Pond pre-duckweed removal…. 

Dear Readers, well here we are, back in East Finchley. Gosh, has it been dry! Some of the plant containers were positively dusty, and the duckweed had taken advantage of us not doing a regular skimming and has taken over the whole pond.

What was a delight, though, was to see the whitebeam….

…and the hawthorn coming back to life. it will take them a few seasons to recover properly, but I have made both trees a promise that I’ll give them a much less drastic trim more frequently, so that they never need something so drastic again.

My wildflower seeds are popping up, and I see rather a lot of garlic mustard, which is no bad thing – the orange-tip and brimstone butterflies love it, and it’s even edible. Plus, it springs up and then dies back, so there won’t always be so much of it.

Garlic mustard (Jack-by-the-hedge)

And the Lamium orvala (balm-leaved deadnettle) is doing very well this year, and is taking advantage of the sunnier conditions now that it isn’t so overshadowed. The bumblebees love it!

We seem to have a lot of white Herb Robert…

and, of course, green alkanet, though a little less than last year.

John started to remove some of the duckweed, and spotted this little guy… I love the way that they swim with their legs by their sides, like some kind of sea monster.

And there are some adult frogs left…

…and lots of tadpoles, which get tangled up with the duckweed and have to be gently flicked back into the pond.

So we removed about two thirds of the duckweed, to make sure there was still a bit of shade. No doubt it will be back to complete cover once we turn our backs.

And blimey, it’s very warm, even in our north-facing garden. There are lots of holly blue butterflies, quite a few small red damselflies, and the first fledgling starlings. Ah spring. what a wonderful season.

Butterscotch Budino (Photo by Carl Black athttps://www.flickr.com/photos/mentalize/13574138793)

Dear Readers, poet Martha Silano died last week. She was a friend of a friend, and a friend bought me a book of her poems, which I loved. Martha died of ALS, otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, and had lost both her parents in the space of a few months in 2020. But look what she’s left us!. May her memory be a blessing. Holding her in my heart.

When I’m on the Bed

called death, I hope
to be thinking about
the texture of the bucatini
at Campiello, how they seated us
in the bar by the pizza cooks, but when we asked to sit elsewhere

they put us beside
a giant strangler fig
with fake orchids we thought were real.
Al dente, which I pronounced al Dante, in honor of my nephew,
in honor of the circles of hell, my heritage. When I’m on the bed called death

I hope I recall your smile that evening
when you learned budino means pudding,
a butterscotch pudding, which we more than managed
despite finishing our entrées. In la stanza della morte, shoving off
my mortal foil, may I be dreaming of butterscotch pudding, the feel of
my hand

on your back, recalling the call you made
from a mile down the beach to tell me there were no
yellow hilly hoop hoops, greater cheena reenas, or froo froostilts.
I walk back to the car while you call again, this time to tell me you found
a flock of dunlins and semipalmated sandpipers. There’s an actual flush toilet

at the parking lot! And potable water! And my love calls again,
this time to say he’s nearing the path to the parking lot. No, I don’t have
the keys to the car or a single coin, but I’ve got water, binoculars, and my phone,
a little notebook to write down the species—tricolored heron, royal tern, wood stork—
which I’ll add to my list of what to think about when I’m on my giant bucatini platter of a bed.

Is This My Last Ferry Trip?

Is this the last time I’ll admire the guys
in their neon-yellow slickers, guiding us
to our parking spots before we head up

two flights to the passenger deck,
to the cafeteria where a man in a black derby
and black suspenders nods and smiles

as he nibbles popcorn? In honor of this maybe
last trip to San Juan Island, the last time
I hear that somber wail of a horn,

I’m gonna go see if there’s anything I can eat,
and of course there is: Ivar’s clam chowder,
just what the nutritionist ordered:

extra cream, extra butter, tiny potatoes I easily swallow.
Two spoons: one for me, one for the man
otherwise known as my personal

representative. When the time comes, he will help me administer
the cocktail that kills, but until then it’s The Marvelous
Mrs. Maisel, his book about Vronsky and Anna,

my book about the journey to the Higgs boson,
while our daughter calls to remind us
to take pictures of things

she can draw—a sprig of rose hips, a clump of serviceberries.
A deer she nicknamed Chewy. Bellies full of chowder,
we almost forget one of us is dying.

