Blue Jay Way

I'm just back from Toronto - my second trip there in a year, and I admire the place even more. This time it was a family trip and we delighted in the streetcars, the smells, the tolerant citizens, the ferry ride to Centre Island and the dependable joy of the Tim Horton doughnut. Even a rather alarming take-off from the airport in the middle of a thunderstorm didn't damage the memory so much.

The only time we saw the locals lose some composure is when we called them Americans. These guys are proud of their own style, and insist that when you cross the border, the mood changes for the worse. They believe their neighbours are uptight and aggressive and they may be correct. They are also wary of the roundabout as a system of traffic control and the girls play soccer with conviction.

Most days we bumped into ex-pats from Larne, Ballyclare, Portadown or beyond. It stopped being a surprise, and at the Black Creek Pioneer Village, a guide with Ulster provenance gave us the full story on how we apparently raised the place on ancestral sweat before quietly assimilating.

We met the relatives who had lit out from the Woodstock Road in 1968 and who were happily installed in Cambridge, Ontario. And while I didn't think too hard about music on vacation, it seems that the Canadians are getting to know the Ting Tings, but still prefer the power ballad. In all the amusement parks, the fun was accompanied by Bob Seeger, Steve Miller and the ever-bleating Pat Benatar. I have made a mental note to track down 'Roller' by April Wine, which sounded tremendous on the old radio station.

My cousin Steve told me to read Life Of Pi by Yann Martel, that it might ease my dislike of safari parks and zoos. With beautiful serendipity, it appeared on the shelf of a second hand bookstore two days later. And so it became my holiday read, consumed on Wasaga Beach as I marvelled about the shipwreck, the Bengal tiger, the cannibalism and the magic of a well-driven fable.