A Day at the Ex and Tommy Smythe

Yesterday we spent the day at the Ex (Canadian National Exhibition).  Some of you may remember that we went last year when the Kapahaka group came from NZ.  

Basically, the Ex is like an amusement park and home and beauty and everything else show all thrown into one.  The highlight for me was meeting Tommy Smythe.  Now, some of you may not know who Tommy is but I'm sure some of my good friends do.  He's Sarah Richardson's side kick from HGTV shows like Sarah's House and Design Inc.  I am a long time fan of both Sarah and Tommy and their work and it's been interesting watching their shows now that I know what I know about Toronto.  It's added a whole new dimension and extra appreciation of the show.

Tommy was a great speaker, he talked about projects that he had worked on with Sarah both for the show and for private clients.  He also showed and spoke about his own homes including the tiniest apartment I've ever seen.  He had lots of hints and tips and answered some very tricky questions from the audience.

He was pleased to hear that he had fans in NZ.

Most of my NZ friends also know that my kitchen in my NZ house was inspired by Sarah and Tommy's designs. Here are the photos if you'd like to see them.

Apart from meeting Tommy, the day was spent looking around.  Some crazy woman tried to give me a makeover by taking off half of my make up, putting on some cream which was fortold to have amazing wrinkle disappearing properties (didn't work), so I spent the rest of the day walking around with only half my face made up (not a good look).

I only made one purchase - a potato peeler.  You might think this is a funny thing to buy and it probably is.  The peeler is the same as the one I had back home and they are very good, especially made for people with arthritis and the like.

The weather was too wet for any of the rides, etc so the day was spent inside.  Jesse's favourite part was watching the superdogs perform which was very clever.  They jumped and rolled and raced around.  

All in all, it was a great day out.  We had great fun.

PS, inspired by our visit to the Harry Potter Exhibition we are in the middle of a Harry Potter marathon.  Four movies down, two to go!