The charm of Woodbine and Danforth isn't the corner itself. It's rather bleak with its dusty shoe repair shops and all-day breakfasts. No, the charm is in the bus going south, past the picturesque cemetery, down to the boardwalk and the lake, and the gulls who accompany me above with their reassuring squawks. Like me they have a terrible thirst.

A trail of cats behind me (Merlin, Robin, Fanny -- each gone from this world --) and another one very much here...sniffing the air, eyes darting, tail up by the open window on this lovely and unexpected Indian Summer day.

She said when she took off her earrings at night she'd put them on her dresser or a bedside table. She noticed after a while that one of the pair would often go missing. She suspected her cat but it was never proven. One year she decorated the Christmas tree with her collection of single earrings.

I pulled a muscle in one of my famous soccer legs. Hurts a bit, but it got me thinking. There used to be a restaurant/bar on Danforth called "The Pride of Erin." It was a bit of a dive and its unofficial name was "The Puddle of Urine." Still, it can't be denied that they served the most excellent mussels: fresh (more or less) from the east coast, and pulled from their shells we swallowed them whole.

The winter I broke my ankle it snowed every single day for months. I got to know all the eastend taxi drivers by name and they told me their troubles.

Hail, hail the blue-and-white Danforth taxis.

What is the temperature in Toronto? Oddly, if I want the answer in fahrenheit, I have to check msnbc. Canadian websites are in celsius, a language so lacking in the weather-beaten poetry of my youth.

32ºF

(brr)

I'm wearing my autumn colours because I want to blend in: rust-coloured pants and a green pullover. My pockets are full of woodchips and I smell like rain. People I don't know smile and nod when I walk by because I remind them of the harvest. Little do they know my antlers are clip-ons.