A major limitation on growing friendships in London is distance. The city is immense.

Here, in Toronto, transportation is easy and quick. Even in the rush of mid-weekend shopping, transit was spacious. I don't need to allow an hour to go half-way across town, or two hours to reach friends still well within the greater city limits of the metropolis. It helps, of course, that we are staying centrally in Toronto, but even in London, we live centrally by many peoples' standards right now.

Yesterday, we met up with chamaeleoncat for brunch at Insomnia (pleasant fruit smoothie, still like their potatoes) and a bout of Christmas shopping, including an expedition to the Annex Christmas Fair. Friends have shown their wares there in past years, but this year I knew no one. Still, that was no damper to acquiring gifts. On the other side of town - not so long away - out on the Danforth - we went to Alchemy, a store where I'd done most of my Christmas shopping my first year in the city. Now there's more clothing and fewer gifts. We bought nothing, although I was tempted by a dress. Instead, we investigated a new nearby sauce store, Taste: the 4th Sense. I find their subtitle offputting - "A Salivation Company". The store offered a variety of samples on a heavy shopping weekend; we sampled enough to buy our favorite variation for a friend.

Steadied by naps and wrapping paper, we ventured back out into the compactness of Toronto for an evening's holiday event with double0hilly. It was a small reunion of wonderful people, gifts exchanged, and only one of them lived so far away that she needed to spend the night to make coming feasible. It's good to be back.