The first shot taken in Hebden Bridge since 25th January. It’s nice to travel, but it is also nice to come home. Even if the weather while I was away was wintrier here than in Canada — this much is obvious.
Another railway station, but this is more one of those shots where I was just trying to get the various horizontals and verticals to come out true: and for once I think I have managed it, although is there just the slightest curve on the tracks? If I never said that, however, perhaps you would not have noticed.
If the train from Toronto to the airport is counted, what you see here is the start of the third stage of the five that comprised my journey home: the Piccadilly Line at Heathrow Terminal 5. You don’t often see tube trains like this, and in fact all the way through to King’s Cross it seemed quiet. From there, to Leeds, then home by 11.20am; 12.5 hours from Toronto to Hebden Bridge, via London, is not bad at all.
Sat in my room after work, a strange flapping noise started in the corridor outside. It must have lasted ten minutes, coming and going in volume, before my curiosity was piqued enough to have a look and see what was causing it. Turned out it was a gentleman just walking up and down the corridor in his flip-flops. Clearly someone who needed to get his step count up — yet couldn’t be bothered to go outside. Anyway, the thought then crossed my mind about trying to get this shot through the spyhole in my door: a technical challenge that means, at least, I haven’t ended up with yet another shot of Torontonian buildings. The other alternative was a cheap brown squirrel pic, so let’s run with this one.
You realise I haven’t actually done much while I’ve been here in Toronto, right? I mean, in a non-work sense. The various urban scenes from the city reflect this, all taken within walking distance of both my hotel and the building at the University of Toronto where I have been working. It’s quite an attractive city, if a bit generic, which is why so many movies are filmed here as its streets can substitute quite adequately for those of New York. The weather continues very pleasant.
Time to return to the CN Tower, still the tallest ‘free-standing structure’ outside Asia, and as I did successfully get up it this time, the highest I have ever been above ground in a building. The Skypod observation deck is still 330 feet further above the main deck, from where I took this picture, so this is about 1,130 feet, looking west along the shore of Lake Ontario, the distant towers are in the suburb of Mississauga I think. The CN is basically a glorified bar-café-restaurant, but it does have a damn good view. It’s the tallest thing around by such a margin that everything else just looks tiny.
I was going to go out of Toronto for the day but last night I managed to slip on a wet floor and bash my head against something that was harder than it: the evidence is not graphic on this photo (I’ll spare you the gore) but it was evident enough. I will live but there was no way I felt like spending two hours each way on a bus. Instead I hung around and recuperated. So there will be no ex-Toronto moments on this trip: 12 days straight through, in which I won’t even have got on a vehicle of any kind, unless elevators count.
One thing I noticed when I was last in Toronto was that the city has some very good — and very large — murals. This one is on the corner of Jarvis and Carlton Streets. Yes, the telephone wires are a little annoying but this was my best effort at capturing it.
Toronto seems one of the most civilised places I have ever been, but if it has a seedy underbelly, Dundas Square is probably it. Just these two blocks: nothing too vulgar, you know, like those USAnians do.
Not as exciting a photo as was planned for the day, and certainly a less extensive panorama, but the reasons for this can be gathered by inspection of the top of the picture. The observation decks of the CN Tower (still the tallest building in the world outside of Asia) were swathed in cloud, making the jaunt to the top, if not pointless, then rather less of an attraction than it might have been. But the woman on the gate did advise me that I could just reschedule my timed ticket for another day — which was very civilised of her (some major tourist attractions would have just said ‘tough shit, sucker, lump it’). So I shall return on Monday. And if it’s cloudy then?…. it will be what it will be.
Being 42 