Crown Point Field trip.
My kids are mad
that we did not buy my parents’ farm last year.
“You can’t have good memories without a farm”, they reasoned. “How about the time I sent the four of you to
Gage Park to scavenge for fall leaves and ginko nuts and you came back smelling
of vomit and I laughed?” came my reply.
They remained unconvinced (they’re playing on my guilt at raising city
kids) and so we set out on a deliberate mission to fabricate urban memories,
right here in our neighbourhood.
It was one
afternoon and as many different experiences as we could pack into four hours,
kind of like the Crown Point version of the Grade 8 trip to Ottawa. First stop, the The Bounty Hunter, where we chose the nerdy comic book
paraphernalia that we would buy for Pops on Father’s Day and make definite
plans for blowing future allowance money.
Next, to The Orange Tree
women’s consignment store where the kids conspired to choose the gown that mom
would try on to pose for an ipod picture.
The owner was very tactful in suggesting that the dress was rather
generous for my proportions and gave me several other options, four sizes
smaller, that would better suit.
Continuing on, we halted again on the sidewalk in front of the Quality Bakery just to store up in our
nostrils, the smell of fresh baking.
Going inside, we bought a loaf of rye and each kid chose a fancy
cookie. We were told that the bread was
made with the same recipe that the former owner, a Polish survivor of the
holocaust, had passed on to the current woman who owns the bakery. Our appetites piqued, we stopped for some sliced carrots which my seven year old
was insanely proud to have packed herself along with other provisions. She even brought a roll of toilet paper,
preparing for every eventuality, which made me think that I should just hand
the reigns to her in running this family.
We’d all be more assiduously looked after. This was confirmed in my mind when we were 2
whole minutes away from our snack spot and seemed to be lacking a certain five
year old. I was relieved to find her in
the care of the statue across from Fabricland, completely un-kidnapped. One more runway photoshoot at the Edit vintage clothing store, a stop
at Earl’s Court Gallery to read about the giant whalebone sculpture, and we
were back on our bikes making our way toward the escarpment.
You may have
received, in your mailbox ,a homemade award saying something like “We-like-your-garden” most likely if your
lawn has a lot of whirligigs. That was
us. And after the judging, we headed for
the woods across the street from the tennis courts at Gage Park. After all that dress shopping the boys needed
to do some serious whacking of things with sticks and we focused our effort on
the invasive garlic mustard growing by the sweet trail we discovered. Then, a game of catch, some guerrilla flower
planting in public places and we were on our way home.
I think we made
the most of our lack of pigs and corn fields that day and as your kids languish in the summer blahs, maybe you could sally forth and
try very hard to enjoy yourselves with your own list of Crown Point field trip
ideas, farmless as you may be.
