Friday's child

[ Cleo, Sept. 2008]

Late morning, I went to an appointment at Bloor & Yonge, and walked straight into pandemonium: the first day of the Toronto Film Festival and U of T orientation week. To make matters more complicated, my appointment was at an office right next to the hotel that houses a lot of the Film Festival folk. The U of T students were noisily collecting for charities. The limousines were lining up, the paparrazzi peppering the area, the traffic getting all tangled up. And the warm wind a-blowing.

I came out of my appointment, cut through all of the above, and ducked into The Irish Shop where I bought me an early birthday present -- a whole month early -- but what I got would have been sold very quickly especially as it was on sale. You won't see a photo of it here, not yet, maybe next month. The Irish Shop has the best of Irish design -- clothing, couture, jewelry, hats etc. , most of it made in Ireland, some of it made in the U.S.A.

Then I ducked into The Pottery Barn to look at their sales, but didn't buy anything because I'd blown my budget at the Irish Shop. Finally, I went into L'Occitane, breathed in all the verbena and lavender, chatted with Solange (who runs the shop), before returning home. I used to have a friend back in the day, Sieglinde from Germany who didn't like the name Solange because to her it read so lange (literally, so long, in German). Solange of L'Occitane had exactly the same reaction from a customer right there in the shop. At least, I said, it didn't translate to something embarrassing!!