Maple Leaves, Maple Syrup, Maple Me.

Hello Canada! I arrived in Canada a week ago and have had a lovely week so far. I am lucky enough to be staying just outside Toronto with two lovely folks, Louise (who my Dad met 28 years ago!) and Brian. They live in a lovely town called Unionville and have been wonderfully welcoming to me in my first week as a temporary resident! Having just arrived after Thanksgiving they had some food left from the big cook up that we had to attempt to clear up (capon, ham, capon, ham... maybe some ham again). I love it. =) Today was the second time I was lucky to have Louise cook maple-syrup-ham.... (I can sense you drooling over the keyboard... you better stop that... people will start wondering what 'work' that is you're doing...) Extremely tasty, along with her Golden Pineapple Pudding, delicious!! I certainly am getting spoilt.



Louise and Brian are freshly retired and enjoy a very active lifestyle, their days are filled with all sorts of fun activities. One of them is curling. That's right, for all us Aussies it's the sport that we only ever see telecast at the winter olympics and think 'what the heck are these people doing? what an odd sport!' Well I have now been witness to a couple of curling games and am even tempted to give it a shot. I am sure that will be an interesting day and would make for some amusing photography. So getting to the point, here are Louise and Brian on the ice during a mixed curling league. I should also note, Brian looks like a giant here, I believe he 'happened' to be standing on a ledge. =)



Here is Louise on the ice. She makes it look very fashionable to me. Work that broom baby!



Louise took me downtown for the day and we had lunch at a Japanese restaurant. Here we are enjoying ourselves. After lunch we ventured to the Bata Shoe Museum. This was a fascinating place where they have exhibits describing the history of shoes across all cultures, locations and religions. Now I can claim to have a little knowledge of shoes, if only this could justify my buying more of them... =) Highly recommended!



Brian and Louise took me to their favourite local restaurant, we had a lovely meal and enjoyed some nice red wine. Even after the first night (where they welcomed me with champagne!) I quickly learnt that Louise and Brian enjoy their wine and food.... this is going to be dangerous for all of us with me staying there. =)



Did I really drink THAT much?



When I arrived in Canada I seemed to bring with me the grey London weather. We were lucky enough to have a couple of nice days in the last week though and we took advantage of them! As it's Autumn or fall as they call it, here in Canada, the leaves are changing and I have been excited to witness the seasons changing (something you really don't see in Qld!) The brilliant coloured leaves against a blue sky is a wonderful site. Here I captured the Canadian flag as well.



Another lovely tree I found on my walk around Unionville.



Very pretty colours. The leaves are a beautiful sight to see, especially when there is a huge line of trees all at different stages of their transition. Right, that's all so far. Goodbye, eh.