Playing Hooky from Housework

Every few weeks it's important to forget about the lawn mower, the laundry and the grocery shopping so you can just take off and have fun.  Last winter, R and I discovered West Bloor Village in Toronto and since strolling is much nicer in the warm weather that's where we set off for yesterday.  Imagine walking into what looked like an average Chapters bookstore to discover it used to be a vaudeville theatre!  To visit the ladies room you have to exit stage left but naturally I couldn't resist turning to look out over a sea of books and imagine faces.  What a ham!
 

As someone who has a designated 'chocolate cupboard' my eye was drawn to a display of Dolfin chocolate bars in a shop full of the most fresh and colourful take-out food you can imagine.  These are for the gourmand with delectable flavours such as lemon and ginger, pear and grilled almond and dark chocolate with violets.  But who am I kidding?  Cadbury Fruit and Nut Dark takes me to a happy place every bit as well.

With Mexican music playing in the background we could have closed our eyes and pretended to be on a hot, sunny beach.  And we would have had to pretend as the weather was quite cool and grey yesterday in Toronto, not at all typical for June.  While these bottles were a feast for the eyes with their summery picnic packaging we found some chardonnay from a local winery on offer at a great price.  You can probably guess which one we brought home.

And last not but least we found the proverbial 'doggy in the window'.  With sleepy eyes this little sweetheart watched a steady stream of people go past the shop from the comfort of a sofa on display.  Hopefully whoever ends up buying it isn't allergic to dogs!

I suppose that my book find should also have a mention.  At BMV Books, a second-hand shop, I found a great deal on a very nearly pristine copy of this.  But first I have some housework to catch up on before I get stuck in!