Monday Mural

 I'm linking up at Monday Mural

June 2023 - Toronto ON

Union Station Collective Arts Brewery

Click here for a post with additional links to the incredible murals at their Hamilton location.

Banksy exhibit is coming to Toronto and I won't be here for it!!!!!

CIRCLE

 One Word Sunday

Toronto ON

Blue Barrel Café

 Linking up with Marg at The Intrepid Reader

Weekend Coffee Share

Sunday Salon

Sunday Post

 July 2023 - Toronto ON

2022 - Twillingate Newfoundland

We left around 9:30 to drive to Montreal for the weekend to visit family. We checked into the Hilton Garden Inn around 3:30 and went to John's son for the evening.

Sunday we spent the day with his daughter's family.

Don Valley Parkway leaving Toronto.

Bowling Alley near hotel.

Driving to lunch.

Steak, pepperoni, mushrooms, peppers and onion sub at Poutineville.

Heading home!

Monday we left around 10 and got home around 4, there was a lot of construction on the highway. When we hit the outskirts of Toronto traffic slowed to a crawl so we took the toll highway.

Monday Mural was taken in June.

Tuesday was mainly a rainy, stay at home day. We didn't want to move our car from its temporary spot that our favourite security guy, Arshad, had saved for us on Monday, he even called us while we were driving home to check when we wanted it. The parking garage is being washed by level, and our turn was Wednesday so all cars had to be moved.

Tuesday Treasures was a look at the Shelby restaurant where we had John's birthday lunch.

Wednesday John went to golf and I decided to go to Yorkville.

Emily May Rose's iconic raccoons in Union Station.

New coffee shop in Union, was giving out samples and the line was even longer when I came back.

A perfect day for ice cream, hot and steamy.

Tom will know what this car is.

Check out the dude with the black hat that was behind the car.

Interesting hoarding on one of the many empty stores underground in the Holt Renfrew Centre.

It used to be bustling when I worked in the area.

Thursday John headed to his golf lesson and I only went to Longo's to pick up fruit and vegetables.

Friday had a heat alert warning (feels like 40 C) so we elected for a PJ/movie day. Anyway we will be out Saturday at a ball game.

But chores got done first!

PLUS we booked a trip! August 17 to 28 to the Yukon and Northwest Territories! WOO HOO another bucket list item! ✅✅

Tour package booked, flights looked and additional hotel stays and airport pickup booked.

The tour package is called Artic Summer Explorer - Road to the Artic Sea.

I thought it should say Ocean not Sea.

The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctic Mediterranean Sea. It has also been described as an estuary of the Atlantic Ocean. It is also seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean.

We fly to Vancouver (5 hours) then to Whitehorse (2 hr 20 min) and will be on our own until the tour starts on the 20th. There are so many flight cancellations so we wanted to make sure we were not delayed. Plus the tour doesn't really spend any time in Whitehorse so we can discover it on our own.

COOKING

Saturday - Montreal

Sunday - Montreal

Monday - hamburgers

Tuesday - curry chicken

Wednesday - chevaps on pita

Thursday - trout (didn't smell right Greek lemon roasted potatoes, bacon and eggs

Friday steak baked potato asparagus and chimichurri

WATCHING

We finished Wrong Side of the Tracks.

We watched (paid) The Whale, a 2022 American psychological drama film based on a 2012 play of the same name. The plot follows a reclusive, morbidly obese English teacher who tries to restore his relationship with his teenage daughter.

Fraser won the Academy Award, Critics' Choice Award and SAG Award for Best Actor, and Chau was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Redemption 2013 A damaged ex-special forces soldier navigating London's criminal underworld seizes an opportunity to assume another man's identity. Starring Jason Statham, you can't go wrong.

The Factory is a 2012 American crime thriller film. In the film, Cusack plays a Buffalo, New York cop who has been chasing a serial kidnapper who abducts young women. 

Plane is a 2023 American action thriller film. The film stars Gerard Butler, Mike Colter, Yoson An, and Tony Goldwyn. The plot centers on a pilot (Butler) allying with a prisoner (Colter) to save his passengers from a hostile territory they landed in for an emergency landing. This was a fun movie to watch.

BlackBerry is a 2023 Canadian biographical comedy-drama film. The film is a fictional account of creation of the BlackBerry line of mobile phones by co-founders, Douglas Fregin and Mike Lazaridis, and investor, Jim Balsillie.

This was fun, first it's Canadian, it is nerdy and we both had Blackberrys.

Blood and Gold

A couple of strange ones.

