Very odd feeling this Monday morning, as if suspended between two realities. The heat has receded a notch or two, with Barbara and Oliver’s morning walk interrupted by rain. Yesterday was extremely hot – so hot that we stayed indoors a lot of the time. We discovered later that it was the hottest July 17 in Ontario since records began. Nevertheless there was a certain amount of pool activity and two excellent meals materialised from Barbara. How does she do it? Rob came out from Toronto again for the evening meal and took back three postcards from us to put in the mail.

Farewells were said around 9pm as Chrissy, JD and family departed for the last time, to much sorrow. Both our children were very quiet, and O was inconsolable. The rest of us spent a quiet couple of hours in front of Bottle Shock, the story of the Napa Valley wine success story, in which Alan Rickman was vintage. Barbara went to bed early, but the rest of us saw it through.

This morning, as I said, things were very quiet. I went in the pool with Amy, and Oliver excelled at Monopoly after watching JD’s tactics the previous day. The sun came out and it’s hot again, but not uncomfortable.

On Saturday, while Chrissy, JD and the children went bowling, followed by a pizza, the four of us went into Toronto again for a meal – this time at Nota Bene on Queen Street. I had a superb Wangyu burger with fried egg after salt cod fritters, followed by grapefruit sorbet and excellent ginger tea. We rounded it off with a walk down Queen Street in the evening heat.