Cherry Trees outside the Robarts Library

Dear Readers, cherry blossom time (or Sakura) has become quite the thing in Toronto over the past few decades. This Friday was expected to be peak cherry blossom time, and so many people were heading to High Park that cars were banned, and people were being asked not to shake the trees or pull down branches for photographs. Hah! I decided to head for the smaller but less frenetic cherry blossom site outside the Robarts Library in the University of Toronto.

It felt really joyful here – lots of people were photographing the blossoms, and one another, but all were respectful of the trees, and were clearly enjoying themselves. After a long wet April, it was lovely to see some sun, even though there’s a frost warning for tonight.

The library itself was opened in 1973 and is a fine example of brutalist architecture, though not everybody was impressed – it’s been nicknamed ‘the turkey’ and ‘the peacock’ for its extravagant shape, and is apparently not the easiest building to use (though it contains 4.5 million books so it can’t be all bad). Also, it could apparently be the model for the secret library in Umberto Eco’s ‘The Name of the Rose’ – Eco spent much of his time at the University of Toronto writing the book, and apparently there is a strong resemblance between the stairwell of the Robarts library and the library in the book.

What made me especially excited about this little expedition was that it was a) spontaneous and b) I did it all on my own while John was off visiting a friend. I was actually planning on finding a spot to read my Jan Morris biography when I found myself irresistibly drawn onto Line One of the subway. I often feel that I only really start to know a place when I explore it myself, without relying on someone else to know which way to go. And so it was a lot of fun to find the cherry blossom, and to then walk through the very varied university buildings and to find my way home. I felt like a proper flanêuse, for sure.

Dear Readers, one of the big delights of being in Toronto is that I actually have quite a lot of time to read, what with the seven-hour plane flight, the jet lag and the occasional free afternoon, so here are a couple of recommendations.

First up is Patrick Radden Keefe’s ‘London Falling’. I’ve loved the author since I read ‘The Empire of Pain’, about the Sackler family and the opiod epidemic. ‘London Falling’ is a story of money, duplicity, crime and corruption in London, following the death of 19 year-old Zac Brettler in a ‘fall’ from a balcony in a luxury flat. I’m not normally a big reader of crime fiction, but this book manages to encompass so much more than one tragedy, and raises a number of interesting questions about complicity and cover-up. I couldn’t put it down.

Just holding a book by publisher Fitzcarraldo always feels as if it should improve my intellect just by osmosis 🙂 but this is an excellent book. Author Joanna Pocock made a trip across the US by Greyhound bus in 2006. In 2023 she retraces her tracks, to see what’s changed. Some of the changes are in her: as an older woman she’s subject to a lot less harassment, and she’s a lot more grounded (her 2006 trip followed her third miscarriage, and her recognition that she was not going to be a mother). But the biggest change that she notes is everyone’s reliance on phones, and how much rarer it is to have a random conversation with a stranger. She also notes how many bus stations are run down or closed. In Phoenix, one bus stop is in the middle of the road in temperatures of over 40 degrees. She relates how homeless people are constantly being referred for third-degree burns when they pass out on pavements which can cook flesh within a few minutes. This is a fascinating book that will have me thinking about what is happening to us as a society for months to come.

Finally, I’m currently reading ‘Jan Morris – A Life’ by Sara Wheeler. Jan Morris packed enough into her life for several normal people, and she was something of an enigma – an apologist for Empire who was also its harsh critic, one of the first people to climb Everest who later transitioned from James to Jan, an acute observer but (apparently) a terrible parent. Wheeler’s first chapter is an absolute corker, as she describes staying at Morris’s house, sleeping in a room with no bedside light and bats hanging from the rafters waiting for her to turn off her head torch. It’s early days, but I’m really enjoying the book so far.

So what are your recommendations, Readers? My bedside book pile has room for a couple more, before the ceiling gets in the way 🙂

Dear Readers, the Concourse Building is a splendid example of Canadian Art Deco, but all is not as it seems. It stands right next to the glass and steel EY tower (in front of which stands the slightly-scary giant child sculpture), and if you look at it from the corner, you can see that it’s actually incorporated into the tower. In fact, the original 1928 building was dismantled in 2013 after much discussion between the developers and the city planners, but lots of the original detailing was preserved.

