Take me out to the ball game

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Canada part eight…

 

On the Sunday in Toronto, Geth and I had a lie-in (or as much of a lie-in as you can have when you’ve never quite adjusted to Toronto time) after getting up early the day before – and then after breakfast, we headed to the Holiday Inn to meet Dad, and the three of us walked through Toronto in the pouring rain towards the Rogers Centre, where we were going to see the Blue Jays play.

I’d never been to a baseball game before, but after we met up with Malcolm and Steff and went into the stadium, Malcolm explained that the Blue Jays are only the second worst team in the league at the moment and their opponents for the weekend series, the Baltimore Orioles, are the worst, which was why the Blue Jays had already won two out of three games.

The Rogers Centre is huge, and is full of stalls where you can buy souvenir merchandise, booze, and pizza – my three favourite things.  I got a Blue Jays t-shirt from the sale rack, and had to go with a Bacardi Breezer to drink as I didn’t fancy any of the beers – I don’t think I’ve had one of those since I was a teenager.  Luckily, for subsequent rounds, Geth managed to find me some Brickworks 1904 to drink.  The pizza was good too!

I really enjoyed the game – baseball turns out to be a nice relaxed thing where you can dash in and out for drinks and food all the time, and the atmosphere reminded me of going to see a weekend of Sevens rugby at Murrayfield back in 2007.

Baseball game
The Blue Jays fielding.

It looked for a while like the Blue Jays might lose, and a lot of the fans left the stadium early, but they pulled it back in the last couple of innings for a nice exciting win at the end!

After the game, I took a picture of Geth with his namesake street sign:

Rees Street, Toronto
Want street sign?

We had another nice meal in the Holiday Inn bar in the evening – no cheesecake for me this time, however, as I’d already tried all the ones at the Holiday Inn!

Phone Box Thursday: Main Street, Shap

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Today we’re looking at the second of the three Shap phone boxes.

Red phone box
Red phone box, Main Street, Shap, 1st June 2016.

(Coordinates 54°52’59.3″N, 2°67’44.9″W.)

Judging by the sign, this is (or at least was at some point) a modified phone box facility with a basic computer for email purposes.  There used to be one of those at the bottom of Sciennes, Edinburgh, which I used a lot when I was living in the Sciennes student flats (which were the ONE block of university flats that hadn’t had internet put in by 2003).  The Sciennes one was a KX series box, but it’s good to see that the classic K6s were at least temporarily used for this purpose as well.

We finish our Shap stop next week.

Update May 2023: added Street View link.

A whole week of jetlag

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I’ve been back from Canada for a week now, and I’m still struggling a little with my sleeping pattern, although at least this morning I was only an hour late forcing myself awake.  It really is worse going eastwards.

Another day mostly spent getting on with work and cleaning the house, although I did also try on my bridesmaid dress for Lisa and Kieran’s wedding.  Good thing I did, as it’s a bit too long and I’m going to have to take it in to be hemmed – luckily Geth has already booked an alterations appointment as he needs his suit taken in, so we’ll get that done together.

Second SP day went well – I made an awesome salad, which Geth says he wants to eat more often.  Recipe coming soon!

OOTD 1st August 2018
OOTD: another sundress day. Dress Matalan (2001), shoes Zara (2018).

Post-parkrun Saturday in Toronto

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Canada part seven…

 

Returning from parkrun on the Saturday was a lot more relaxing than getting there had been!  A couple of friendly fellow parkrunners gave us a lift back to Whitby train station, and we got on the GO train to head back to Toronto.  I like the GO trains because they’re double-decker, like the trains in Italy:

Double-decker train
Double-decker train, complete with lots of Toronto Blue Jays fans going into the city for the game!

We had some lovely lakeside views going back into Toronto.

Lake Ontario from the train
Lake Ontario from the train.

Once back in Toronto, there were lots of interesting things to see on the way back to our hotel, including this insanely tacky dog-themed fountain:

Tacky dog fountain in Toronto
Want plastic dog statue?

After we got back to our hotel for a post-parkrun shower, we headed to Panera for a coffee and a pastry, having missed the window for breakfast at the hotel.  The pastry was delicious and I can still taste it now.  After tomorrow’s weigh-in, I may have to put aside some syns for something similar!

