Life in Canada – Cynthia Reyes

A Different World

October 19, 2024February 20, 2025 Cynthia Reyes

it’s a different world, becoming a fairly new grandparent.

Spending time with my “grandgirls” is one of the most important things I do in my personal time. It makes for a very different life.

I sometimes get exhausted with the more physical activities. Where do they get so much energy? I keep asking myself.

But what joy!

In addition to the more boisterous playtime activities – climbing, sliding, running around, etcetera – both girls love reading and writing, and the older one is crazy about math and problem solving. Luckily for grandpa and me, they like our help.

Luckier still, older granddaughter is also crazy about gardening. Fairy gardens in her playhouse and indoors. Outdoor gardening in spring and fall.

Recently, with a little help from us, she planted daffodils in her family’s backyard.

But she’s probably proudest of what she did last spring and the 2 springs before – when she was just a toddler. She is quick to remind us that she helped her parents plant their front and side gardens.

Time spent with 2 young children is a source of joy and wonder.

Because they’re little, the grandgirls see things I don’t, or things I take for granted. Like the worm wriggling in the soil. The ant carrying a dry leaf. A wildflower in the lawn.

For me, it’s a chance to watch and admire my daughter and son-in-law parent. They do some things very differently than the way we did. And it often works.

It’s also a chance to inhabit the world of small children again. To really see a smaller world up close. To rediscover the beauty in a leaf, a small stone, a tiny flower.

I often think about the future – their future. As they grow, their world will get bigger and bigger. What kind of world will it be? I try to not worry, to return to the present.

Luckily, as I watch my grandchildren explore their worlds, life consists of small moments in which they are totally present. It’s something I could do more of.

A Good Home

SHE HAS TWIGS IN HER HAIR

June 24, 2020 Cynthia Reyes

I simply love this review by Toronto writer Lionel Gayle:

Blog Photo - Lionel Gayle and Bookcase - Header Image

SHE HAS TWIGS IN HER HAIR

Plants flourishing in the garden—such a colourful scene. Perhaps it stirred up envy or stoked admiration in a few visitors and passers-by. Everything seemed hunky-dory, they probably said. And the gardener just had to sow the seeds, or plant the seedlings, or stick the cuttings in fertile soil. Plus, adding water if it didn’t rain. A few months later, jackpot! Pretty flowers ready for the vase, and fresh vegetables for the steamer.

Growing a garden from roots to shoots—or by any method—is not so simple.

Ask Cynthia Reyes. The “passionate gardener” shares a piece of her horticultural world in her latest gardening memoir, “Twigs in my Hair” (2019).

She’ll tell you, “Gardening is much more than growing pretty flowers and nutritious vegetables.”

And, let’s say you decided to garden outside of Toronto as she does, prepare yourselves to wage a helluva war—or wars—with wild creatures, including rabbits and squirrels.

People will say gardening is hard work. But you don’t have to be interested in gardening per se to appreciate this book—157 pages of fun reading, and colourful photographs. Take the chance to snoop into Cynthia’s family life, and find out which member prefers to grow vegetables than flowers.

Just promise you won’t whine because the pictures have no captions. And, don’t liken the images to children without names

“Twigs in my Hair” is a synopsis of Cynthia Reyes’ life journey. A journey that includes her dream of becoming a gardener when she became an adult and acquired her own home. From rural Jamaica, where the failure of her first childhood garden broke her heart, she’s managed to forge a symbiosis with nature, on the outskirts of Toronto.

This little book has lots of real-life gems. As you hide indoors from Covid-19, just use the gardening landscape as a backdrop to some of Cynthia’s lifetime activities. And hide your surprise when she talks frankly about her “days and nights of sin” that turned her into “a dirty old woman.”

What she describes as the “conflict of horticultural proportions” resulted in a bangarang with her husband Hamlin Grange (who supplied the photos in this book). But what was the fight all about? And did they ever learn to garden together?

Did Cynthia ever find out why her gardening teacher refused to see her in his last days? And what was she doing in South Africa when the said tall, white-haired gardener died?

And while you hunt for those juicy bits, find out how the mother and wife, who styled herself as “a fierce gardener” reacted when her gardener friend, Les, pulled a prank on her. And see who saved her from the gigantic humiliation.

Twigs in my Hair: A Gardening Memoir

A Good Home, First snowfall

An Early Winter

November 18, 2019 Cynthia Reyes

Nobody I know was ready for this year’s first snowfall.

