TORONTO ISLANDS

In the last eight weeks or so, I've been fortunate enough to be able to explore four of the world's iconic cities with four of the loveliest women: Cambridge with my cousin, London with my best friend, Paris with my aunt, and this past Saturday I went into Toronto with my sister. Compared with places like New York and London, Toronto has always seemed rather small to me. I've been in and around the city a fair bit in the time I've lived here but I've always felt that I was missing something. Toronto was nice, yes, but not fabulous - and surely a country's main cultural hub should be fabulous in some way or another? And so my attitude to Toronto has always been, quite simply, meh.

This past weekend, however, I had an attitude adjustment. Saturday morning came around and my younger sister Ru and I had an age-old conversation beginning with the words "What shall we do today?",  a conversation that usually ends hours later at dinner time with the realisation that we've spent so long deferring a decision that the opportunity has gone. This time, remarkably, the conversation was a snappy one, leaving us plenty of time to actually do something. Ru mentioned that she'd always fancied having a look at the Toronto Islands. The city sits on the edge of Lake Ontario and there's a small cluster of land just off the shore, overlooked by the skyscrapers of downtown. I'd seen the islands from the top of the CN Tower (and was never intrigued by them) but Ru said that she'd heard they had a little amusement park bit in summer, and it might be interesting, and hey, what else are we going to do today anyway? So without further ado we hopped into the car and off we went, windows down and Sam Smith blaring from the speakers. 

The first amendment to my attitude came on the way into the city. We were a little overconfident with our sense of direction and promptly overshot our exit from the highway, meaning that we took the long way round going into Toronto and found ourselves driving through a part of the city I'd never seen. There were little restaurants and delicatessens and lots of leafy avenues with houses that I can only describe as Toronto-ish (google 'Toronto Houses' and you'll know what I mean). It was all rather lovely, and then when we parked on the corner of Queen and Simcoe I found myself happily in what I assume is the bohemian artsy part of the city. There was a certain vibe there, and I liked it.

45 minutes and a crowded walk to the lake shore later, Ru and I got on the ferry amongst a jostling gaggle of students, couples and young families carrying picnic baskets and even disposable BBQ trays. The holiday atmosphere intensified once we reached Ward's Island; this was obviously where city-dwellers come as a retreat, and why not? There are beaches, rivers, bridges, parks, bikes, quadricycles, row boats, dragon boats, canoes, fairground rides, food shacks - we even passed an outdoors wedding ceremony! We rented bikes and wound our way around the whole landmass. I kept thinking of those old illustrations you see from the 1890's, depicting ladies with wide-brimmed hats and parasols and gentlemen in straw hats and striped blazers as they row under bridges or picnic or ride the merry-go-round. I can just imagine the late 19th century Torontonians doing all of these things on the Islands: city bankers taking their young fiancés away from the brick and the heat of the city to have a day out by the water. I think that the Islands are to Toronto what Brighton is to London, or what Central Park is to New York.

I didn't just like this slice of Toronto, I loved it. It was amazing to be cycling down a forested path and to suddenly see the downtown Toronto skyline through a gap in the trees. You had that distinctly urban feeling that you were a part of something, yet you were so obviously removed from concrete and car fumes. The Toronto Islands are, in a word, fabulous.

Kitty xx

NOTTING HILL

// dress: Banana Republic // bag: Fossil // sandals: New Look // 

// lipstick: Revlon Matt Balm in Complex //

I've only been to Notting Hill - the pastel-coloured district in London frequented by Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts - once before, one Saturday in the middle of my GCSE's. I went with a friend and her mum to Portobello Road Market and the streets were thronging with people out to buy knick-knacks and flowers, or to dig a bit deeper for some statement antique jewellery. If I tell you that a Notting Hill Oxfam charity shop was selling designer dresses for £500, I think that create a rather accurate idea of what this corner of London is like.

I finally went back a few weeks ago with a different friend, the lovely Hannah from Verman Photography. I was back in England for the month of May and asked Hannah to pop into London with me to visit some much-missed art galleries and museums. We finished up early and so for the rest of the afternoon decided to head over to Notting Hill as Hannah had never been I fancied going back. It was midweek and not a market day (does anyone else have to sing that song from the old Disney film Bedknobs and Broomsticks when I say Portobello Road?), but the quiet streets gave us the chance to have a wee amble amongst the sweetie coloured terraces. 

We shared a late lunch at Gail's Artisan Bakery - including a fantastic-looking dark chocolate cookie that we shamelessly forgot to photograph - and then we just wandered up and down streets, peeking surreptitiously through victorian bay windows and speculating on the price of flats (£1 million at least, according to Rightmove UK). We even thought we spied a genuine Banksy graffiti piece thrown in amongst all the colour - really, is there a more picturesque place in London?

