Hobo squirrels

I thought Dennis my UK yob of a squirrel was rude but here the squirrels are actually a little frightening. They have black fur and less puffy tails so more 'rat-like' AND they go through the rubbish like old pro’s. They are completely unfazed by humanity often standing in groups and yelling obscenities at passing people.

I have passed several squirrels panhandling whilst walking West down Dundass and Bloor into the heart of Toronto over the last few days. It is a fascinating trek, walking through eddies of different cultures; Polish, Italian, Portugeuse, Chinese. Ramshackle houses become sturdier the closer downtown you get and shop fronts become more inviting but I quite like the strangeness of the edgier bits of town. Is it a deli or a fur shop? Hard to tell.

Yesterday I walked down Parkside to the Lake. On one side was was High Park and on the other the posher suburbia; large chocolate box houses with yellow school buses dropping off clean, healthy children herded home by shiny smartly dressed parental figures. It looked both idyllic and a little unreal as if everyone was acting on a huge film set.

Back at the apartment my friend and I sit through the entire series of The Office to remind me of what I am missing back in UK.
I go to bed subdued and depressed. I have not yet heard back from the various job applications I put in before I left UK and I can’t sleep for thinking about how to reduce my grocery bills without cutting back on the gin.

My bed is over a warm air vent which blasts every few minutes and I begin to worry about inadvertent mummification and then my brain adds some bad old memories, a infuriatingly catchy line from that horrid 'Umbrella' song by Rhiannon and a faint unsettling feeling that I have left a window open back in Cambridge. No sleep for the rest of the night then.