The Zhong Hua Men Archway at the bottom of Gerrard Street East, Toronto

Dear Readers, we started our walk along Gerrard Street at the Zhong Hua Men Archway, celebrating the history of the Chinese people in Canada, and particularly the 17,000 workers who built the Transnational Railway (some of whom died in the process). It was fundraised for for years, and was finally built in 2009. There are two white marble lions on the other side (which like a twit I didn’t photograph), and these were donated by the People’s Republic of China. I really loved the plaque on the right, which shows a couple of well-fed pandas.

The Gerrard Street Chinatown is small (the main Chinatown in Toronto is probably now out in the suburbs in Markham) but there are still plenty of Chinese shops and restaurants, and the occasional cross-pollination – we saw an Italian hairdressers with the signs in English and Chinese, for example, and plenty of older Chinese people still live here.  The houses on the side streets are small but the whole area is gentrifying, so whether younger Chinese people will be able to stay remains to be seen.

Just a short walk away from Chinatown, we found one of the most interesting social housing projects I’ve ever come across. The Bain Co-op was built between 1913 and 1920, and was heavily influenced by the English Garden Suburb movement – the aim was to have a mixture of residential areas and green spaces. There are 260 apartments in total, and the main avenue is flanked by London Plane trees, something of a rarity in these parts.

I loved what has been done here. Everyone has a small garden, and there are larger green areas where children can play. The Bain was designed by British architect Eden Smith, and it has a lot of things that more recent affordable housing developments do not: access to the street from all the apartments, cross-ventilation, indoor toilets,gas stoves and running water – all this over one hundred years ago. The noticeboards show a host of activities going on, and there is a real sense of community here. Plus, the rents really are affordable, there are loans available for people in short-term financial difficulty, and most of the people here get some form of benefits. It feels to me like a place where you can live with dignity even if you aren’t earning a lot, and surely that should be the aim of any civilised society.

Anyhow, eventually we tore ourselves away and marched along the road in the direction of Little India. On the way we passed this sign, which feels particularly Canadian to me for some reason. Where else could you find out about the temporary re-location of the temporary dog park, in both French and English?

Anyhow, soon the names of the shops lost their Chinese characters, and became South Asian instead. The Lahore Tikka House reminded me of the world-famous Lahore Kebab restaurant in London’s East End, though it’s bigger and fancier.

There are sari shops and shops selling Indian sweets, shops selling Indian cooking utensils and everywhere a delicious smell of spice.

But perhaps no where shows the mixing of cultures so much as some of the restaurants – the one below sells Chinese chow mein, Nepalese momos, and Vietnamese hot and sour soup, all on a road where most of the restaurants are selling South Asian food. Oh, and it had a halal sign on the door.

So, as we got the streetcar back to College station, I mused on the nature of Toronto’s multiculturalism. In the course of a single street you can encounter two distinct cultures, plus the very varied occupants of the Bain Coop, plus the gay community and the gentrifiers. And while it isn’t paradise, it generally seems to work. No wonder Canada has no intention of becoming the 51st state. Elbows up!

Dear Readers, today we took a walk along Gerrard Street East in Toronto. We started with a Chinese Arch, went through one of Toronto’s Chinatowns, wandered through a stereotype-busting social housing project, and ended up in Little India, and I will be talking more about all of that over the next few days. But first up, I wanted to share some of the front gardens and municipal areas that we walked through with you, because for once we were actually here at what feels like the peak of spring, and today was such perfect weather.

Although the front gardens are mostly very small, people certainly know how to make the best of them. The sheer range of tulips was astonishing.Presumably the squirrels are not as fond of them here as they are in my garden, where they’re hardly worth planting because the little furry critters dig them up.

Furthermore, the magnolias are in full flower, and here’s a yellow one that I’d never seen before…

Plus the more usual pink and white ones…

And there’s a yellow Acer next to a yellow Forsythia…

…and lots of violets…

We stopped off for a coffee and had a chat with a woman who was in the potash business, and who had the loveliest Old English Sheepdog (though she did describe him as a ‘carpet’ which was descriptive if not kind). And then we passed this church, which was the first church in North America to marry a same-sex couple, though the pastor wore a bullet-proof vest, just in case. This was back in 2001, and the church was also very active during the AIDs crisis of the 1980s and 1990s. It continues to advocate for the LGBTQ+ community and for refugees and asylum-seekers.

