Hello,
Such a joy this week to read about one of my favourite cities, Toronto.
Prior to working there, presenting a TV show called Dinner Party Wars, I had little knowledge of the place. But it didn’t take long to feel positively local.
Toronto is a melting pot of immigrants proud to be Canadian but even prouder of their family connections with Poland, Britain, France, Holland, Greece – the list is endless. With them comes a rich culture of food and tradition.
Canadians are inherently polite and will go to great lengths to make sure you know they are not American.
Back in the ’90s there was a media brain drain from the UK to Canada as the country made efforts to improve their TV and film production.
Many went, few came back. They found a quality of life they couldn’t achieve in the UK: a town house near to work and a cottage by the lake for weekends.
There is also an irreverence about Canada. For instance, Toronto has Cannabis Day. For one day only in Queens Park, Toronto, the police watch while those who wish to puff away do so. The day after, all is back to normal.
In Toronto I picked up my passion for Vietnamese nail bars. At 50 I learned to play pool, and I witnessed the true meaning of a cold winter. The Canadians didn’t invent the Canada Goose jacket to pose in; it’s essential if you’re to survive ab