We then went shopping – Geth for shorts (which he couldn’t find in the right style at the right price point, so we gave up) and boxers (trusty ol’ H&M did some Star Wars ones!), and me for tops (H&M again) and underwear (on a good deal at Victoria’s Secret Pink, but Geth was not impressed with how expensive bras are these days).  Geth’s habitual ‘Valleys boy’ reaction to spending a lot of money in the shops is to go and find a pub for a stiff drink, so we went to one of Toronto’s many ‘British’ bars and watched the sport on the TV again.

Me with a Somersby
Somersby cider again! I probably drank more of it in Toronto than I have done in the UK for the whole two and a bit years since Resistanz Festival stopped running.

In the evening, we went out for Mum’s birthday meal at the Pickle Barrel, joined by Malcolm and Steff and Steff’s parents Mike and Antoniette – it was lovely to catch up with them.  I skipped the starter this time so that I could be sure of fully enjoying the Brown Cow cheesecake!

Toronto continues tomorrow.

parkrun tourism: Edinburgh

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When Geth and I were in Scotland this weekend, we went out to Cramond on the Saturday morning to do Edinburgh parkrun.

I’m in Edinburgh fairly often for obvious reasons, and so I’ve done Edinburgh parkrun five times now – second in quantity only to Newcastle.  It’s a lovely flat out-and-back course with a lollipop loop at the halfway point, and on a good day you get fairly spectacular views of the Firth of Forth.  They also have an infamous ‘parkrun weather window’ – so although I’ve often been there on days when it’s been pissing with rain before or after the parkrun, it’s never rained during the parkrun itself!

This last weekend, the conditions were particularly good – not too hot, not too windy, could have been less crowded but it wasn’t too bad.  I went out fairly fast, and I found I was able to keep it up.  I knew I was doing well, ’cause I was knackered most of the way round – but it wasn’t until I got to the finishing straight and Geth was standing there shouting ‘PB is ON’ that I allowed myself to hope.  I couldn’t pull off a sprint finish, ’cause I didn’t have the energy left, but I was able to speed up just enough to get a time of 30:52 – which is 54 seconds faster than my previous PB from April!  I doubt I’ll beat that again for a while!

Looking forward to being back at Edinburgh parkrun around Christmas time.

Days spent in the house

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Two days in a row without leaving the house!  I can’t remember the last time that happened.

To be fair, I was meant to go for a run this morning, but I’ve decided to push that to Friday, largely because the jetlag is still ongoing and I had a lot of other things to do today.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve got a lot of work on for the next month.  It includes projects for about five different clients, which keeps it nice and interesting.  I’m also still trying to work on the house – today I at least got it tidied up, which makes it a much more comfortable space for working in.

SP day today to try and shift that holiday weight before Slimming World weigh-in on Thursday!  Doing another one tomorrow.  I had all-day breakfast for tea tonight, but I actually found it to be a bit heavy, so I might try something more salad-y tomorrow night.

OOTD 31st July 2018
OOTD: hoodie Sonar (2006), t-shirt Katharine Hamnett for Help Refugees (2017), trousers Christian Siriano Runway Style (2018), shoes 1st Position (2018).

parkrun tourism: Whitby

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Canada part six…

 

On the Saturday in Toronto, Geth and I got up very early, and went to Ontario’s only parkrun, Whitby parkrun.

We walked for about forty-five minutes to get to the train station, bought tickets, spent another forty-five minutes on the train, and arrived in Whitby shortly after eight o’clock.  It was at that point that Geth realised he couldn’t really remember how to get to the parkrun.  I’m not leaving him in charge of directions in future!

After a bit of a saga involving asking lots of people at the train station and the nearby leisure centre for directions, we made it to the parkrun start line with just a few minutes to spare, and met a few other Brits who were also parkrun touristing.

The parkrun itself was a really nice route – a simple out-and-back course through a lovely quiet park with nice wide paths.  There were only twenty-odd people taking part, and so Geth and I both came first in our age categories – something that I doubt will be repeated any time soon!

parkrun sprint finish
A rare running photo where I actually look like I’m running! Photo by Whitby parkrun.

I got my standard-for-now sub-33, which I was fine with considering I hadn’t run for two weeks.  I’m really pleased to have done some international parkrun tourism at last!

Whitby parkrun
Far-flung parkrun souvenir photo! Photo by Whitby parkrun.