Tomorrow, let’s have a look at some of the other communities along Gerrard, and how the street changes as you toddle along it.

Dear Readers, there are some things that you expect when you visit Toronto. There is, shall we say, a certain degree of verticality.

And at this time of year, there are some very attractive spring flowers, particularly tulips which seem to be everywhere…

But wait, what is this I see?

Yes, it’s a herd of bronze cows, and why not?

The work is called ‘The Pasture’ and it’s by Canadian sculptor Joseph Fafard. it’s been here, outside the Toronto Dominion towers, since 1985, so goodness knows how come I haven’t noticed it before. I was really charmed by a small child wandering over and gently patting one of the cows. You can see his dad in the photo below.

Fafard was an interesting artist, with a great love of animals, cows in particular – they can be found all over Canada. I love the unexpectedness of them, and the reminder that, not too long ago, all of this glass and steel and concrete was fields, with cattle gently grazing.

Dear Readers, whenever we’re in Toronto we make a point of visiting our favourite Canadian independent bookstore, Ben McNally. In the twenty-five years that I’ve been visiting the country, it’s been located at three different addresses, and is currently at 108 Queen Street East.

It isn’t the largest bookshop in Toronto (that would have to be one of the many Indigo branches) but it gives meaning to that over-worked word, curated. I never go into this shop without buying something – biography, nature-writing, history, politics, are all well-represented, and I find the selection irresistible. Just as well as our Latitude flexible economy flight with Air Canada lets us take an extra hold bag for free.

This time I’m particularly looking forward to nature-writer Jennifer Ackerman’s ‘What an Owl Knows’ (not surprisingly, about owls) and Orlando Reade’s “What in me is Dark”, about the long afterlife of Milton’s Paradise Lost. Incidentally, I met Reade’s mother-in-law in Waterstones in Islington, such is the nature of bookshops. And I also have ‘Three Wild Dogs’ by Markus Zusak, who you might remember as the author of ‘The Book Thief’, a huge hit a few years ago. This book is a kind of ‘memoir in dogs’, so it will be interesting to see how that works.

What I’m currently reading though, before I get onto my new pile, is Sarah Moss’s ‘My Good Bright Wolf’, another memoir but this one about the author’s eating disorder. She explores not only the origins of her own anorexia, but also the depiction of food and young women in the books that she read as a child, from ‘Little Women’ to ‘Little House on the Prairie’. It’s an absorbing read, about how children are shaped, and about whose truth gets to prevail. Highly recommended.

So, what are you reading at the moment – any recommendations to add to my tottering pile?

Dear Readers, there are one or two things that caused me some confusion when I first came to Canada – ‘toque’ for hat, the delights of poutine (chips, cheese and gravy) and ‘catter-corner’ (or indeed kittie- corner’ meaning the corner diagonally opposite at a crossroads.

But above, along with the ‘buy Canadian’ message, you see another source of confusion – in Canada, every sofa, antique or modern, tatty or leather with studs, is a Chesterfield, hence The Chesterfield Company.  Or was, because my younger friends tell me that the usage is changing, and soon every sofa will simply be a sofa. Which strikes me as something of a shame. I love the idiosyncracies of local language.

And then there’s ‘elbows up’ which comes from that most gentlemanly of games (ahem), ice hockey, in particular player Gordie Howe, who was famous/notorious for his use of his elbows in defensive situations. Apparently use of the elbows incurs a 2 minute penalty so it also implies a willingness to fight dirty if necessary. Don’t mess with the Canadians is all I can say.

The fixed fountain at Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto

Dear Readers, when we come to Toronto we always like to ‘visit’ John’s Dad, who died in 2012 and who is buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. His ashes are interred very close to this fountain, and I think this is the first time we’ve visited when it’s been working (though obviously it doesn’t work in the winter when the temperatures are below freezing). As John’s Dad was an engineer, he’d be very happy to see that things are finally functioning correctly.

To back track a little, on the way to the cemetery I noticed this little fluffball

Adorable! Lots of sparrows have made their homes in the narrow gap between the awning and the wall on this new-ish development. Why Toronto has such a love for Olde Worlde language I don’t know, but I’ve never come across so many Shoppes. This is my first Towne however.

Anyhow, back to the Cemetery. I rather love this place – it’s an oasis of green after the relentless concrete of downtown.

