Toronto is my kind of city. Everything is relatively clean. People are relatively friendly. Nothing feels claustrophobic and although not perfect, that social disparity that I have mentioned previously does not seem quite as evident, I am likely wrong but I just get a much more pleasant and socialist vibe about the place which in my eyes is no bad thing.

The morning starts with a stroll to drop the kids at school, after which Conny and I head into town to get my booster shot for Hepatitis A and B.

The overland train system is a true wonder. Not the system itself, but it’s wondrous passengers. I had left Conny for no more than 30 seconds and she struck up conversation with Arlette. Arlette is an odd ball as many of our favourite encounters are. In said thirty seconds, Conny had come to know that Arlette had recently lost her boyfriend, that she cared for the homeless by keeping them company and that she was a strong believer in the afterlife. These last two points particularlly important as the homeless man she has recently befriended has prophesied that Arlette will be given a sign. A sign that she is not alone and that he is with her. Not only this but the sign will come not in the apparition of an angel. Not in great revelation. Not even in a stroke of good fortune. But in the age old ghostly form of communication betwixt dimensional realms of existence, pizza. YES! PIZZA! Because you see he loved pizza, and she did not, well she did, because we all know that pizza is fucking tasty, moreover she ain’t no fan of what it did to her hips with all that melty cheesey wonder and doughey goodness. So it must only be right that he contacts her this way. Our conversation meanders through various oddballities as we head for our destination, as we arrive at our stop, I tell Arlette it was a pleasure to discuss such wonder with her and to meet nice folk in general, not a word of which was untrue. At this point a guy at the back proclaims “BRITISH ASSHOLE” and then pipes down.

We dismount.

The cross walk is on red. A man with an unfortunate limp starts telling the fellow cross walkers of how is day is shaping up to be a shit one and that he really does not want to be around those fuckers and the goddamn British Civil Servant Asshole (I assumed he meant me).

Conny, not too impressed as I enlighten him that although I am British, may indeed be an arsehole(correct terminology, thank you) I am in fact no servant civil or otherwise, tells me to shut the fuck up and ushers me to the clinic despite my protestation that it is indeed a true thing.

This is perhaps where Toronto falls short. The travel clinic was a ballache and then some. Despite my 10.15 appointment, I am shuffled into my “consultant” at some time after 11. The scent of Conny’s discontent in the air, I afford him the information that he can save time, both mine and his, by foregoing the “consult” as it is entirely unnecessary as I have done it in Austria, and just need my second booster shot.

Nope.

“Yes, that is perhaps true you want you’re booster but I have many many important questions about your trip” in his thick Russian accent, comes the reply, from I shit you not, Dr Boris. No judgement on his name or ethnicity regarding his ability or anything else for that matter, I just found it funny that I was being treated by an unlikely looking Russian physician called Dr Boris.

“But I have done all this before, and really I promise I am only taking the shot.”

“Yes OK but I really want you to have all this info and I give you prescription, you don’t have to take it, but I give you. It’s part of the consultation…”

An hour later I am asked to step out to await my shot. Conny is not only at this point peeved, but positively hangry to boot. A very dangerous combination. Add the extra 20 minutes and the failure of our cards to pay to boot. Conny was in full cantankerous mode when paying(she had to go and get cash from down the road) before finally my shot being delivered.

The vile temper was only exacerbated by the worst coffee we ever had being served to us, each 5 minutes apart by a guy who didn’t even know how to use a french press, joking about his ineptitude at his chosen profession as he did.

Now you would think, and be right in thinking so, how does this equate to a great city? Well it doesn’t. We obviously pulled the short straw that morning. The afternoon however was a different story.

The marvels of a vibrant city had opened up to us. Chinatown, photo exhibitions in random catherdralistic office buildings, root beers at the harbour and a wonderful produce market in St Lawrence, the gem had to be the Kensington Market neighbourhood. Toronto’s answer to Camden Town. Street food shops of many kinds, packed for their delights, thrift stores, street art, a car that was turned into a garden, music places and a book store where not only did I purchase a book but got witness a reading of a poet on “tour”.

I use the quote marks as I’m not really sure how successful his “tour” is in regard to advertising or indeed attendance.

“Hi folks I’d like to thank you all for coming, I am Tim Spence and I have been invited as part of my reading tour to read some pieces for you, so thanks for coming out and listening…” comes the proclamation from the steps of the shanty/secondhand bookstore at which Conny, myself and one other lady happen to be browsing.

A couple of odd, awkwardly read poems tumble from his lips. More simple observations, much like my own, with equally as little artistic prose or wit or merit. I wrote this one this morning for you he boasts as he mumbles about a man drinking coffee and shoppers walking by. I’m thinking this guy is shit.

But wait. He talks of how there is some mental illness in his family, and that he likens it to a famous dude who was also bonkers (I am allowed to use such dismissive terms as I am actually bonkers in the exact same vein) and that he would like to read from one of his previous books.

BOOM, he starts off on one like a mad preacher come horse race commentator, babbling on in Jesus tongues about the bonkers famous dude. He keeps going and going faster and faster, louder and louder. Face reddening, eyes bulging, leg shaking, hand tapping he howls his Hallelujah crescendo just at the moment I thought his head was about to explode a la Scanners (seminal mindfuck sci-fi movie with Michael Ironside. Look it up). The boy pulled it around.

He thanks us three, and the guy who came out of the shop who had been waiting patiently to pay for his violin book and alas the performance is done. To say it was a game of two halves is no understatement.

That evening, my host takes me to watch him and some old boys in an informal ice hockey game. He throws some skates my way (not having been on ice ice since 2003) that are 2 sizes too small and on I go. As you could imagine this was not an elegant picture. I shuffled awkwardly a couple of times across the rink, somewhat akin to a newborn foal stepping off the waltzers after a gin or five too many, pucks being pushed around left right and centre. I am handed a stick, cack-handed of course despite my distinct un-cack-handedness and I am told to shoot.

At this point in my head I am thinking a young Pacey in Mighty Ducks style awakening will spring forth or some Swayze/Lowe youngblood brilliance. I gingerly move toward the puck ready to unleash the full force of my spudguns and bust that net. SLAP! I go for it. Sadly the SLAP of which I spake is not the noise of wood hitting puck, but the sound of a fat thirtysomething going arse over tit in an attempt to do something he has no business doing and his flailing limbed torsoe hitting the pristine white ice. I am offered a hand up.

“You OK?”

“Yup, just pull me up”

“Did that hurt? That looked like it hurt”

I take my leave of the ice and watch as these dudes blast around, full pads and all like there’s nothing to it. I know they have been doing it all their lives. I know they have the muscle memory, but it is still massively impressive seeing dudes in their sixties, of all levels of fitness, playing against and alongside thirtysomething teachers and mechanics and IT guys with all over them moving with such grace and agility, performing complex skills with the stick while dancing with their legs. Truly astounding and a pleasure to watch.