2018 Ciders #43: Brickworks 901

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This was the first of the two ciders that I had while out for drinks with Mum at Pogue Mahone on the Tuesday in Toronto.

I was pleased to find that a plus point of the Pogue Mahone management change is that they’ve started serving Brickworks 901 in a regular pint glass, because when I was in Toronto two years ago, they used to serve it in a jam jar!

Unfortunately I did not escape the jam jar, because I found they were still using it at the Elephant & Castle three days later:

Brickworks 901
Brickworks 901.

Anyway, the cider.  Brickworks is one of the most prominent cider companies in Canada – they make a good few different ones – and the 901 is probably the most common on draught in bars.  It’s got a lovely medium sweetish taste – you just have to try and avoid the ‘jam jar as glass’ thing!

Back to work and other routine things

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I have a lot of work to do this August.  A LOT of work.  Along with a lot of other things to do.  But after a couple of weeks of non-stop travelling, it was so nice to be able to sit down and just have a normal day at work today – no trains, no planes, no cheesecake temptation.

Geth was back in work today as well, so I was able to spend the afternoon (I started the day later than I would have liked – I’m still not over the jetlag yet) plugging away at various projects.  I’m now having a relaxing evening of reading, with the pleasant background sound of Geth’s videogame.  It’s good to be home.

OOTD 30th July 2018
OOTD: Duran Duran classic lineup t-shirt eBay/Fruit of the Loom (2018), jeans Miss Selfridge (2018), glasses Emporio Armani (2017).

Quieter days in Toronto

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Canada part five…

 

One of the good things (and also one of the bad things) about being a freelancer who works over email is that I can take my work everywhere I go.  The negative side of this is that I’m never truly on holiday, but the positive side is that I don’t miss out on work when it arrives, and it’s still important for me to take every work opportunity that comes my way, because of the specific way in which my business is growing.

This is how I found myself sitting at a desk working all day on the Thursday of our Toronto trip.  As work spaces go, though, our hotel suite wasn’t bad – the desk was really nicely set up, and that gorgeous view from the window was a lot more interesting than my usual work surroundings!

In the evening, we all met up at Kalendar, a restaurant just down from Geth’s favourite boardgame cafe on College Street, and I had pizza and blueberry cheesecake.  Geth informed me that there was a red phone box next to the toilets downstairs, but my excitement was dashed upon finding this not-at-all-a-classic-British-phone-box:

Telephone kiosk
Most definitely not a K Series.

Also, when I was spinning around confused with my phone camera, looking for this phone box, I got a very strange look from a guy finishing his business in the gents’ facilities, which were in full open view of the hallway.  Awkward.

Afterwards, we went back to Malcolm and Steff’s place for a couple of drinks and to meet Sushi the cat.

On the Friday morning, I did a bit more work (and finally finished my Now! marathon!) before heading down to the Elephant & Castle pub to meet Geth, who had just delivered his conference paper.  On the way, I did the irritating tourist thing of holding up pedestrian traffic at a crossing to get this nice CN Tower picture:

CN Tower from downtown Toronto
Pretty skyscraper shot! I like the serendipitous placing of the bird as well.

Readers with good memories might remember the Elephant & Castle from this Phone Box Thursday post about their red phone box.  The pub is still a good stop with lots of sports on the TV and good cider on the bar, and Geth was finally able to have some decent chicken wings:

Chicken wings
Definitely not Chicken McNuggets!

I also really like the stained glass windows – the patterns are lovely and retro.

Retro stained glass
I had T-shirts with this sort of pattern on back in the ’80s.

After a couple of pints, we headed outside to make sure the phone box was still present and correct…

Red phone box
Still there, still standing!

…and then went to the Black Bull for some arctic air-con, a very talkative guy sitting next to us at the bar who was telling us about all the gigs he went to in the ’70s (and is apparently friendly with Martin Gore from Depeche Mode!), and Geth’s new favourite pint, a beer called 8th Sin:

Hop City 8th Sin
Hop City 8th Sin. Geth went back here the following week, after the rest of us had already left Toronto, for some more 8th Sin and some even better chicken wings.

In the evening, we met up with Mum and Dad for another meal of delicious pizza and cheesecake in the Holiday Inn.

More from Canada tomorrow!