Ordinary Days 2017 Cara Cook is a bright, athletic, college student who disappears without a trace. Five days play out three times from a trio of perspectives; her spiraling parents, the troubled detective assigned to her case and finally, Cara herself.

Freelancers 2012 The son of a slain NYPD officer joins the force, where he falls in with his father's former partner and a team of rogue cops.

READING

I read Woman Last Seen and really enjoyed it but the ending was a little disappointing. 

I finished The Children, I almost put it down in the first chapter but am happy I stuck with it. There is humor, darkness, revelations, and past indiscretions exposed. What will happen to all of them kept me reading.

I started Old Bones by (new to me) Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. 

Weekend Roundup

 Welcome to The Weekend Roundup...hosted by Tom The Back Roads Traveller

1. Starts with "D"
2. A Favorite
3. DARK - chosen by Tom

Starts with D

DILDO Newfoundland

FAVOURITE

DARK

The Dark Tickle Company is located in St. Lunaire - Griquet, on the Great Northern Peninsula in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

Our name. A ‘tickle’ is a narrow saltwater channel. It is also the area in Griquet where we were originally located, as represented by the picture on our labels. In our case, it is 'dark' as it is surrounded by high hills.

Tuesday Treasures

 Tom the backroads traveller hosts this weekly meme.

March 2023 - Toronto ON

Maison Selby sits at the bottom of The Selby, Tricon’s recently completed rental building, which offers residents inviting shared spaces, an expansive gym, outdoor pool and terrace, and a custom spa. Its collection of bright, modern suites beautifully juxtaposes the storied mansion below, steeped in Toronto history.

After a multi-year restoration, the mansion has been returned to its Victorian splendour. ERA Architects were tasked with preserving both the exterior and interior. Outside, the brick was starting to crumble, while inside, they needed to restore six fireplaces, the original window shutters, and plaster cornices, among other original details. The laborious process, which also required ERA to oversee the moving of the building—it was moved 14 metres east—took almost seven years to complete.

It is now a French-inspired bistro run by O & B, Oliver & Bonacini Hospitality (O&B) is recognized as one of Canada's leading fine dining restaurant and event companies.

Bonacini is one of my favourite chefs in the city, you can find him as a host on MasterChef Canada.

We dined here in March.

The Selby has always been an address associated with good times. Many well-loved bars have taken up residence in the building. In the ’40s, the Skyway Lounge, a popular sports bar, operated out of The Selby. The spot then became the watering hole for sports stars. Hockey players Turk Broda and Rocket Richard, as well as boxer Whipper Billy Watson, were all known barflies who’d come by to celebrate their wins and nurse their losses at the Skyway Lounge. Later on, another bar, called The Men’s Beverage Room, replaced the Skyway. William Shatner was a fan of the atmosphere and popped in when visiting Toronto. In 1981, the gay dance club Boots moved in, making this a hot spot for LGBTQ+ events for two decades.

1883 - The mansion was designed by acclaimed architect David Roberts Jr., who had extensive connections to Toronto’s prominent Gooderham family (the cofounders of Gooderham and Worts Distillery, now known as the Distillery District). Roberts Jr. was also responsible for designing Toronto’s Flatiron Building.

1910 - 1912 - The prestigious girls’ private school Branksome Hall—founded in 1903—relocated from its original home on Bloor Street East to the Charles Horace Gooderham House.

Margaret Eaton, of the Eaton family, attended the school at this location. She went on to become Commanding Officer of the Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Corp. and the highest-ranking female officer during World War II.

1912 - The C.H. Gooderham House became home to the Selby Hotel, originally founded as a private “hostel” that catered to elderly female clientele (when it wasn’t hosting Canadian and British officers during WWII), and was viewed as one of Toronto’s cultural focal points. The Selby became a public hotel in 1920.

1923 - Internationally renowned author Ernest Hemingway was one of many creative heavyweights who stayed at the Selby Hotel. During his brief career as a foreign correspondent at the Toronto Star, he occupied two adjoining rooms: room 301 and the “Gooderham Suite.”

Restored inside.

T for Tuesday

  T Stands For is hosted by Elizabeth and Bleubeard

Some drinks I found around town.

Glass I bought in Newfoundland in September.

Monday Mural

 I'm linking up at Monday Mural 

June 2023 - Toronto ON

On University Ave. 

I forgot to mention here that I actually talked to Elicser a couple of weeks ago at the Toronto Outdoor Art Fair!!!

It was just after I took this photo and he was taking a break.

MURAL UPDATE

I featured this mural in May, and discovered that it had been painted over earlier this month!

It is signed @WOKE1

EMPTY

 One Word Sunday

Conflans France