I definitely spoke (or typed) too quickly yesterday about no fire alarms. As soon as I pressed send the fire alarm went off again. This time in the parking garage and again no doubt someone smoking. The fire department arrived and again declared it a false alarm. That is now 3 times in 4 days. There is no doubt that if a genuine fire alarm went off in this building people would die as they wouldn’t believe it. It is totally ridiculous that they haven’t done anything about it. You would think the Fire Department would insist on them doing something as they too must be sick of coming out to check the fire alarms.

I had a quieter morning work-wise so I joined the family in going to the St Lawrence Market. The market is comprised of two floors and housed in an historical building which has been there since early 1900s. The selection of fresh produce was quite amazing and definitely the best I have seen together in one place in all my travels around the world. Incredible selection of cheeses, fruit & vegetables and meat. They also have lots of imported products from all over the world. If you live in Toronto but originally come from another country then my guess is whatever you want to find you could find at the market. We saw ostrich steak, biltong and rooibos tea (as examples for South Africans).

We had brunch at the market after finding a store selling crepes. The selection of fillings was vast – from sweet to savory. H and I had a ‘Montreal’ which was egg, ham & cheese while K had nutella & strawberry and S had chicken and hoisin sauce. They didn’t skimp on the fillings and so you felt that you were getting reasonable value for what you paid. H & I also managed to find a decent coffee provider – they are few and far between in Canada. After brunch my sister-in-law wanted to buy some sliders (basically mini-hamburgers) as a starter for dinner. They had a wide range of strange sliders including emu, buffalo, crocodile, kangeroo, etc.

I worked the balance of the morning at the flat and then headed into the office early afternoon as I had a meeting with head of our Canadian business and then dinner again with a client. S & K went out to do some shopping and H basically got herself a coffee and spent the afternoon in the apartment just relaxing. I got back to the apartment just after 8pm and the whole family (including my sister and family) had finished having dinner together and again it was nice to just sit and enjoy the conversation with them. They are heading off to Quebec City this morning so it was our last opportunity to see them during this trip.

We had a prediction of severe thunderstorms yesterday but they fortunately never materialized. They are predicting thunderstorms for today as well. It is a pretty hazy morning at the moment so it might rain later but so far at least it isn’t. Even though it is a public holiday in SA today, I do have to work (unfortunately).

Until tomorrow ….

H, S, K (purposefully demoted for some cheekiness last night doubting my ability to close the window in the apartment when others had failed) & P