Yes, we are Canadians, but recent years have spoiled us: we got used to first snowfall in December — even late December.

Blog Photo - autumn - trees on N Road

So we were cruising along, still high on the beautiful late autumn weather when – wham! Last Monday, we got several inches of the white stuff.

Pretty, unless you have to drive in it. And therein lay the rub: most drivers I know had not replaced summer tires with winter ones. I plead guilty.

Blog Photo - Garden in winter - snowy walls and trees

These are wintry garden scenes from much of last week.

Blog Photo - Garden in Winter - Snowy branch

Blog Photo - Garden in Winter - snowy tree and walls

It’s not that I hate winter. I know we need it. It’s just that I don’t like driving or walking on snow and ice.

And that sounds unCanadian, I know.

A Good Home, Architectural Conservancy, Author Cynthia Reyes, Barns, Canadian Families, Country Homes, Doors Open, Family Moments, Farms, Home Decor

Home at The Grange – Part 4

May 29, 2017June 1, 2017 Cynthia Reyes

The house that the Elliott family built back in the late 1850’s fell into the right hands nearly 130 years later.

Blog Photo - Doors Open Nick photo of Apples and Wendy

It’s a good thing it did.

In 1986, the place was so dilapidated that another buyer might have either demolished the house and barn, or renovated the character out of them.

But the Boothmans had the vision, patience — and resources needed — to bring the property to new life, without destroying its character.

Allow me to digress a little at this point, please…

Remember that the Boothman kids refused at first to to move with their parents into the family’s farmhouse? It was Hallowe’en 1986, and with a cemetery for a neighbour, the children were afraid the ghosts would come next door to their home. (See Part 2)

Blog Photo - Doors Open Clarington Photo Cemetery

That historic cemetery is also on the Doors Open tour this year.

It was the Elliott family who donated the land for this cemetery and the church that once stood there — Kendal’s first church, New Connexion Methodist. It was later named for the Elliotts and their neighbours, the McLeans.

Of the two neighbouring families, the McLeans achieved greater fame.

A McLean grandson, (James Stanley McLean), became founder and president of the well-known Canada Packers company. Wealthy and influential, James and his wife built a stately Georgian-style house on 50 acres in Toronto.

They called it “Bay View” — which later inspired the name of one of Canada’s wealthiest neighborhoods, Bayview Avenue.

Today their former home belongs to world-famous Sunnybrook Hospital. Renamed “McLean House” in their honour, the house is used for events — a fundraiser for Sunnybrook’s medical research.

But let’s return to the main story of how the Boothmans saved the Elliott house and created a beloved home for their own family.

In restoring and renovating the property as they did, Nick and Wendy preserved its history, and went far beyond.

They gave it a new life, deserving of a new name: “The Grange”. The Boothmans have therefore created a legacy of their own.

Three generations of the Boothman family — and their friends — have enjoyed The Grange.

Wendy remembers that “one of the children’s friends called and asked if he could get married here, saying: ‘The Grange is top of our list because of the memories and the setting. Is it doable?’ “

“Yes”, she replied.

In all, five weddings have been held here. Son Thomas, and 4 of the children’s friends, all held their weddings at The Grange.

Much has changed in 31 years.

Blog Photo - Doors Open Bernice Photo The Grange2

Wendy has launched a variety of ground-breaking projects. She’s assisted on some long-distance projects too. Born in S. Africa, she’s proud of helping her brother-in-law Mike with a project, led by Nelson Mandela, to develop effective volunteerism in S. Africa.

Blog Photo - Doors open MikeandMandela

More recently, she won, on behalf of Durham Region, the Guinness world record for the longest picnic table in the world.

Nick, meanwhile, has become a well-known author of several books.

Blog Photo - Nicholas Boothman Book 2

The Boothman children have grown up. Wendy and Nick now have 5 grandchildren.

It’s the grandchildren’s time to explore and enjoy The Grange — this home settled by the Elliotts and transformed by the Boothmans, more than a hundred years apart.

It doesn’t snow as heavily as it used to, and Wendy misses the snow. But she and Nick cherish their home, with its “peace and quiet, the gardens and the views”.

On June 10th, 2017, as part of Doors Open Clarington, The Grange hosts its biggest audience: hundreds of people from the area and far beyond will explore this storied home.