Island Fun

Everyone was up and showered and sitting down for breakfast by 9am this morning. Today was our last trip before school starts. The boys decided on Centreville, Centre Island, Toronto. On the way, Smallest saw a sign that said "come and see the Giant Pandas at Toronto Zoo". 'Why does it say that' said Smallest. I explained it was to let people know that Pandas were there in case they didnt know. I knew he had been to the zoo recently with school and asked him if he saw the Giant Pandas. "Not Giant, just normal sized ones" he said.

We drove downtown and arrived just after midday and went in search of dinner which we found in an Italian restaurant. Lovely food, average service and terrible drinks.

Cloudy but warm day

We caught the ferry and sailed across to Centre Island. We had decided on a later start in the hope that less people would be there. It was supposed to stay open until 8pm but once there, they informed us it would be open until 7pm weather dependent (it looked a bit ropey and there were a few rain spots which actually came to nothing and it turned out to be a perfect day for a stroll around a small old fashioned theme park).

First we went on the Carousel. A very old one. We always have a race on the horses, whoever is higher up in the air when it finishes, wins. Smallest wanted to ride a pig (well of course he did!). Next we went on a Ferris wheel. Smallest and Huffle went on together and Small and I. Everytime we moved, it rocked. Everytime the wheel went round, our tummies dropped. It was good and we had a fantastic view of the CN Tower when it wasn't covered in cloud. The kids went on the spinning bears and spun him round so fast Huffle and I were glad we sat this one out.

Small and Huffle went on the water bumper cars (too slow they both said) while Smallest and I went on the old fashioned cars, Smallest insisted on steering it himself (last year he was terrible and kept bumping into the rails) he did very well and I said he had passed his driving test. We had to go on this again later but this time he wanted to go with Huffle so he could show him his new skills.

We went on the Log Flume (we didn't get wet), Roller Coaster (small but I did hoot a few times), tootling train, Tugboat, Horror Barrel ride (which three out of four of us closed our eyes, I will say no more apart from that Huffle commentated on the ride as we were going round; monkey, man looking tired, lady skeleton with pants on, another monkey.......), Dodgems but they call them Bumper Cars here (Smallest was too little to go on these and Huffle said it reminded him of driving in Markham where he works!!). We went on everything we could and some things twice or three times.

While the boys all went on The Scrambler (I couldn't go on as last time we went, when Moo was here, it made Moo and I feel really bad and sick), I went to get us a snack and drinks. While we were at the top of the Ferris wheel, Small and I smelt Doughnuts (Huffle said they pump the smell out so you buy them!) so I went in search. I found Funnel Cake which I had heard about (and knew they were very naughty) but thought we should try at least once. It was the size of a small dinner plate, deep fried dough bits squished together, covered in strawberry syrup, ice cream and icing sugar - sounds horrendous, tasted amazing but between the four of us, we couldn't finish it. Of course I had to sit by myself whilst waiting for the boys to get off the ride. I sat by the lake and many boats and canoes came by, laughing and waving, two trains passed and many people. I obviously looked liked a big pig! I wanted to go on the Swan ride (which was a big swan boat, slowly motorised which can be steered). Huffle and I went on one swan and we made the boys go in one together. Small sort of steered and we tried to bump them (which was not what this ride was about at all). We found it very funny but Small didn't like it because his swan was too slow - we pretended we had pedals which was making ours go faster he he!

We had a whale of a time and stayed there past 7pm and then went and walked through the gardens, to the beach and along the pier.

Doesn't Huffle make a lovely lady?

Look at that! North Pole 4000+ km away, Vancouver is the about the same distance and that's still in Canada. This is one big country!

The sun was setting and it was lovely just sitting there watching the many characters. There seemed to be a lot of homeless people about, drunk and shouting and swearing so we moved along back towards the ferry that was just loading up with people.

TOP: men who were far too old to be playing on bikes, they were just there to get attention.

BL : Two men pulling a hobo lying on a pile of firewood. Hobo shouting many swear words (Small kept saying, is that a swear word? Is that one?)

BR : This man just made us laugh because his legs didn't touch the floor, reminded me of a little boy!

Smallest was very tired and struggling to walk or stand much more and we unfortunately were not lucky enough to fit on the ferry, so had to wait for half an hour for the next one. The boys sat on the floor with Huffle's phone (as there was no point in moving from the queue), thankfully the boat only took twenty minutes to come and we were soon on and off across the lake. The lights of the city were amazing and there were a lot of people taking photographs.

Once across, we promised the boys an ice cream seeing as we missed a meal today (does funnel cake count as a meal?). We had to piggy back Smallest a his feet were hurting him, bless he has small legs!

We sat on the harbour wall watching the boats and eating ice cream before walking, piggy backing back to the car. We had a good drive back, despite the many morons on the road and the boys went straight to bed with the promise of having a lie-in until 8:30 as it was 10pm by the time we got back.

What a lovely day.

 

 

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