Back again...

Hurray - without wishing be pre-empt my recovery I'm feeling very positive at the moment. After a particularly unusual "tailbone" adjustment this week, I have very little pain in my wrist.
I have seen two doctors recently, one when I joined a new practice who was keen to get me some nerve tests followed by massage and physio which I liked the sound of and another who wanted to get me on the CT release surgery waiting list which is was less enthused about! Both were very good, but thankfully it seems my alternative treatment is actually proving very effective. Things are moving so quickly that I am considering resuming my early morning swimming sessions next week. Hopefully I'll be blogging back at my old rate from now on and not talking about CT anymore!

Sporadic

Not that I mean to keep harping on about Carpal Tunnel and all that, but whenever I think I'm on top of it, it comes back and whenever I decide to permanently end the blog it goes away... So here we are again after a two week break.
Obviously the highlight of the week is Birmingham 0 (or none or zero) - Liverpool 7 (or a lot or magnificent ..... or number of dwarves or numer of times Villa won the FA Cup or number of wonders of the world...) nuff said.
It's been an exciting week really, hopefully our house in the UK is sold, we finally sorted out our visit to the "Magic Kingdom" which is going to be awesome - 2000 miles in a car, Brighton to Edinburgh and back to Brigthon TWICE or there abouts through two canadian provinces and ten US states in a day and a bit. Brilliant or foolhardy? That will depend on Thomas I suspect! We'll have the DVD player although I may stick my fist through after the twentieth airing of Baby Eintstein.
Lastly and most importantly, Ellie disappeared for five hours today into the street, the woods, the gardens, with the neighbours kids, unsupervised apart from the occasion "Are you still there (somewhere)?" Armed only with bikes, helmets and their wits. It's a very unnatural feeling for a British parent to say to his 4 year old "It's okay take your bike, you'll be fine. Come back when you get hungry." ...and she wasn't even the youngest! There was a three year old in tow for the day and Thomas too at times... Of course that's what children should have the right to do...
Anyhow, life in Nova Scotia proceeds just fine... took these pics last week to show what a tough time we're having...

un-wow, circumspection and no punctuation

so a week on and my wrist has been through several mills hence the above title

i type now with one or two fingers and in moments of extreme excitement a thumb but no punctuation - i know this is difficult to read but i like my blog and will continue to churn it out even without readers other than the future me or the me of the future i should say

i'm tired of carpal tunnel now it is stopping mw doing lots of things with the children

that said it has moved on this week with a moment of astonishing pain on friday followed by numbness and then amazing improvement throughout the day

my bowen therapist says its all progress which i tend to agree with given the change in feelings and movement

so we'll sww this week how it goes and maybe will become the moving to canada with punctuation blog again instead of the having carpal tunnel blog without

...and Ellie...

...is now full of beans having suffered a little from lack of attention when we moved in and spent three straight weeks slapping paint everywhere. She is doing remarkably well at skating, already running rings around me. She has also resumed gym club and now seems to be the trampoline demonstrator.
Obviously her mood has also improved now that she has her pink and purple bedroom back and has the prospect of school around the corner... She has three weeks induction in May which will give her a taste what's to come in September, something she was ready for last year unfortunately...
That's enough for my regenerated wrist I think for the first blogs in an age... Tomorrow, the Mooseheads last Sunday game of the season and the "Teddy Bear Toss", pictures of that to follow.

What's been going on then?

So in the enforced lay off from the blog - what has happened? MC started work, leaving me at home with Ellie and Thomas... We've had our moments, Thomas has been particularly keen to extend as many boundaries as possible, but is making progress in most things, especially climbing, falling, jumping and fire building (since we started lighting the fire, he's taken it upon himself to assemble the firelighters in the ash whenever my back is turned). Still we are making progress, he knows what is right and what he should only do when I'm not looking, being caught in the act means a two minute visit to the naughty step on the stairs to the basement! Against everything I ever said about having toddlers, he forced me to install child locks on the kitchen cupboard doors, the "delux" set I bought took him about four hours to open, now he taunts me with it... Well, next week, I'm installing the Cadillac of child locks which he most certainly won't be able to get around as it requires a removable magnetic handle. The cost? Significant, especially as I have now discovered that I have to buy a drill in order to be able to fit it...
Still he's definitely becoming a lovable rogue, never out of mischief, good job he's got a winning smile and uses it on anyone prepared to look at him...