Kitty xx

CARROUSEL

Every time I hear the word 'carousel', the words to my favourite Joni Mitchell song come floating to the surface of my mind...

And the seasons, they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down.
We're captive on the carousel of time.
We can't return, we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.

Quoting these lyrics makes this post suddenly seem rather deep and philosophical, but there's been good reason for the song to be going 'round and round and round' in my head for the last week or so. Every day as a Production Assistant at The Works International Art Festival in Edmonton, Alberta, I've been passing Carrousel, the creation of a Montreal-based trio of artists known as BGL. Made of shopping trolleys and crowd barriers, Carrousel is a fully-functioning carousel available for the public to ride for free. After days of watching it being set up and then having to walk around it, curiosity finally got the better of me and I found myself lining up with a gaggle of excited children to try Carrousel for myself.

The ride on Carrousel, however simple the concept might seem, was rather magical in its own way. Carrousel touches upon one of the things I engage with most as both an art lover and as an artist: taking the everyday or the mundane and transforming it into something beautiful.

I think that there really is loveliness to be found in everything, even in a shopping trolley spinning round in circles.

Kitty x

Two of the artists from the BGL trio admire their work

A WORD ABOUT ACCENTS

This week I've been thinking about accents: the way people speak, or more specifically, the way I speak. The more I've thought about my accent, the more conscious I am of it, and so I thought I'd share a few words about my own experience as part of the 'Accent Minority'.

Living in Canada as an English person has made me acutely conscious of what comes out of my mouth. Before I came here I just spoke how I spoke and got on with life, but arriving here I suddenly found out that I have an 'accent'. I have compiled a list of the things I have learnt since becoming a talking freak show. This list might be a little exaggerated here and there, but most of the points are surprisingly accurate. Disclaimer: my tone is tongue-in-cheek, therefore do not take this all seriously. You have been warned.

1) My accent is apparently simultaneously cute, neat, awesome, and a bajillion other things that I was previously unaware of.

2) Sometimes people listen far less to what I say, than how I say it. For example, let's say I'm sorted into a discussion group in my English class. I start the discussion by getting into a 2-minute analytic monologue on Shakespeare's use of language in play X. What do I get in reply? Not a 'yes I agree with you,' or 'no I think you've got the wrong idea' - no, too often the response is 'Oh my gosh I love your accent'. Oh right. Thanks. Um, back to the assignment...

3) I have a British accent. Ignore the fact that there are three different countries in Britain and that each country has innumerable varying dialects. Nope, my accent is most accurately described as 'British'.

4) To continue the previous point, I've been told several times by people that I can't possibly have a 'British' accent because they have a British friend and I sound nothing like him. Upon asking where this friend comes from, the answer is invariably Manchester or Newcastle or Lancaster or York, while I'm from Hertfordshire (just north of London). So basically it's like me telling someone from Texas that they can't be American because they sound nothing like my American friend from Brooklyn. 10 points for logic.

5) Apparently, my accent is a guy magnet. Speaking the way I do means I am bound to have scores of admirers. I am yet to see just one of these legions of lovers. More often than not, I get the reaction of 'Sorry, what did you just say?' when I speak to any unknown male, rather than 'Marry me, English chick'.

6) I am misheard very frequently, to the point of people asking me to repeat myself 3-4 times. Last year in a lecture I answered a question and I kid you not, I said it five times before the girl next to me to took pity on the poor foreigner and repeated what I said in her Canadian accent, and only then did my professor understand. Speaking differently can be mortifying.

7) I have become paranoid about how I speak. Do I say this word funny? Oh no, have I started pronouncing that word with a Canadian accent? Do I sound WEIRD?

8) Saying words like 'rubbish', 'naff', 'brilliant', 'knickers' and 'lovely' will almost certainly produce laughter and mockery.

9) I am apparently also Australian. So many people tell me I can't be British because I sound Australian. I love Aussies, but I sound nothing like one. I had been in a class for 3 months when the professor asked me which part of Australia I was from. No comment.

10) Whatever I say sounds intelligent because of my accent. Of course I don't live by this rule myself, but it is the general consensus amongst classmates. To prove this point, I shall write complete nonsense - 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious' -  but if I tell you to imagine Mary Poppins saying those words, they of course become literature.

I'm sure this list could go on, but I will end the sarcasm right here. I don't really mind all of this accent-fuss, but every now and then I feel that I need to go home and massage my head with a brick. A couple of good things have emerged from being in the accent minority: I am infinitely more compassionate to others who have different accents and try very hard not to ask them to repeat everything they say; and I have converted eleven-year-old twin girls to the wonders of Harry Potter by reading aloud to them in the Mother tongue.

I leave you with a serious thought:  Listen first and foremost to what people say rather than praising/insulting them for how they say it, for the way someone speaks does not define who he or she is.