Canada

Once upon a time my family took me travelling, we went all sorts of places and gave me the slight itchy wanderlust in the soles of my feet. We visited family; nana was in Canada where there were mosquitoes in summer, wolves in winter and she looked after her horse Flicka all year round. The insects loved my blood, especially the night that my mosquito net was broken - i hated it, lying in the dark and listening for them - i wondered if there was one inside my ear. Her garden was full of flowers and i remember the sun, particularly the day we went to the safari and she didn't have air conditioning in her car and there were monkeys on the roof snapping pieces of car off so the windows were tightly shut. I was clicking pictures of the deer even though she told me they were pests and lived in New Zealand too, just as the monkey broke off the car in front's antennae.

We went to the local play area which was a swing on the dusty dirt ground, we were more interested in the rocks on the ground, we would hit them on one another and occasionally they would crack and the inside was full of black crystal. One night we went to a medieval knights show in Toronto, it was really nice - the audience was sectioned off into knights to support and were given crowns to wear in their colours. It so happened that the knight were the supporting, the black and white, won the tournament and so was handed flowers to girls in the crowd (i was so close to having a flower i thought) however... he then had chose a little princess: It was me. I walked through the crowd to sit up beside the 'king and queen' and watch the final battle while wearing a little sash, didn't really take it in as i'm not used to being chosen. What i find amusing now was that i began acting along (eight years old of course) and played along with expressions of fear and horror on my face whenever my knight was under attack - the queen then asked me if i was okay as i must have looked as if i were in pain. Oh dear, such an awkward child

Niagara falls is enormous, we were told tales of people surviving going over it in barrels and such - there weren't that many stories.

Unusual idea for a Autumn/Winter gathering of friends, make hot spiced pumpkin soup from a pumpkin and then place it back inside the for fun pumpkin to keep it warm.