Wow

So my wrist is making amazing progress now - the massage on the carpal tunnel itself lasted probably no more than five minute and was quite bizarre in its delivery (no much more than a stroking of the inner arm) but the results have been amazing - I had been applying gel to numb the pain, now there is no need. I complete a set of exercises every day and I'm even hoping to resume the decoration of the house next weekend - more green to cover up! By back is still pretty sore and the side effects of the (extremely) gently massages have been extreme. I have a four week break now to do exercises and drink water after which I will return to have my pelvis and kidneys adjusted - they apparently can effect the carpal tunnel too... Might sound like mumbo jumbo, but I'll take it over the medical professions "Here's some anti-inflamatories, rest it completely for two weeks and if necessary, put it in a splint..." - I mean how realistic is that for someone living in the real world? My homeopath was happy for me to continue as normal preferably avoiding pain if possible, slightly more realistic when looking after two small children! Anyway many thanks for the Bowen Technique Massage go to Meryl Cook of the Kachina Health Centre!

Still Tunnelling

Well, my carpal tunnel problem hasn't gone away yet hence the continued stilted blog updates. Looking after two children with one hand is really "interesting" to say the least! My Bowen massages are working slowly I think, but I'm still not typing much, so the blog remains on hiatus for the time being BUT will return, in the next month or so!

Lazyboy (and Girl)

Finally an evening in the Lazyboys for Ellie and Thomas, rewards for being good while mom and dad painted the house!

Still one advantage is that it was finally cold enough to freeze the pond so we could skate (badly) on it.

Lawrencetown beach in the cold

Every picture is worth a thousand words... not including in the thousand about this are "It's actually about -30 including wind chill", we stayed on the beach long enough to take three or four pictures and then scurried off to the safety of the car again!

Lawrencetown beach - unsurprisingly empty in February.

Mail doesn't come to our door, we collect at this communal hut.

Deerwood Drive

We've been here a month today and we finally walked to the end of the road today! Here's Ellie at the end of the road...

Bowen Massage...

So I went for my Bowen Technique massage today - given the time I've been having with Thomas - $70 was worth it just to lie down for an hour in the afternoon. As it turned out, my wrist has already improved a little bit which is nice and I kept falling asleep on the table...

Light...

I've done my first bits of electrics here this week, just changing a few light fittings so far, one minor electrocution and a whole lot of pleasure from what I found when I took down the (hideous) old lights. EVERYTHING is standard, no mucking around - all the bits were there to fit to hole in the ceiling. Nothing like every manufacturer having their own design which doesn't fit into anything!

Child Unfriendly

We've had to collect a set of new kitchen appliances since moving in to our new house - the great thing about that is they all have child locks on them! This was never a requirement with Ellie, but Thomas is a different kettle of fish altogether. It's a real pleasure to see the look, and then frown, on his face when his meddling has no effect... That said, he has started to climb on the coffee table to get to the light switches... What next I wonder...

In!

So we moved again... for the last time for ages! The floors are finished, Ellie's room is outrageously pink. Ten days ago the upstairs looked like this...
Now it looks like this...
Ellie's room has gone from this...To this - now with disney princess borders and furniture! Watching: Chris Rock on stage, he really isn't as good as Richard Prior or even Eddie Murphy for that matter...

Groundhog Day, Groundhog Day, Groundhog Day...

Wow, there really is a Groundhog day! Punxsutawney Phil actually does predict the weather (just like in the film). Well, Phil talks of imposters and impersonators and we have our own, Shubenacadie Sam... he's predicted an early Spring over here so I guess the snow will be on its way soon...

Eastlink

When we had our cable connected in Beechville I had to call Eastlink 7 times in order to correct my address. This time, we had cable installed last Monday - I finally connected the TV at the weekend to find out that it did not work in the lounge, yet the internet was fine in the bedroom. So I placed a service call and out came an engineer, he scoffed at the fact that the installer did not check the point in the lounge and quickly fixed the problem as the port had not been connected at all... Great. I popped up stairs later to check my email - that connection was now dead. I wasn't especially impressed... Still this time I had a root around in the patch panel myself and worked out enough to be able to fis it myself!

Blizzards

We went to bed in Mineville last night and woke up in Narnia this morning, there is snow EVERYWHERE! Perfect considering we are officially moving house on Friday. We are in the middle of a blizzard that started last night and is still rumbling on eight hours later. I mislaid my camera earlier in the week, but will be get some pics of this as soon as I crawl out of bed.