HOW MANY CANADIANS DOES IT TAKE..?

THIS afternoon, I'm flying back to Scotland after a week in Toronto where I have been performing my Good Godley! show at the Comedy Festival. I had never been before and was really excited to get to Canada. I loved the place, the autumnal scenes were breathtaking, the sheer amount of Scottish people in one place was frightening, but the infrastructure is extremely frustrating.

"Ma'am, look both ways getting off the street car, please," the friendly driver told me as I jumped off the cute tram that went downtown. He was right to warn me: you step off the vehicle into the middle of a busy road.

When they set up the street- car system, they forgot to place islands in the main road for passengers to alight. All very carbon-footprint friendly, but people can die getting to the main shopping area.

There I was like a scared cat running through traffic, my heart pumping and I had to jump on to the pavement while Canadian people laughed and pointed. I almost got smacked by two fast cars, whose drivers blasted their horns at me.

Just getting a ticket for the underground system is crazy. You have to buy a huge card like a lotto ticket, then scratch off a date and show it to an appointed person at the turnstiles. Then another person lets you through. There are so many people doing so many different jobs for one action it makes you feel insane.

At one theatre where I was performing, I went to buy a can of cola. The bar staff don't take the money: you have to queue to purchase a voucher from a wee lady dressed as a barber-shop quartet singer (she was sporting a candy-striped waistcoat and bright red dickey bow) and you then take the voucher to the bar to get your drink.

I wasn't sure if they didn't trust the old lady at the bar with cash. This was another example of two people doing the job of one.

We were staying in an awesome serviced apartment, which had a private indoor swimming pool. I went downstairs with my swimsuit tucked under my arm, all excited going for a relaxing swim, only to find the doors to the pool area locked. I had to find the apartment block manager's office, where two women explained the system to me.

Apparently, to gain entry you have to go down 25 floors to the concierge; he then calls a man who arrives with a key; you sign in, and then he walks you to the pool and unlocks the door for you.

If I inadvertently left the pool area and found myself standing in the hallway, I had to call a special number on the house phone and the emergency utilities team would arrive and let me back in.

The swim wasn't that relaxing. I was scared to go to the toilet in case I needed an emergency team to let me use the loo.

On the streets, there is an abundance of construction going on all along the major roads.

Buildings are being erected, and at every site there is a policeman standing guard.

It's the law in Canada that every public worksite has law enforcement to keep watch. I can't imagine why they need policemen involved, but it's yet another example of extra workforce being deployed.

Just how many Canadians does it take to fit a light bulb? Apparently 14.

Toronto also has its quota of crazy street people. I was in the main shopping mall downtown drinking a coffee (which took three people to serve me and take my cash), when a wee woman who was wearing the brightest coat of many colours that I ever did see and had three scarves wrapped around her neck came running towards me.

She was pushing the obligatory wonky shopping trolley that contained bundles of vivid clothes and, oddly, it housed a huge, broken food mixer.

"Have you found Jesus?" she barked at me.

I gulped my coffee and admitted I hadn't found him yet.

"Well, you must keep looking!" she screamed at me, and toddled off singing: "It's a long way to Tipperary."

Strangely, she was the only person I met in Toronto who was doing one job all on her own. She was looking for Jesus and didn't seem to need any help with that.

MAPLE SYRUP IS ABI'S NEW BOGEY

"AUNTY Janey, are you in Canada? Is it snowing? Does Santa Claus live there? Can you tell him I have been really good and have stopped picking my nose and eating my bogeys?" my four-year-old niece, Abi, said when I called her from Toronto.

I congratulated her on breaking the evil habit that had caused so much embarrassment for her mum and told her all about Canada.

"I have bought you some maple syrup," I told her.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Well," I quickly explained, "people in Canada make a hole in a maple tree and the syrup runs out and they put it into bottles. It's great."

"No, I don't want stuff that creeps out of a tree. That sounds like tree bogeys, and I told you I have stopped all that," she answered.

Maple syrup... tree bogeys? The Canadians will hate her.

THE CRYING GAME

MY HUSBAND had scoured the whole of Toronto to watch the Scotland v Italy match. It seemed the only pubs that would screen the game were Irish bars, but the event was broadcast from an Italian TV station.

The thought of this drove my man crazy and all the bar-owners kept telling him "Goal" was the same in any language.

My husband convinced a local Irish pub owner (who was actually Japanese) to stream BBC Radio Scotland live on the internet and tune into the Italian football match at the same time, turn down the volume on the telly and let the match commentary come from a Scottish perspective.

Turned out it was shown in English in our local and, after we watched Scotland's defeat, the bar-owner was right: "Goal" is the same in any language - and so is the sound of crying.

D.I.V.O.R.C.E. MAY BE ON THE LINE

I MAY have to get a divorce - my husband has recently developed a love of country music. I woke up last week to the radio playing an awful song about Mamma Makes Me Remember.

I reached over to bang the button on the radio to get some relief.

Husband grabbed my wrist: "He yodels in a wee bit, if you wait till the chorus."

"I can't abide country music or yodelling. You need to know that if we are to continue in this relationship," I croaked sleepily.

He has gone a step further and asked me if we should join a line-dancing club . I hope he is joking.

Line-dancing and country music should be a good enough reason to get a quickie divorce.