The mural above the front door depicts the four elements (earth, fire, water and air) and was designed by J.E.H MacDonald, one of the Group of Seven artists who met in Toronto, and who created a distinctively Canadian style.

There are mosaics under the arch depicting modern innovations such as planes and steam ships in the outer panels, and a dove, ploughshare and deer with birds in the centre.

There were apparently quotes by Canadian poets above the elevators in the main concourse, which were meant to reduce stress as the office workers waited for their day to start. Examples include:

Theodore H Rand  “The years are wise though the days are foolish.”

Charles GD Roberts  “Life is good, and love is eager. In the playground of the Sun.”

Katherine Hale  “I wish that some quaint miracle Might happen even today, Whereby the universe should speak And men kneel down and pray.”

I wonder what the impact was? Which of those poems (if any) would bring a spring to your step? I confess that I quite like the Rand quote, which I’ve been pondering on myself.

Photo by By Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA – EY Tower, Toronto, Ontario, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=115962340

The original tiles at the top of the building were replaced in the new building.

So, the new building is something of a pastiche – a fine example of what my friend the Gentle Author calls ‘facadism’ (where most of a building is demolished but the frontage is preserved, to give the misleading impression that the original building still exists. I am glad that some of the features of the old Concourse Building have been saved, but much has been lost or moved. I couldn’t get inside the building (it is a corporate HQ after all) but there are some fantastic photos, and some more history, over at the Torontojourney416 website.

‘Sheltering’ by Timothy Schmalz

Dear Readers, like many cities has a range of public art, ranging from the beautiful to the bizarre and everything inbetween. The statue above, by Canadian sculptor Timothy Schmalz, is very new, and I found it very moving: its location, in the garden of the United Metropolitan Church, is a gathering place for homeless people, close to several hostels and also to the local hospital.

And then of course there are the Canada geese of the Eaton Centre, looking very spick and span at the moment. And where the hell did the phrase ‘spick and span’ come from? Apparently it’s a ship building term, where a ‘spick’ was a metal nail, and a ‘span’ was a wood chip – ‘spick and span new’ was the original term, meaning a brand new ship with everything in order.

Anyway, after that digression, here are some geese….we saw two actual wild Canadian geese flying over Queen Street earlier this morning, so I can vouch for the accuracy of the depiction.

I’ve written a piece about the history of the Eaton Centre Geese before here

Turning round, there’s a rather fine bridge connecting the Eaton Centre to the now-defunct Hudson’s Bay building…

And then there’s a brisk walk through the old building, with some remnants of its past as a department store…

…but mostly you’re channelled through corridors lined with murals by Chairman Ting, a Vancouver-based design consultancy.  Apparently they cover 27,000 square feet. Chairman Ting also designed the FIFA World Cup poster for 2026, so they’re clearly having a good year.

The latest news is that some of the old Hudson’s Bay building might be converted to self-storage. Well, better than tearing it down I suppose.

Now, I’d passed something on my way into Toronto on Saturday that I really wanted to check out, and here it is…

Yes, it’s a giant child’s head. The sculpture is called ‘Dreaming’ and it’s by Jaume Plensa, a Catalan sculptor. Apparently the 8.5 metre tall, 2.5 tonne sculpture has been here since 2020, so how I’ve missed it previously I have no idea. It’s one of those sculptures that looks fine from the front, but starts to look very strange as you walk around it….

Hmmm. It’s supposed to be meditative, but it feels a little creepy to me. What do you think?

Practically next door to ‘Dreaming’ is this amazing building, which deserves a blog post all to itself. So, more on the Concourse Building tomorrow….

A series following the 72 British mini-seasons of Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren. 

