Smug-munger

Just how smug is Horatio Caine? How often in every episode does he stick his sunglasses on midsentence?

A word for the godfather....

Ellie adore the The Killers and rightly so, they are a very fine band. Today she was singing "Andy you're a star" and then said, "That's my godfather...." Good girl, good judge.

So...

We finished on the beach and there was still no snow... So we went to the park...

Harsh winter, but where?

So December is amongst us... I gave the kids their advent calendars today, inaccurate alas, I showed then to Ellie and she selected which one she would have and what would be left for Thomas, or so she thought. What actually happened was that talked up the slightly less colourful, more grown up snow man one so that she chose it, leaving the father Xmas on for Thomas. Score one for daddy I think there...
Is December really among us tho'?
Depends where you live I guess, if you live in arctic England, I suppose it is around a little bit with a dribble or two of snow...
On the other hand, if you live in balmy, sunny old Nova Scotia, Canada... just a mo... Just went out onto the decking to check... it's a very clement 10 degrees C (not F) at 9:09pm, I was able to remove by dressing gown and enjoy the night air in just my boxers (thanks to the dry atmosphere), MC offered to take a picture or two, but I think no reader deserves that... So instead, here we are on the beach for the afternoon...

Haircuts...

For years I've had no hair, by choice I hasten to add... So when emigrating I decide to turn over a new leaf and grow some, I envisaged a huge mop of shaggy (unfortunately speckled grey) hair.
Who was I kidding, almost an inch long and I could bear it no more, straggly rather than shaggy, unkempt, horrid, so off it has come. Got the clippers out tonight and zzzzttt, all gone again... Not just me this time tho'. Thomas has joined me in a skinning this time! I think I was quite kind and let him off with a grade 4...

Pictures are back!

Hurray (who cares!)
After many days of bland blogging (double letter alliteration - who ever said I was just a maths teacher) is done and dusted for a while... A torrent of pictures now, a bit of bathtime for Ellie and Thomas first...



Hurray (who cares!)
After many days of bland blogging (double letter alliteration - who ever said I was just a maths teacher) is done and dusted for a while... A torrent of pictures now, a bit of bathtime for Ellie and Thomas first...

Movin' Out...

So I bought a house today, that was easy... We made an offer at 10am this morning, the sellers received it at about 4pm and made a counter offer, thereafter we had a round of phone calls making increasing silly demands, the last of which was "You'll have to leave the climbing frame, four swings, two see-saws and two (big) slide!". They said ok and we got our house. We got it for $245k which is £122,500 in English terms. for our money we got the following:

1. Lounge
2. Dining Room
3. Music Room
4. Kitchen/Diner
5. Utility Room
6. Double Garage
7. Master Bed with Ensuite
8. Three more bedrooms
9. Storage Room
10. Undeveloped Basement (with walkout)
11. Very large pond
12. Two acres of land
13. All those kids' toys

Mais Oui, as a friend says. I'll stick a picture or two on tomorrow once the papers are signed.
So I had a bit of gander (or possibly gloat) around my old home of Hove or specifically BN3 postcode to discover that for the same price I could get some really scrummy one bed studio or one bed (fully fledged) dodgy flat for the same price. See ya England...

The Brick...

is coming to Bayer's Lake - our local retail park - sort of canadian version of Ikea, lots of opening offers on Thursday at noon, lots of opportunities for me to buy furniture I don't need at super sale prices! Stay tuned for Thursday update when I can go through our purchases!

CSI: What's happened to George (Eads)

George plays Nick in CSI Vegas, he had a pay dispute about a season and a half ago resulting in some pretty unpleasant story lines like being buried alive and covered in insects in the Tarantino episode... Now he's sporting a slightly odd hair do along with a highly improbable moustache. The insects were small fry compared with his "new look", next stop, The Village People for him I think.
Now I'm off to watch Horatio Caine being outrageously smug in CSI: Miami...
You'd be right to think not a lot is happening at the moment chez nous, hence the odd post content, I really should get on with sorting out my teaching qualification just in case I can't find a viable business idea, but I think it can wait a few more days. Or I could construct the giant shelves I bought about a month ago, maybe tomorrow...
Ooooh, highlight of the day today was walking to the Post Office, no one in Canada walks anywhere if they can help it but I needed air. Unsurprisingly in the two miles I walked I encountered no other paedestrians.

