To Orillia

We are now on the move to Orillia, a small town sat on the shore of Lake Simcoe. This involves an early 7am start to repack and reorganise our luggage ready for flying. I pop down to the hotel lobby to enquire about the times of the hotel's airport shuttle service. They no longer do this

So thoughts of breakfast are abandoned as we walk to the nearby bus stop to catch the local service to the airport. There is just enough time for Vera to pop into a nearby Starbucks for two croissants, a coffee and a cup of tea. It must be something to do with Vera's genteel English accent but she finds that she has been given Earl Grey tea which she detests, with milk so that I don't want it either

Arrive at the airport, meet the airport assistance dogs to destress, drop our luggage onto the self-service conveyer belt and join the back of the long line for security. After a few minutes we are plucked out of the queue for a random screening of Vera's bag for any traces of explosives. This is good news, as we don't rejoin our original queue but are directed to the priority line

The deserted Air Canada Customer Service desk. They are hiding from the public.

Catch up with some of our Guardian cryptic crossword backlog as we await our four hour flight to Toronto.

The flight lands ahead of schedule, and the bags arrive on the conveyer very quickly. It's difficult to determine the best route to take as the airport WiFi is painfully unresponsive. In the end we take a train to Union Station in Toronto, the Go train to Aurora, and the 380 bus to Barrie where Curtis will pick us up and take us to the house that we are renting in Orillia. Overall, that's 14 hours of travelling

The small house is delightful, full of character and charm, and despite our tiredness a small glass of red wine whilst sat on the wooden loggia at the front of the house seems in order

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