Dear Readers, I’ve written about gorse before here – I love its coconutty smell, and its cheerful yellow flowers. In ‘Nature’s Calendar’, Rowan Jaines describes the importance of the plant at the festival of Beltane, particularly in Gaelic and Celtic histories. Samhain, now celebrated as Halloween on 31st October, was one end of the season – whilst now it’s largely all about trick  or treating and pumpkin carving, it was (and in some traditions still is) thought to be the time when the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead was thinnest, a time when supernatural beings could cross the boundary between our world and theirs. However, Beltane, celebrated at the beginning of the season on May Day, had similar traditions.

Celtic scholar John Rhys describes how, at daybreak, the gorse bushes would be set alight to encourage the witches, who took the form of hares, to move on. But the yellow flowers of gorse were also thought to be protective, and to be associated with the Celtic sun god Lugh: the cattle, adorned with the yellow flowers of gorse, would be driven between sacred gorse bushes which had been set alight, in order to offer the herd protection during the summer months.

As often happens, the burning of the gorse also had a practical purpose. In ‘The Battle of the Trees’, the Welsh poet Taliesin described how the gorse ‘is badly behaved until subdued by the fires of Beltane’, which allowed new, succulent growth to emerge.

And here is a poem. The poet, 83 year-old Marcia Cardelús, has been writing for most of her life, but has only just started to submit poems to journals. I rather like this one, and goodness knows we need it…

Gorse by Marcia Cardelús
April 18, 2024 ~ ONE ART

The Northeast corner of
of our local organic food store
Wild by Nature
has that smell.
You know the one.
The one you don’t exactly like
but are attracted to
a kind of witchy brew
of dried herbs,
essential oils, vitamins and incense.

It was there I saw the
“Discover Your Remedy” display,
built of wood, promoting nature.
It was divided into seven sections,
and each of the sections
was divided into subsections
that housed sets of small brown bottles
of labeled remedy.

Only one sub-section was sold out.

Gorse.

I wondered what it was about Gorse
That made it so needed.

I opened the small
drawer of descriptions
in the display,
thumbed down the list
to see.

It said:
The Positive Effect of Gorse is Hope.

St James’s Cathedral with the sun catching the weathervane

Dear Readers, we are making the most of the sunny weather here in Toronto – it looks as if Tuesday and Wednesday will be wet and miserable, so today we went to Mount Pleasant cemetery to visit with John’s Dad’s grave, and then took a walk along the Kay Gardiner Beltline, before catching a new train on the Midtown Crossrail. First up, though, we went to our favourite coffee shop, Versus on Adelaide. I was very impressed by the sea horse…

and I think this might be a phoenix rising from the ashes, though it’s open to interpretation…

Outside, the sparrows were chirruping away. I still can’t fathom how they’re surviving in the very heart of this ‘vertical city’ whilst in London you rarely see one in central London.

And then it’s off to Mount Pleasant Cemetery, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary this year.

It is a very fine place to be lain to rest, although it’s slightly over-manicured for my personal taste. No room for weeds here! But the trees are truly magnificent, and according to the poster below are representative of nearly all the trees that can grow in the climate of Toronto

Two particularly attracted my attention: this silver maple…

..and this red oak, which is showing an enormous amount of resilience.

But of course, we were really there to spend a few minutes with John’s Dad, who was run down and killed in 2012. He was a kind, gentle and thoughtful man, and worked as a civil engineer – he’d have been most put out that the fountain next to the spot where he’s interred hasn’t been repaired yet.

What he would have loved is the sound of all the birds – the American Robins, Chipping Sparrows and Northern Cardinals were all singing their heads off today.

American Robin

And then we headed off towards the new Midtown Crossrail station via the Kay Gardiner Beltline. We passed the little community garden that I spotted last year, and I paused to admire the wood anemones…

Someone excitedly told me that there were some ‘Virginia Bluebells’ in bloom. At first I thought she was talking about the Siberian Squill, very pretty but invasive in these parts…

Siberian Squill

but actually there was Virginia Bluebell (Mertensia virginica) – this is a member of the Borage family rather than the Asparagus family (which is the ‘home’ of ‘our’ bluebell) It reminds me a bit of lungwort and comfrey, not surprising as these are ‘borages’ too. Virginia bluebell is native to the east coast of North America, and it was a real treat to see it.

Virginia Bluebell

On we go along the Beltline, past a very irritated squirrel.

