Caffé Florian

Bill and I thought it might be fun to put up some of our older pictures -- pictures of extreme happiness.

In the photo above, I'm standing on the dock out back of the Ca'Rezzonico on the Grand Canal. Bill took the lower picture from the third floor of the same building.

Below find the beloved Piazza San Marco

Magical in all weathers.

Our friends, Rob and Theresa, took Bill and John for hot chocolate at Caffé Florian.

We chose to sit inside the famous, 18th century establishment. It was for my birthday. Look at these lovely's comfortably ensconced.

The service is great because it is almost invisible.

You order something and then, somehow, it's just there in front of you,

and you're carrying on talking about how wonderful it is to be in Venice.

Rob fell into chatting in French with the Parisians at the next table. They'd had lunch and were chilling, enjoying the antics at our table. They had suggestions for interesting cafes and restaurants in Paris, Rob and Theresa's next stop.

It was a very comfortable place to spend time -- no sense of being rushed.

Thank you, Rob and Theresa! It was a perfect gift!

Kensington

We had lunch at Kos in Kensington Market, Saturday. Then across the street to This Aint' the Rosedale Library, one of our beloved independent bookstores.

Charlie, the owner, was at the desk.

Elegant as ever.

Then we slipped down to Queen Video. New construction across the street.

Back at home I swept and mopped the tile floors, displacing some furniture.

Bill took this picture during Earth Hour.

New Toronto Architecture

Toronto enjoys a wealth of historic architecture but we also have some delightful, sometimes controversial new structures. For instance, architect, Santiago Calatrava's soaring Allen Lambert Galleria (1992) at BCE Place (above) and the exploding shoe box of the Bata Shoe Museum (1995) by Raymond Moriyama (below).

These new buildings all seem to be imbued with a sense of fun and playfulness. Look at Will Alsops' outrageous design for the Sharp Centre for Design (2004) and the anthropomorphic Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (2004) at the University of Toronto by Peter Clewes.

Bill loves the long, lean columns on the porch of the Leslie L. Dan Pharmacy Building at the U of Toronto as envisioned by Norman Foster and Partners.

And how could we end our little tour of Toronto's new architecture without mentioning Daniel Libeskind's design for the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal (2007) which cascades from the original building of the Royal Ontario Museum toward Bloor Street... 

or Frank Gehry's re-thinking of the Art Gallery of Ontario (2008) with it's ship-like, glass and wooden facade along Dundas Street. 

All fun additions to the city!

Before Spring Arrives

Spring seems about to arrive in Toronto after a very mild winter. Bill has been riding around the downtown core lately trying to catch some of the architecture both residential and institutional that tend to be hidden behind foliage as soon as Spring rebirth begins. Above is the York Club on Bloor and below the original home of Anansi Press on Spadina Ave.

Likewise the Victorian painted ladies on Kensington Ave and the old Orange Lodge on College will soon be hidden beneath the spring growth.

Lastly, the entrance to Emmanuel College on University Ave and the neo-Gothic details of the Metropolitan United Church on Queen East will soon be obscured by lush planting.

Typical lunch

History books are migrating at the Toronto Reference Library.

Newsprint on Yonge Street (NOW weekly)

The Salad House. I like the Cobb Salad for $4.20. Best kept secret!

A Day with Reta

Boarding the bus to St. Kitts

Bill arrives at her door

Reta's in fine form

Weather is sunny and cold after light snow

Late afternoon. Time to close the vertical blinds.

Beautiful light on the plant stand and doily

The lights were gleaming on the ice when we walked back to the bus station at the end of the day.

Mulder's house

Gifted emerging writer/painter Harriet G. Mulder writes in the room above and paints in the room below. Her living spaces are always deliriously comfortable and cozy. Look, she left her Christmas tree up for us to see.

College Street

John walked home from work last Friday with our camera his my hand. He was going to take a picture of the taxis approaching but wasn't looking through the camera. The camera had it's own ideas and John says it took a much better picture than the one he had in mind.

Paint store window on College.

We love pieces of paper!

Toy Theatre

On Sunday we went to see "A Story from Boccaccio's Decameron in A Toy Theatre Performance by the talented MaryContrary group. It was a fundraiser in honour of Alice Kane and the StorySave Project.

Here the Mother Superior first sets eyes on their new deaf mute gardener.

The young Sisters wonder if they will ever taste the joys of the flesh. (They will!) It's a delightful adult tale. Try and catch it if you get an opportunity.

Writer, Cary Fagen played mandolin, and his wife, Rebecca Comay, played the recorder. They were great!

Mariella Bertelli channelling, Meryl Streep, took questions from the audience.

Lazy Sunday

We had lunch in the front booth at the Shanghai Cowgirl last Sunday, a vividly sunny day. Then we rode our bikes down for a little book browsing at Type. John liked the window in The Japanese Paper Place.

Later we rode the Bathurst Streetcar up to St. Clair. We were off to see a puppet show! We love how people dress for the cold.

How about the arc of this fur?

Midwinter Light

Bill was at the cash this afternoon. He was buying a card for his sister and brother-in-law's upcoming anniversary, at one of our favourite Chinatown shops. John was caught by the south light flooding in the windows. 

 The light bouncing between the European Meat Market to the north and the produce shop to the south, made even the crates beautiful.