Caroline Stocks on the obvious combination of journalism, media and farming
I’m writing this a few thousand feet over the Atlantic. Despite usually having narcoleptic tendencies whenever I board any kind of transportation, I’m annoyingly wide awake. Plus I’ve managed to pick the one seat on the plane where the tv set isnt working so I can’t watch a film – hence the blogging. I’ve been [...]
This area of Ontario around Niagara has traditionally been a fruit-growing region. It has chalky soils, warm summers and less harsh winters in comparison to the rest of Canada because the lake, so it’s perfect for growing things like cherries, peaches and blueberries (or ‘bloobs’, as us in the know like to call them). However, [...]
When I was eight we did a class project at school on Canada. It largely entailed making a totem pole out of cereal packets and shoe boxes and learning that a moose and a mousse were two different things, but as part of the project our teacher got in touch with a school in Niagara [...]
Heaven forbid that I would ever be accused of having a romanticised view of things, but I just didn’t expect Niagara Falls to be surrounded by a town that can only be described as as a cross between Blackpool, Las Vegas and Mablethorpe. My hostess Sarah and her man friend, John, made the 90 minute [...]
Maybe I was asking for trouble when I took my Matthew Williamson handbag with me on a trip to a goat farm. Maybe it was my own fault for getting so close to try and take a photo. Anyway, lesson of today, in case you didn’t know dear readers, is that goats have a powerful [...]
No ice cream, but beer and chocolate cake (by a tortoise-shaped lamp) – a much better way to get my strength back. I’ve had a pretty exhausting day of meetings with various media types and professors from the University of Guelph. Guelph is home to Canada’s largest agricultural university, so the people I’ve met have [...]
In homage to my chum, Mr Timothy Relf, I thought I’d use rhyme to talk about my stay in Guelph. Then I came to my senses and realised there’s no way I could hope to match the Relfster’s poetry prowess (Sally Gunnell and poly tunnel? Genius), so it’s back to boring old prose I go. [...]
The good thing about London, is that the weather’s always so dodgy that most touristy stuff is designed so you go indoors to allow you to shelter from the rain/sleet/snow. Not so in Toronto. Obviously they’re so used to nice weather that they don’t even have any areas to shelter when apocolyptic thunder storms get [...]
I went to my first baseball game yesterday. This is the Rogers Centre, home of the Blue Jays and shadowed by the CN Tower: I managed to get seated next to a lad from Kent who patiently explained what was going on throughout the game. It turns out baseball’s slightly more complicated than rounders. But [...]
After the Planes, Trains and Automobiles-esque escapades of yesterday (things would’ve been so much better had John Candy been involved), I’m ready to wave goodbye to the US and head on to Canada. I had planned to arrive in Chicago with enough time last night to sample the city’s famous deep-dish pizza, but I didn’t [...]
