It’s a long weekend for us – sort of the equivalent of labour day, and we’ve been doing various things. Saturday I had a great day out with Dena – we met at Borough Market and bought loads of yummy food, and then went and saw Measure for Measure at the Globe Theatre. It was great! I hadn’t read that play, had no idea what it was about, but we both really enjoyed it. I didn’t realise until we were there that Sophie Thompson was in it – she’s been in Four Weddings and a Funeral, Relative Values, Emma and loads more I’ve seen and enjoyed. Emma Thompson’s younger sister.

We got Mark to pick us up with the car at Dena’s student digs so we can store some of her stuff while she goes cycling in Europe, and I made us dinner. Good day all around.

Thursday last week I met Linda and Gina at Greenwich Market for a lunch date that was also good fun – got to see parts of the old Naval Hospital that were gorgeous and have been used in loads of movies. Also bought some nice jewellery.

Yesterday we had a fairly lazy day, just doing a few things around the house, and I was working on a bunch of stuff on the computer here, but today we are cracking on with the bathroom again and I am covered in tile grout. But by the end of today we’ll have the second toilet back which is a bonus!

Haven’t been very good at updating this lately, but have been very busy on something on the old website – will post that on here soon, and something to mail out to people.



Since we got back from Canada on the 15th, I don’t know what we’ve been doing, but I feel like we’ve been very occupied. Work is quiet with most of the college staff on holiday, but I haven’t been as bored as I was last summer. Last week I did a day of ‘Moving into Management’ training, eek!



We just got a new roommate in the house when Klaudia moved out to live with her boyfriend, and now Liesle is doing the same – it’s high turnover around there.



Mark’s sister Liz and her partner Myles came over on Monday. Myles was brilliant and fixed our internet connection that has been acting up since we upgraded to 1Mb broadband, and gave me some good inkjet printer tips (I need to use it for the aforementioned projects). I made everyone dinner and most excellently used a bunch of produce from our own yard – homemade pesto with our basil, loads of our parsley in this veggie rice dish thing, and roasted plums from our tree for dessert. The yard is FULL of pears and plums that have fallen – unfortunately I think the pear tree has some disease so we won’t be using those. I’ve also found some internet tips on what to do with fresh sage leaves, besides cooking with them (brilliant in Italian dishes like a chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella and sun dried tomatoes thing that I did the other day) – I’ve put some in olive oil in the fridge that will apparently keep for 2 months. I will also dry some, and freeze some. I also have a recipe for plum jam so we can relieve the plum tree of more of its burden!



The night before we were at the National Film Theatre for the ‘Trauma’ screening and question and answer session with Colin Firth and Marc Evans (the director) – it was great. Lasted like an hour, they were both in a really good mood and very reflective on the movie. Marc Evans is seriously seperated at birth from the other Welsh Mark I know – Mark Stephens – they have the same clothes, accent, are the same age, look the same, talk in the same cadence, are both very knowledgeable about art and the world, it was crazy! We are going to see Mark and Emma in Wales the first weekend in September so I have to tell him all about his long lost relative.



Back to my coffee. Ooh great foo fighters song on the radio.

Oh jeez I just realised that as of yesterday I have lived in London for 2 years. And a year from today is the wedding. Eek.

Odd to be posting in Canada as these messages seem to usually be about reminiscing about the homeland!! We are having a good holiday here so far. I have to admit that I wasn’t as excited to be coming home as I was at Christmas; this time it feels like we were just here, and I just saw everyone like the other day or something. I think I’ve only had one or two double doubles as well – last time was all about the food I was missing! So far, we’ve spent time with my mum, went down to Kitchener to see Grace and Kristen which was great, I got a bad sunburn at Guelph Lake, we got soaked on the Maid of the Mist when we did the super tourist visit to Niagara Falls, we saw Jen and Bill in Toronto who I hadn’t seen in 2 years, and now we have had the pleasure of meeting Samantha’s baby son Tate who is super cute and smiley. In fact you can see for yourselves.



This morning I found out that I have one OSAP payment left and I am done! YAHOO!! I fast tracked it in the past few months and have been putting about $1000 a month towards it. Now I can just save that money, maybe towards a move over here…



Mark is all obsessed with what kind of house he’s going to buy over here again. We were out for a walk the other night and took a look at a 4000 sq. foot model near my parent’s, and it was the most mental thing I have ever seen. No one needs bedrooms that big! Anyway, I don’t want it, and I am not going to live in Oshawa or anywhere east of Toronto, but it was nice to see what a lot less pounds than dollars can buy.



And in an hour – I must go and shower really – we are driving up to Tami’s cottage east of North Bay to hang out with her and Matti till Monday. On Monday we see Jean and Michelle in North Bay and meet their baby girl Isabelle, and then drive to my grandparent’s in Ottawa. Only one more week’s vacation to go, which sucks, but August will be quiet when I get back to work. The calm before the storm – when everyone gets back in September is when I have to start the scary management job!



Probably will check in again when back on British soil.