And finally we get to Chaplin Station on Line 5. It’s over budget and late, but at least it’s running.

The stations are very spick and span, although apparently the white tiled floor gets slippery when wet (pretty much inevitable in a Toronto winter).

The announcements and signage are all in English and French, whereas for older lines it’s English only. I do like the upholstery though! Very French Impressionisty.

And so, after 11,000 steps we wend our weary way back to the Cambridge Suites for a sit down. We are eating our way through the different flavours of Eataly tiramisu, with pistachio our favourite so far (we share one, honestly!) What a life.

The Midlands from a Boeing 777

Well Readers, it’s time to make my annual pilgrimage to Toronto, to visit with my husband’s mother, who will be 98 during this trip. She is in a memory facility to the north of the city, and is doing as well as can be expected – when we saw her today she looked hail and hearty. She wasn’t quite sure who my husband was, but she knew he was Someone, and was glad to see him. At this point, this is a blessing.

The weather for the trip looks generally dire, so we were pleased to wake up to this view from the window…Toronto really is ‘the vertical city’, and getting more vertical by the minute.

Today was also the Sikh New Year, Khalsa Day or Vaisakhi – all the participants were in their best, brightest clothes, and I was so glad that the weather was so auspicious.

I was half expecting this part of Toronto to feel a bit sad this year – the Hudson’s Bay company, which had its largest store opposite our hotel, had closed, and half the place is being dug up for the new Ontario line. But fortunately the bit of the PATH that we always use to get to Queen station and beyond has been preserved, by popping in pathways right through the defunct store. Plus they’ve finally managed to repair the escalators that were broken for at least the past five years. And a branch of Eataly has opened in the Eaton Centre so we can get ourselves a salad lunch – Toronto meals are gigantic and protein/fat heavy, so it’s good to have another option.

After we’d been to see John’s Mum, we walked back to the station via the Finch Hydro Corridor.What the hell is that, you might ask? In effect it’s a linear park housing the main electricity pylons which bring power to the city. The pylons always remind me of giants made of girders. The path is shared pretty amicably between cyclists, walkers, runners and strollers of all kinds.

The ground between the pylons is pretty boggy, and a lone female mallard was taking advantage of a tiny seasonal pond.

The undergrowth has been allowed to grow under some of the pylons, producing a useful habitat for all kinds of birds, especially the omnipresent red-winged blackbirds. Their call has become the sound of Canada for me, and always reminds me of my dear departed aunties, Rosemary and Linda.

Thicket under a pylon

And here’s a red-winged blackbird…

Red-winged blackbird

I had turned on my Merlin app, and look what else we heard…

Especially chuffed with the trumpeter swan that we heard flying over – another fine memory of my aunties is going to visit them in 2019 and see a trumpeter swan hanging out with all the mute swans. You can read all about T29 here…

Trumpeter swan seen in Collingwood in 2019

When you get close to Finch station, some of the pylons are connected to this substation, while other pylons head off over the hill.

All in all, this was a great walk for the start of our Canadian visit – not too strenuous, but something new, and a fine antidote to jet lag. Let’s see what else we find this year!

Adult Kea (Photo By Edward the compressor – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63905822)

Dear Readers, back in 2013 a student at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, found a straggly, underweight Kea. The bird had lost the top half of its bill, and was in bad shape. Keas are intelligent but belligerent members of the parrot family, and are also an endangered species, so it was decided to rescue the bird and look after it in captivity. Because it was so small, the parrot was initially thought to be female, and was named Kati. However, DNA testing showed that Kati was actually male, and so he was christened ‘Bruce’ – ‘the silliest name we could think of’ according to scientist Ximena Nelson.

Bruce the Kea – photo by Ximena Nelson

Well. Bruce soon adapted to his new home with nine males and three females ( a group of keas is known as a ‘circus’, and as these are some of the most mischievous parrots around this feels wholly appropriate). His broken beak turned out to be a frighteningly dangerous weapon, and this 800 gram character was soon bossing birds weighing over a kilogram by threatening injury (and sometimes actually stabbing) the other male birds. He took over all four of the feeding stations, and some of the less dominant birds preen him and clean his lower beak. In 36 observed conflicts, Bruce won the lot. And so,  Bruce has turned his injury into an advantage, and is living his best life. When he was originally found, there were thoughts of providing him with a prosthetic beak, but he seems to be doing very nicely without one.