Car scraping...

Three mornings in a row now I've had to scrape the ice off the car windows, no single hand little scrapers here. Mine's two feet long with a big (three position) snow brush on the other end, it's also telescopic, extending to a very impressive 3 -> 3.5 feet long for those difficult to reach places!
Sprout watch: Sunday evening saw further progress, Thomas threw his sprout on the floor as usual when administered whole. Ellie and MC attacked their portions enthusiatically, Ellie is up to two and will ascend to three next meal. MC had 3 and enquired how many she would need to eat in one go to constitute a full portion of veg - it's only 9 or 10 so hopefully (with commitment) she'll get there...
I should put some pictures on soon, if only I could remember to charge my batteries...

1000 up

1000 unique views (1077 to be exact) since I started keeping a record two months ago, enough to encourage me to keep going for the time being! Thanks for reading my daft observations.

Snow watch #1

We don't have any or rain for that matter. Blue skies and sunshine is all we are mustering at the moment. How you doing in England?
Listening to: All the Things That I have done by The Killers, awesome track, Ellie loves it and knows all of the words, so much better than nursery crimes...

The whacking game...

Ellie has a new game that she plays with Thomas, "The Whacking Game", it involves hitting each other on the head with various toys, it started with Thomas screaming after getting a "friendly whack on the head" with a plastic batman. After discussing this with Ellie, we agreed no more friendly whacking would take place...
Yesterday, again Thomas was screaming, this time it was because Ellie and Thomas were taking it in turns to hit each other on the head with a wooden Noah... Apparently, he really enjoyed it the first two or three times. This time (in my own way) I talked to Ellie and we agreed in a very civilised manner that the game shouldn't be played again. I then threw Noah on the sofa... Unfortunately I threw Noah with my left hand... Not very accurate, I got Ellie in the middle of the forehead... Good job I throw worse than a girl with my left hand and it barely reached, still caused a look of consternaton though. My time to apologise!

Grump...

I don't complain much since I got here, but here are a couple.
Grump #1: All the time I've been coming here the soccer coverage has been very evenly split between the premiership teams, enough Villa to keep me happy. Until now that is... The last two weeks however we've had the pleasure of ManU, Chelsea twice and Arsenal twice. I look forward to next weeks fixtures to see if SportsNet have sold out...

Grump #2: Top Loading Washing Mashines (the normal variety here) are RUBBISH, they use loads of water and destroy clothes. Can't wait to move into our new house (when we find it!) and buy a nice (and apparently expensive) frontloader.

Lumberjack games...

TSN, 4:30pm, Saturday - televised Lumberjack Games, wow...
Axe throwing, men hurling huge double edged axes at a target - this year's champion was highly unconventional, Alex someone or other who throw the axe underarm (would you believe?), obviously this is not the "textbook" method (that would the overhead throw with hands together and thumbs pointing down the shaft) and has the disadvantage of the thrower not being able to line up his axe by sight. He must rely on his "feel" for the throw leading to potential lateral displacement and inacuracy. Anyway it was good to see specialist commentators who have watched some of the competitors develop their skills for many years, unlike the "soccer" commentators who still think there is such a thing as "offence" in the beautiful game.
Women wielding chain saws, the objective here is cut a 16" thick log against a competitor and the clock. The winner managed it in 12.59 seconds, rather humble at interview she explained it was all down to grip and technique and getting a good start.
Other "sports" included (only brief highlights here) the log chopping and the two man log sawing (manual with a big long saw thing), this event was won in less than 20 seconds I think.
Brilliant TV, it's in my planner for next Saturday afternoon.

5-portions

In a rather rabid attempt to ensure than we all get our requisite 5 portions of fresh fruit and veg a day I have been buying and cooking lots of green stuff since we got back from the UK. Having read up on the whole thing, I have discovered the following:

1. A portion is 80g or just over 3oz
2. Only one glass of unsweetened juice may count towards the total as lots of fibre has been removed.
3. Only on portion of pulses is acceptable due to lack of something or other which escapes me.
4. Potatoes are no good - too starchy.
5. V8 have introduced a 75% less sodium (or salt) version, it's disgusting. Still it's so gloopy (and full of fibre), 250ml counts as two portions of veg!

