Sunday 18 November 2012

Spaghetti, Sunshine and Santa

Huffle and I watched "I'm a celebrity" last night. Will someone please put Helen out of her misery. What did she expect? Get her out, she is not entertaining!!

I woke up again just before 2am - that bloody noisy water softener and sump again, put my headphones in and listened to Miles Kane, good album but didn't cover the 'noise', so I ended up going downstairs and reading some of The Hobbit. It was about 3:30am before it stopped and I went back to sleep. AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

We got up this morning, had a quick breakfast, washed and changed and were out the door by 10am - not bad for us. We had our hats, gloves, scarves, coats etc just in case. Today was the Toronto Santa Parade.

Pair of sillies
The drive was quiet due to the fact that the boys were listening to their MP3 players, the traffic wasn't too bad and we found a cheap parking spot on the waterfront.

Hello sailors
We walked to St Lawrence Market and watched the people already lining the streets though it was three hours away, sitting there with their fold up chairs, blankets and cups of coffee - they had a long cold wait!

Toronto buildings
More buildings and look at that sky - it's November!
We then had dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory which is an eccentric restaurant which has an old tram carriage in it and huge stained glass lights. The food was tasty and filling, perfect preparation.

Apparently the two lions, outside of this hotel Downtown, are copies of the ones that stand outside The British Museum, London, England.

Hockey Hall of Fame

We found a good place to sit until the parade came past. There were people lined up for miles. The crowds were about six deep. All of a sudden, people rushed into the middle of the road and all those people that had camped there for hours to get the best spot, were pushed aside. However it did mean that our boys got a spot right at the front (well when other people weren't pushing them and standing in front of them).
Many many many people

The boys were watching a window cleaner cleaning some windows very very high up (they were also laughing because he was splashing lots of water on people and we could see it happening before the unsuspecting public felt it!).

Food vans lining up to feed the hungry

The parade soon started. The kids collected high fives. Lots of marching bands.......

Lots of clowns and floats...

Lots of people dressed as animals....

Mounties, snowmen, gingerbread men, teddies....
There was one little incident where some kids were driving these little cars and one of them knocked a Marshall over. She stumbled, fell and then couldn't get up for ages. She got a round of applause when she got up and walked courageously away. It was quite funny.
...........And at the end, Santa with his reindeer. We couldn't quite see the kids faces but I could see them looking at each other. They absolutely loved it.

We were cold, achey, the boys had cold bottoms from sitting on the road, my foot hurt, Huffle's back hurt from standing too long and joints ached from too much leaf raking yesterday.

We walked back down towards the waterfront, stopped at a cafe and had a hot drink and biscuit. Then we made our way back to the car, and attempted to find our way to the correct road. It was tough going because my sat Nav took us the wrong way (or Huffle ignored it) but Huffle used his inbuilt map and got us on our way. The traffic was bad but we got home eventually.

Small had a shower. Huffle and I put all outerwear away and then we played Table Tennis to get warm, smallest joined us.

When small came down, the boys had their tea and we all watched a bit more of Harry Potter.

We attempted to watch the Santa Parade in the TV but quickly turned it off - very cheesey. We had a lovely day today. It was planned well by us before hand so we wouldn't have to walk for miles, get grumpy and not know where we were eating etc.

A year ago today, we left our lovely little house in The Village, England. Our furniture had been taken the day before, Huffle and Small stayed at Grandmas and Smallest and I stayed at Moo's. we told the boys today we were celebrating our first year here as they would be at school and Huffle at work when the proper day arrived.

 

10 comments:

Mrs BB said...

Wow!! One year already, it seems to have gone really quickly. Many ups and downs, as expected, but you hung in there. I hoe you are glad you did xx

We went to Toronto Santa Parade a few years ago and loved it. Mr BB was in Oakville's Santa Parade yesterday with the panto lot xx

Unknown said...

Fantastic photos, looked a Brilliant parade. A lovely way to celebrate your first anniversary. x
.

Mrs Rumbleskins said...

Happy one year. Am sure there are mixed feelings today. Hope it is slowly getting easier. x

Sarah Tomson said...

One year already?! That seems to have flown by hope you are having a couple of beers to mark the occasion!

Looks like you had a fab day out a santa parade sounds fantastic, the spaghetti restaurant looks good too

X

Anonymous said...

Hasn't that year gone quick? Well done for sticking it out, I know it's not always easy. That's a fantastic parade, we only went to the local dinky one with the local high school band providing the music! It was still good though.

Hugs
Brenda

famfa said...

Yes that went quick! I saw a photo of mr bb, camp as Christmas came to mind he he x

famfa said...

It was memorable and yes a good way to mark the occasion x

famfa said...

Thanks. Yes definitely getting easier apart from the odd day x

famfa said...

Time flies.......... Parade was "awesome" spaghetti place was vet quirky with a full size carousel and tram which you could eat in. Your girls would love it. Beers at weekend most probably as we have another Santa parade and meal with friends x

famfa said...

Very quick, frighteningly so. Helps to have regular readers and commenters. Was looking back at a year ago on the blog and saw you were a reader even back then. Thank you. Lots of advice too. Parade was great. Kids loved it x