Thursday, or Thereabouts - FRIDAY January 29, 2016

Deja vu!

Once again, The Thursday post is late! That's two weeks in a row, but who's counting? Well me actually. It's not my fault this time - no affliction of laziness, apathy or writer's block. Just loss of connectivity.

We live in the rural routes and though on a clear day I can see the towers of Toronto from the hill top just south of home, internet access is hit and miss. And high speed is a relative thing. Yesterday afternoon the network went down for a bit - the bit I had scheduled for the blog write. And this morning was stuffed full of places to go and things to do, so here it is late Friday!
Once again better late than never...

While my love was lecturing some 150 graduate engineering students yesterday morning, I strolled "The Mink Mile" - that stretch of Bloor Street between Yonge and Avenue Road in downtown Toronto.

Thank goodness there's no charge for window shopping!



This Maserati graced the window of Holt Renfrew - Men. Why anyone would even consider having one of these in a part of the world that has winter is beyond me. Maybe that's why it was behind the glass?

These shoes made up for the lack of sun...



... and there was so much more to feast my eyes upon. Gucci, Hermes, Guerlain and more

When I was a little girl the Christmas windows at Simpson's and Eaton's were the be all and end all. Store window design has become a year round extravaganza it seems. The 'wow' is everywhere.

But my true destination was the Royal Ontario Museum - the ROM.

Since forever, this landmark has ranked in the top five of my favourite Toronto places. It's open invitation to wander and wonder is as enthralling to me as it was to my eight year old self some fifty-five years ago. It's a timeless gem whose original entrance on Queen's Park remains jaw-drop gorgeous.

Beyond the Murano glass mosaic rotunda two great totems keep watch over all who pass.

Come wander and wonder with me, through the rotunda and past the totem sentries. This isn't a grand tour, just a stroll past some old familiar places.

Deja vu - all over again.


©2016 April Hoeller

Thursday, or Thereabouts - March 20, 2014

True Confessions

I'm having an affair.

Well there it is, out in the open. Truth be told, there's nothing new about this. It began many, many years ago. I was smitten from the moment I first looked up into those gleaming gold highlights. I was wooed by dark mysteries, gargantuan body parts and promises of travel to faraway places. In my university years our late afternoon trysts were soft transcendent moments of comfort and joy. Marriage and the arrival of children demanded only a few modifications of our rendezvous but no change in ardour. In fact my love came into full flower -- at the entrance to THE BAT CAVE.

photo taken summer 1977

And now you know! This object of my affections for most of my life and half of its, is the Royal Ontario Museum - The ROM. My dear paramour turned 100 years old yesterday at precisely 3pm. I am as enamoured now as I was when my eight year old feet first stepped through the big doors on Avenue Road and into the awesome rotunda. The golden Murano glass mosaic on the ceiling still takes my breath away, as do the gargantuan dinosaurs in the new Crystal.

Photo courtesy of the ROM

The promise of travel to other lands and other times is still very much alive and well. Case in point is current special exhibition: the The Forbidden City - an amazing glimpse inside the court of China's emperors - and an especially timely display as we will be in Beijing in less than a month's time.








Thank you ROM for so many years of delight:
      for encouraging me to look up, way up, to see the bigger things in life,
      for giving refuge when university stresses threatened to overwhelm me,
      for taking me to faraway places and long ago times,
and thank you ROM for THE BAT CAVE, which provided hours of shrieking entertainment for our children.

Happy 100th Birthday!

(We'll carry on meeting in the usual place...)

©2014 April Hoeller