Most unexpectedly, sprouts are becoming popular and as a result I am introducing Sprout Watch for a while.

So, without further ado:

Sprout Watch #1: I inroduced sprouts last week - one for Ellie, one for Thomas (mashed), one for MC (under duress) and a big plate full for me. Ellie protested, MC got it down quick, Thomas didn't notice... A week later - MC had FOUR tonight, Ellie had one without complaint and reserved an extra TWO for tomorrow night, I'm had a plate full! I'm very pleased! Next - spinach. Whilst not strictly "sprout watch" material, MC also ate fish for the second time in a week, this time in pie format, brain food.

George

I got up this morning expecting George Best to be dead, but he hung on a while longer. When I told MC he'd died, she said "You're upset, aren't you?" and I was and I am and I'm too young to remember him. I never saw him play (live) but I've seen the videos, genius is the only word.
I came across him once in 1995 or 1996 - in a pub, where else, in Old Isleworth drinking champagne with Rodney Marsh on a saturday lunchtime. I fleetingly wanted to take MC to over and say something like "This is the greatest footballer ever..." or something equally embarassing. I didn't for a couple of reasons - one, we'd have had to have joined a queue (!) and two, I think everyone deserves some privacy. Anyway, what I'll remember about George Best, that day was the way he greeted everyone (mainly fathers with little boys!) who went up to him the same friendly, patient way. How many lunchtimes must he have spent like that?
Anyway, there you go... My two cents worth for the day! I liked him and if I were still in the UK I'd miss him on Saturday afternoon's Sky football coverage. Some think he was a fool, I think he had an illness that finally got the better of him - he fought it until the end and right until the end his message was "Look at me, don't let it happen to you..."

Holiday within a holiday...

So we've taken a week off to recover from our three week holiday in the UK... Thomas and Ellie have both slept until 8am for the last two days which means MC and I have also finally recovered!
One of the the strange things about emigrating is we have jumped series forward on all of the U.S. TV shows we (or more accurately MC) follows. Not a problem for all of the various incarnations of CSI with their absurdly smug investigators, nor for E.R. (drivel) or Without a Trace (which I actually like). We have now, however, taken to watching Lost, which had just started on C4 when we left, a proper (if somewhat stupid) serial about a plane crash that we could never pick up a series in. So we've rented the 24 episode box set for a week - a tough task - watching 24 hours of TV in a week after the kids have gone to bed! It's not hard to see that we haven't done much this week!
Everyone in Lost is stranded on an island - the men all have stubble as you would expect, but it's not getting any longer... Surely they should turn into beards?

It got cold...

So we're back home now and I need to get into the routine of writing the blog again!
It was a busy trip back to the UK hence no posts from there, suffice it to say, the roads were too busy and lots of people still don't have time to be civil with each other (in the south at least!)
Suddenly it's about 20 degrees colder than when we left - very useful last night for MC's birthday party as we could simply dump all the drinks out on the decking and enjoy frosty beers at -5C...
Jetlag is proving tricky especially for Thomas as he seems to teething again for the umpteenth time. More meaty posts to follow when I'm more awake!

MC's Birthday

So I was up at 3:45 this morning, unable to sleep - the rest of the house rose at about, not a good start to MC's birthday given that I arranged a surprise party with just about everyone we've met (all English) since arriving here.
I told MC in the end so that we could justfiably clean up and rest a bit before people arrived!
A good night was had by all and we were all tucked up in bed by midnight - Ellie managed to stay up until after midnight, having a great time playing with her new friends Sam (x2), Holly and Liam, thrown together by parents who could tolerate England no longer.

Trees and Mushrooms

Spent some time on the "common", a place I used to go a lot with my parents when I was little. I think Ellie and I climbed some of the same trees I struggled up nearly 30 years ago...
MC found this mushroom, looks like it needs a pixie sitting on it...

Wedding Day

So, the main reason for the trip to England, Brian and Justine's wedding... I wore (proper) shoes for the first time in years! Everything passed off with a problem, even Thomas behaved and made a brief appearance in my speech... Here are some pics of Brian and Justine, Ellie and me (dressed rather more formally than I'm used too!).

Hiatus

The blog is on hiatus for a while as we are back in the UK seeing friends, fretting about Best Man speeches and the like. I may post some more stuff before we return to Canada, but don't hold your breathe!