Back in Toronto

We left Cambridge on a coach at around noon; we got to Heathrow some time after 3; we hung around till 6 and flew home. Although it was only the 7th of December, Heathrow was all Christmas'd up.

At home, it had been a weird fall, and leaves had fallen, snow had come, more leaves had come, things had melted, and everywhere there was a layer of rotting leaves under mushy snow. We did manage to get four bags of leaves out for the city's very last pick-up of the year. This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago now, but it kinda looks like that now, too, minus the leaves in the back yard!

When we left, this place was a concrete parking lot and basketball court. It's a yard at the local under-used Catholic school. Finally the school board and the city and the neighbours have agreed on something and we are getting a park.

Meanwhile, the last of the big Manitoba Maples on our block has come down. It was not healthy, and the people who lived under it were afraid that one day it would fall on them. People have planted trees in their yards, but it takes 70 years or more to get a tree like this.

And now we, too, are all Christmas'd up. I've put some little lights in a jar. which Elaine called "hipster," and we have the same old stuff on the same old fake tree, so we are set.