We did get home safely on Wednesday. Unfortunately our flight back from London to Cape Town was delayed as Heathrow has a shortage of workers to do things including loading the baggage. We sat on the plane for over an hour while they loaded the bags and eventually took off at 11:45pm just before Heathrow's midnight curfew kicks in. As you may remember from pre-Covid days, I like to finish off with a series of thoughts...

H & I went for breakfast at Sunset Grill - yes we saw the irony of the name. They were much more friendly than the diner we went to the previous day and they had a better range for breakfast. After breakfast, we did some last minute maple syrup shopping and then headed back to the hotel to do our final packing and check out. We wanted to do some wine tasting before we headed back...

We slept in and then H & I went for a leisurely breakfast at the Stage Coach Restaurant (the other two slept in). It is one of those typical diners you see on TV series where the waitress slams the plates down and comes around with a pot of coffee and constantly fills up your mug. Felt a little like we were in one of those movies actually! We both had French Toast with maple syrup...

We had a boat trip booked into the Falls at 9:30am so we left our hotel at 8:15am. It was about a 30 minute drive to the falls. Waze directed us to the nearest parking and we were amazed how easy it was and how close it was. Then I got out of the car to pay for the parking and found out that it required the selling of one child to be able to park...

Yes I know I didn't post yesterday. The problem was simply I didn't have any time to do a post. On Thursday the family went off to Yorkdale Mall which is north of the city but still on the subway line (about 30 minutes from our apartment). H has been googling to find the best carry-on luggage and she wanted to get an Away suitcase and they had a store in the mall. The mall had...

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...

We are all somewhat stiff from the 46 flights of stairs down from Sunday still - walking down stairs requires the use of a handrail - and it isn't just me that feels that way - even the 20somethings have the problem. The good news is that the fire alarm never went off yesterday (or if it did it wasn't while any of us were here). I had a client breakfast meeting so was out early...

It was Monday and so unfortunately that meant back to work for me while the rest of them continued to enjoy their holiday. The good news is that the weather really looked perfect yesterday - around 22 degrees C, no wind and the view was so clear that you could theoretically see across Lake Ontario to the US. For me it still looks like the horizon haze but people from Toronto say that is in fact...

We packed up and headed to the airport first thing in the morning as we had to be there at 8:30am for our flight at 10:25am. Halifax airport was about 30 minutes from where we were staying. We had to fill up the car - fuel is basically the same price as in South Africa it seems so you pretty much have to mortgage your house to pay for a tank of fuel for a Buick...

It was again reasonably nice weather most of yesterday. The day started off clear but it became a little overcast later and then cleared up but the wind picked up in the afternoon/evening. As we had all woken up relatively early, we headed out before the original plan (which was to leave at 10am). Halifax has a waterfront area. There is a boardwalk that covers 2.6km of harbour area. It was about a 15-20 walk down...