It’s actually damn cold here.   Jeans, wool jumper?  check.  Trench coat and umbrella? check.  Sopping wet feet and craving for a cup of tea?  check, check.

It’s a nice enough looking city though (what I can see from under my umbrella).  For now, we sit in a coffee shop try to dry off and wait for Jason’s friend to ring us.

(photo from Globe and Mail)

Meanwhile in UK it was gale force winds, flooding and one bad day for my poor umbrella.

(photo from BBC, obviously I didn’t take this in London…)

Anyway, either way you had one bad storm to contend with.

Unless you’re my brother and sister in law, well then you had the joy of both!! A 24 hour delay in Montreal getting off the ground, and another delay in London as you try to make your way to Italy. I still can’t believe you even landed this morning!  The wind was insane.  I woke at 3am to the sound of my recycling bin doing laps down my block.  Hope you enjoyed all that time in the airports, see you next week!

But it is fairly mild. Surely spring is just around the corner…

It’s cold alright, early November in Toronto cold.

I don’t have much else to report. We might be moving soon, but I don’t want to share too much. We haven’t seen the lease yet and I don’t want to jinx it. We’ve come so close to renting a new place twice now, I can’t bare the thought of having to start the search all over again.

For now, I wait for my lease, pull on a jumper (that’s a sweater don’t yu know!) and watch the MOBO awards on BBC Three. How can such a powerful voice come from such a tiny shell of a body?? Amy Winehouse, put down the heroin and pick up a Banger in a Bap (..bap! see, I’m learning).

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You know what I love about the British.. their sense of humour. Itâ€s so dry and just plain amazing.

There are these two old British guys at work who sit upstairs, I used to sit near them and know them quite well. I ran into them at the end of my lunch. Now I have on a coat, a scarf, rosy red cheeks and a half broken umbrella and those two are just out in their regular suits. So I question them and they proceed to, as the British call it, take the piss out of me. Please picture this with molasses thick British old man accents:

me: No jackets?

Num 1: oh what? No, I wanted to get some fresh air..
Num 2: …yes, itâ€s just so dreadfully hot these days.
Num 1: … mm, yes, just stiffling actually.
Num 2: well, it is August, we must expect it.

me: oh yes, hardly. It’s freezing out today! And the rain makes it worse

Num 1: oh what? this? Just wait until November
me: Oh right, when it will be dark by lunch?

Num 2: No, that’s when the real rain starts.
Num 1: You’ll be happy it’s dark. You won’t be able to see the rain.
Num 2: hmm yes, only way you can bare it.

So amusing.

Today is looking promising too. Look at this weather:

Amazing. And none of this Canadian humidity either!

So… the question I’m sure on everyone’s mind, what are the cats doing?

Mips:

His harness is hidden with his mad furriness.
Now, where is Tinrib? Oh that’s right… hiding!

Precious.

Today I slapped on some comfortable shoes and explored deeper into Belgravia, an area that is mostly residential and for some reason, under perpetual construction and renovation. Perhaps this is a case of keeping up with the Jones’, because every seeminly perfect looking house is being gutted and massively renovated. And it seems that each house requires a large team of construction workers who all love to take their lunches sitting on the curb in front of the multi million pound home they are working on (and by multi I mean 15…). It makes for an interesting walk for me. With every corner that I round I am faced with a street lined with learing men all crouched down at knee level, keen to make comments.

But mixed in between the gorgeous creamy white homes, pockets of retail exist. It’s quite hidden, so walking along these small streets is like walking through a quiet little village. A quiet super expensive village (think a loaf of fresh artisan bread for 4 pounds).

Still, how nice is this weather :

We visited “The Slaughters”:

Our hotel in Lower Slaughter was flooded:

Here’s a picture of the reception as we were checking in:

Fortunately they were able to put us in their “cottages” that were up the hill.

Several parts of Lower Slaughter were flooded:

We wanted to do the “Wardens’ Way” hike to Upper Slaughter but the path was … under the weather:

The Slaughters weren’t the worst hit in the area. We had to turn around a few times whilst driving through the Cotswolds:

Of course The Guardian found a much better “flood” sign picture than I did:

But in the end we still had a great time in The Slaughters:

I purchased this cheerful printed stick umbrella today:

Mips doesn’t seem too impressed either:

Today? Grey skies, very light drizzle and for supposedly 12C … bloody cold!

This shot is of a small square behind University College:

And this shot is of St. Pancras station, very close to our flat:

And of course, our local grocery store: Tesco’s Metro:

Pedestrians struggle through the wind and blowing snow on Bay Street as another winter storm slams Toronto.

I’m not going to miss wet snow and freezing rain.

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I’ve had enough of this winter nonesense. I think snow, ice and all that winter stuff should only be for weekend-short-plane-rides-away.