I am trying to get better at identifying Canadian bird calls. On this visit I picked up the calls of an American Robin and a Chipping Sparrow. American Robins are actually thrushes, and i think you can hear the blackbird in the recording below…

American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

The Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina) is a New World Sparrow – although it looks like ‘our’ sparrows, it’s actually more closely related to ‘our’ buntings. Its call does sound a bit like someone hammering very very quickly with a teeny tiny hammer. Or possibly an old-fashioned sewing machine? See what you think. Once heard, it’s difficult to forget. 

Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina) Photo by By Mdf, Edited by Fir0002 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3189699

There are also some amazing trees in the cemetery, and along the Kay Gardiner Beltline that borders it. The one below is a Dawn Redwood – I’d never noticed one without its leaves before, and the shape is extraordinary.

Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides)

And how about this fantastic Red Oak (Quercus rubra) – these old trees have such personality. I almost expected this one to pick up its roots and walk.

Red Oak (Quercus rubra)

And finally, I loved this garden, planted along the Kay Gardiner Beltline as a Monarch butterfly way-station. At this time of year it’s full of bulbs, but in summer it’s been planted with milkweed, the butterfly’s most important foodplant.

So, this was a lovely walk on what looks like one of the sunnier days of the holiday – the weather definitely looks as if it’s taking a turn for the worse next week. Fingers crossed that the forecast is wrong!

Woods Restaurant on Colborne St, Toronto

Dear Readers, on Thursday we visited a restaurant that we’d never been to before – Woods on Colborne Street. We were intrigued because it specialises in Canadian produce, and of course buying Canadian feels important at the moment, what with the tariffs and all. I’d asked for a quiet table, and so we were in the corner with a great view of everyone else, plus a ‘tree’ covered in ‘blossom’. The decor was an intriguing mix of kitsch and industrial, with a touch of pure eccentricity.

Bug Woman plus fibre-glass antelope heads.

It’s the only place I’ve ever been where they have a knife menu..

…and pre-dessert there’s a maple syrup tasting. It’s surprising what a difference there is in flavour between the first ‘tapping’ of the syrup, which is pale yellow and delicate, to the last tapping, which is almost molasses-rich.

Maple syrup tasting at Woods

The restaurant has lots of little private spaces, and the longer you sit there, the more you see. And the food was great – heirloom beetroot for me as a starter, doughnuts for dessert. Service was great and unlike many Toronto restaurants we could actually hear ourselves speak, though that might not be the case when it’s busier at the weekend. Still, all things considered this was something of a find, and it’s great to go somewhere with real personality, that can still deliver the goods when it comes to feeding people. 

Facade of the Hudson’s Bay Company (Photo by By Nic Zaraza –  CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=102470275)

Dear Readers, the hotel that we’ve stayed in for the past twenty years (Cambridge Suites) is right opposite ‘The Bay’ – the quintessential Canadian department store. But last week we heard that the company has finally gone bust. As the company is descended from the original Hudson’s Bay Company, which was founded in 1670, this was the oldest company in North America, and one of the oldest continually operating companies in the world.

For a while, it looked as if ‘our’ branch, at Yonge and Adelaide, would be one of the six branches allowed to survive, but the company has been run into the ground by a series of idiotic financial decisions, followed by the pandemic dealing it a final blow. There is nothing like the footfall in central Toronto that there was pre-pandemic, and so much business has now moved online that paying a trip to ‘The Bay’ to buy clothes or cutlery or even a stripy blanket became a thing of the past. It was really sad to see the empty shelves when we walked through earlier this week, and the whole place is due to be shuttered by mid-June. As our preferred route on the underground PATH goes right through the store we are particularly miffed.

I can’t help wondering what will happen to all of the staff who worked at The Bay, some of them for many years. And because of the need to pay creditors, many of the historical artifacts from the original Hudson’s Bay Company will be sold to private collectors, because museums can’t afford to pay as much. This includes the original Charter from 1670.

Hudson’s Bay Point Blanket (Photo By Danielle Scott – Canadian WarmthUploaded by Skeezix1000, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15703058)

And so, as we’ve seen, nothing lasts forever (though 355 years was a pretty good run). I fear that the area where we usually stay will become something of a desert, with people rushing through to the subway but not lingering to browse or eat or spend the time of day. Ah well. Let’s see how things turn out.