“I really like Bruce, actually,” Nelson says. “When there is reason to fight, yeah, he’ll fight and he’ll fight hard, and scrappy. But he’s not a bully.”

You can read the article in New Scientist here.

The journal article is here.

A series following the 72 British mini-seasons of Nature’s Calendar by Kiera Chapman, Lulah Ellender, Rowan Jaines and Rebecca Warren. 

Goodness, Readers, it appears to have been  a good year for bluebells, both English and hybrid – the display in our local Ancient Woodlands here in North London has been pretty splendid, even in Coldfall. A lot of dead hedging has been put up here by TCV (The Conservation Volunteers) and this has protected the plants from the worst of the trampling. Sometimes all plants need is a tiny bit of protection to thrive.

Hybrid bluebells…

Now, admittedly the bluebells in Coldfall are hybrids, and  I’ve written a fair bit about this here. Suffice it to say that hybrid bluebells  (the Spanish bluebell is actually pretty rare in the UK) are more drought-tolerant than the English species, but are less tolerant of shade, so it may well be that we end up with hybrid bluebells in urban woodlands and at the edge of woods, and English bluebells in isolated woods, or in the centre of woodland. Personally, I’d rather see some hybrid bluebells than no bluebells at all, though the English ones are bluer, and more scented. There is something very special about an ancient bluebell wood, for sure.

English bluebells in a Somerset wood

In her post in Nature’s Calendar, Rowan Jaines discusses the relationship between the bluebell and the fungi that it depends upon to survive.

Bluebells generally germinate close to their parents in the autumn, and start life by burrowing their contractile roots into the soil – these pull the bulb deeper into the  soil to avoid the first frosts, being dug up by squirrels etc. It takes about four or five years between germination and first flowering, and  during this time the roots serve as anchors, but do not have enough surface area to take up the nutrients that the plant needs. Furthermore, the roots move down to a depth of about 20 centimetres, a long way away from the nutrient-rich topsoil So how does a bluebell grow?

Like many plants, the bluebell works in partnership with a group of fungi called arbuscular mycorrhiza. These colonise the plant roots and expand their surface area, in exchange for the carbohydrate that the plant produces during photosynthesis. Usually, plants depend more on mycorrhiza when they’re young, but the bluebell does the opposite, developing more of a relationship with the fungus as it gets older.

Recently, one particular fungus has been identified that attaches to the roots of the bluebell during autumn  and winter, and which transfers phosphorus to the plant in exchange for sugars. Scutellospora dipurpuresecens was recently recognised as essential to the bluebell displays in the ancient woodlands of Scotland, and was one of eighty species synonymous with the ecosystem, including much better known organisms such as the red squirrel and the golden eagle. At a time when science is just starting to recognise the complex interactions between plants, fungi and animals, which often take place at a microscopic level, it’s exciting to see a tiny fungus being recognised for what it does.

The sparrow nest box

Dear Readers, I put up my sparrow nesting  box back in 2020, and it’s fair to say that the sparrows have shown absolutely no interest at all. The site was briefly inspected by a blue tit in 2021 (apologies for the high quality photo)…

but then, about six weeks ago I noticed a great tit popping in and out of the nest box on the left. Birds are usually very particular about the size of the entrance holes, and I guess that a great tit is almost the same size as a sparrow (ish). Anyhow, the great tit has continued to visit, and I am keeping  everything crossed for a happy event or two. It’s not the best location, being right opposite the kitchen door, and the squirrels also use the climbing hydrangea as a motorway, so fingers crossed for a happy outcome.

All the disturbance re the shed hasn’t been exactly helpful for the wildlife, but hopefully everything will be done soon – the shed is due to be delivered in the next few days, followed by a skip and a massive clean-up operation, so soon I’ll be able to enjoy the garden again. Fingers crossed for that too!