-five minutes the pizza arrives. We find this out because the delivery man phones Margot to tell her to open her front door. He has apparently rung the doorbell, which does not work. Margot goes and gets the pizza. Two minutes later I ask where the Cokes are. The man has driven away with them! So Margot phones the pizza place and tells them that the Cokes have not been delivered. A few minutes later the delivery man phones again to say that he is very sorry and is on his way back with the Cokes. Finally we get our complete order and are able to fully enjoy our meal.
After dinner we settle in for our first game of Bahamian Scrabble. It is a fun game, and we laugh a lot. We have only time for one round, though, because Toby is tired and Margot has to go to work in the morning.
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