It is July and I have booked our next flights. And accommodations. And some trains. In February Alex thought we would not travel again. It’s been a strange year. Shortly after we returned from our winter break in Portugal, we both got sick. It wasn’t much of a winter here in GTA (Greater Toronto Area) anyway, although we had joined the neighbours in sharing the cost of a snowplough for the driveway (we get some discount off their quoted price). To give you an idea of the winter, the contractor cleaned the driveway only twice, of which one was during our time in Portugal. To my opinion, this was the most expensive snow removal, but Alex considers it more of an insurance. You never know what the winter is going to be, although with climate change there will be more mild winters. Until they disappear.
We landed at Pearson Airport on Feb 7. On Feb 9, in mid calendar winter, we did our first gardening for the year. We raked the leaves, cleaned up the veggie boxes and prepared them for planting. It was 15C and I was in t-shirt.
A few days later, Alex had a dermatologist appointment in a place I call a factory for plastic surgery. Don’t even know why the doctors refer one to this place for basal cell carcinoma, when their main business seems to be plastic surgeries. Everywhere on the walls, in the big and busy reception room and in the offices, there are big screens with advertisements for it. How do I know? I once too was sent by our doctor there for a basal cell, only to get referred from there to Women’s College Hospital for MOSH surgery. A day or so after his visit there Alex got sick. I followed him 3 days later, with sore throat and high fever (39C or 102.2F). So sick actually that I could not get out of bed for about a week. Since I haven’t been out, I definitely got it from him. In the meantime, Alex Ubered himself to NYGH emergency department, where they tested him for Covid, a few strains of flu and a few other viruses that were circulating around. All results negative. They gave him an antibiotic anyway and he eventually bounced back. Much faster than me. Since we had travelled, the doctors decided that we both had an unspecified virus, most probably picked up in Portugal. With high fever and slow recovery, I think it could have been a strain of Covid our hospital didn’t test for. And I still think Alex picked it up in this overcrowded dermatology clinic, the reason I spent time describing it. Having declared that Covid is here to stay Ontario Public Health stop testing some time ago. So, who is to say?
A few more doctors’ appointments were added to the already crowded medical appointments calendar. So much so that between the two of us not only the spring, but the summer was covered. Dentist, optometrist, specialists. I said goodbye to my plans for a Scandinavian trip. For this year anyway.
By the end of Feb, we had thunderstorms. Rain, no snow. In March Alex ordered topsoil for the grass, part of which we used to top our veggie boxes and barrels.
The warm weather continued in the early spring.
I decided that we’ll be at home long enough to fill my planters with lettuces, zucchini, beans, tomatoes and more. In our climate zone people start planting around mid to end of May. But I planted the lettuces, onions, garlic and kale mid April. By the end of April, I had the zucchini, beans, broccoli and more all planted.
By mid May lettuces were all grown enough to be harvested. It rained frequently enough that I didn’t have to water anything. As a matter of fact, it rained so much that by mid-May Alex’s favorite plant, rhubarb, in the front garden was ready to harvest. We picked about 4kg (close to 9lb) of stems and I made tons of rhubarb compote, shared some with neighbours and friends and froze the rest.
Sumer was, and still is, very wet. And cool. There have been only a couple of hot steamy days. I grew up in hot, but very dry climate and never got used to the humidity the summers bring here. This spring/summer has been different. Cool and pleasant.
Windows stay open throughout. They say this could be the rainiest summer on record for Southern Ontario. Toronto was badly flooded a few times. The 100-year storm happened more than once in a month. We live in Markham, far enough from these areas.
After a big storm in 2005, when some neighbourhood houses had their basements flooded, the municipality was smart enough to update the infrastructure (both sewers and storm water). We had a dusty summer in 2016, when they dug up the streets around, but it was well worth it.
Because of heavy downpours, however, we didn’t do as much walking in the city and its parks as we wanted. Blogging about Toronto has been on the list for a while. After all we have covered many cities in the world, but not the one we live close to. I guess it will be for another time.
The big news: we’re traveling again. Returning from Portugal in the winter and getting sick shortly after Alex thought we were done with traveling. But I have a few more destinations on my list. Southern Spain next winter for a change. From Portugal that is. Scandinavia next summer. Time (and health) will tell.
This September we’ll visit 5 European countries, including Bulgaria, to see my 2 friends still standing.
I have fond memories of Hungary, where in 1978 I tried to find my maternal grandfather. He had died in a small town long before my attempt to find him. It was an exchange program with the unions of a similar institute to ours. While our Hungarian colleagues spent the 2 weeks in a resort on The Black Sea (their choice), we spent 2 weeks in Hungary: one in Budapest and one in a youth camp on Lake Balaton.
I also have fond memories of Slovakia. Czech and Slovak had just divorced from Czechoslovakia and formed two independent countries. Loved the mountains. Unfortunately, we won’t have the time and the stamina to climb them again as in my late thirties. But will spend enough time in Bratislava. We’ll be flying to Vienna and after all the touring, returning from Amsterdam, with an overnight train involved. Exciting! We’ll try to post from the road or shortly after. Stay tuned.
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