Winner/Weekend with Lucy/Buskerfest

First, the winner of the Annual Shamelessness Contest. Although they claim there were 20 comments, in reality, there was 15 – oh, how I loathe this commenting system. I asked David to pick a number between 1 and 15 and the winner is comment #12. Congratulations, Julia! Check out my Flickr page and contact me at landers5ATgmailDOTcom when you’ve made you choice.

For Lucy, the weekend started great. I got a present involving tissue paper in the wrapping and Lucy discovered her new love.

Then things deteriorated when Janet and David cut her nails

She told Grandma all about it and got a cuddle

And naturally went to bed for a snooze after the trauma

Okay. So. Buskerfest. if you’ve been around for a while, you know how I feel about this particular festival and if you’re new, check out last year’s post. Essentially, it’s four days of not being able to move in my neighborhood and there’s something about it that makes you feel the disability rather intensely. Maybe it’s a wall of butts.

However, I was at a neighbourhood associations meeting about a month ago and someone from Buskerfest was there to tell us about it and something rather exciting happened. Last year, they had a lot of complaints about the lack of accessibility and they had worked hard to put an Access Plan into place. To do this, they had consulted with Pride Toronto which until now was the only one of the numerous summer festivals in Toronto to have an Access Plan. Now there are two, Pride and Buskerfest.

It meant including lots more ramps, volunteers roaming the crowds to spot people using mobility devices who might need help getting to the front lines of the ring of people surrounding performers so they could see what was going on, as well as a designated area where you could go ask for help. So we went to test it out.

There was the regular fair stuff. Like facepainting – amazing facepainting

I found magic wands for the Tinks and we had a lot of fun with them. Here’s Janet modeling how happy they make you

David’s about to grow wings

If you got thirsty – and you would, the weather was fantastic – the City supplied our excellent tap water

And once you’d processed that, there was a designated area for getting rid of it again

We just missed Saurus and I really would’ve liked to see them

but did run into a living Toronto landmark: The Silver Elvis

And there was funnel cake. A.k.a. crack with strawberries. Haven’t had it in almost 20 years and it was better than I remembered

And what about the access? Well, we did see the designated area the second day we went (for more funnel cake) and were quickly spotted by the volunteer who came running up, asking if she could help

Although, once the performance started, I’m not sure how effective the area was

Mostly, it was the usual and now in two storeys!

And Hank’s still doesn’t want my business

At the end, we all agreed that Buskerfest was terrific – except for the buskers, that is – and the funnel cake has given me a reason to look forward to next year’s event. It’s a step up.