Well thank god the Conservatives did not win, no matter what happened…

I wasn’t going to apply for our team manager’s job posting that came up, but Mark convinced me last night that maybe I should reconsider as (a) my current acting boss wants me to apply and said when I wasn’t going to that I was the standard to which other applicants will be judged! and (b) it could look good for the future, such as for going back to Canada, that I have been promoted to supervise my team and more. Well I am not convinced I want it, but the deadline was today and I very hastily put an application together. I wanted to talk to my boss more about it but she isn’t available today. We’ll see what happens. It’s much less pressure than when I applied for this job, of course, as if I don’t get it, I don’t really care as I am actually pretty happy with where my postion is going currently. Am not going to freak out or worry cause I wasn’t even going to go for it, and was happy not to.

England is out of the football (Euro 2004) so now everyone is focussed on Henman at Wimbledon…

Nightmare tomorrow – 24 hour tube strike, which actually starts after work tonight. I am going to have to take like 3 buses to get to work, and it could take me 2-3 hours to get in depending on what the roads are like. And they are likely to be bad as everyone will be driving or bussing it! I should take a day off but I have an important meeting.

Canada Day in 2 days, trying to make some plans with Dena as to what we should do. There is cake at Canada House and more as the evening progresses. This year I have some Roots gear my aunt and uncle bought me that I would not normally be caught dead in, but it’s perfect for the occasion.

We saw Harry Potter on Saturday night finally, god the dementors are scary in that! Much more than my limited imagination made them reading the books.

We did a BIG ikea shop last night – hurray! Managed to get a few things to make the house look better for selling presentation (when that comes, one day) and also some stuff for the new bathroom – mirror, glass shelf and little chest of drawers for storage.

Am sitting at my desk eating yummy cherries and killing some time. I have to work late tonight as I promised to visit a group of volunteers doing painting and decorating training to talk about education opportunities from 5-7 tonight. But I get a free curry out of it, and for doing my normal job they are giving my work £200 that I am hoping to earmark for some other good stuff, so what the hell.

I did manage to register to vote in the federal elections, and yesterday sent off my special ballot. It’s interesting, as I was registered to vote in Oshawa, that they don’t send you a ballot with the candidates on it. In fact you have to determine who your local candidates are for whatever party and write in their name beside ‘I VOTE FOR______’ on this little slip of paper they send. Then you put it in about 700 different envelopes for security purposes and mail it off. Funnily enough the Liberal candidate for Oshawa has actually bothered to send me pamphlets in the mail. TOO BAD LADY.

I also voted here so I am really living trans-Atlantically right now. Thankfully the right mayoral candidate won for London (Red Ken!)so I think all will be okay here. And Labour got pummelled in the rest of the elections across the country so perhaps Tony will start re-thinking the path he is on right now. So NOT a popular guy.

How cool – just announced that Canadian director Atom Egoyan’s next project features Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth and starts filming in Toronto at the end of the summer, moving then to London. Sounds like a great story too. So much talent – ah, it’ll probably all go pear-shaped.

In case you don’t know what pear-shaped means…

+ It has largely been put into circulation by the BBC police series The Bill and research indicates that it began life as London East End (or cockney) slang.

+ It probably comes from the notion of a circle gone wrong. A circle is a perfect shape, anything which is clearly not perfect is “a circle gone wrong” – or, in other words, “gone all pear shaped”. (thanks to Google for good research results as per usual)

You know, it really sucks not having internet access at home right now. I just don’t have the time at work to do this blog thing justice. Mark said he was going to sort it out before he went, and of course it’s still busted!

Last night I actually watched the footie at a pub and cheered when England won. There is seriously something wrong with me. Okay the story does get a little more understandable when you realise I was at the Canadian pub eating poutine and wings with two girlfriends, but still. Everyone is really happy here about them getting to the semi finals of Euro 2004, and probably still will be even if Tim Henman screws up at Wimbledon. Haven’t had yummy yummy poutine in ages and it caught up with me a bit…ugh.

Saturday I did a marathon day with Dena – met her at 9am at Borough Market for breakfast and great foodie shopping, then we walked all over the place, ended up shopping for bras in Marks and Spencers at Oxford Circus like 6 hours later. I felt jet lagged when I got home!

The cat has been super whingey in Mark’s absence (missing him more than I am!!) and he is driving me a bit mental. Although I got some revenge by accidentally pouring flour all over his head the other day. And he is still a bit greyer than usual (being pure black normally).

Work is busy and getting busier. I am going to be needing my August holiday by the time it arrives, if I make it there…

Happy Birthday to Christine in Ottawa, cancer girl.

Back to the grindstone…

The computer at home has exploded (well not literally although I wish it would), I have been off sick on Monday, and at a conference on Tuesday! And today with back to back meetings before I go home… well I will just have to update this a little better tomorrow.

Have to recommend this book, which I devoured this week on public transportation – Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall, which is BRILLIANT. It’s about loss and family and depression but not at all depressing. And was shortlisted for the Booker Prize too. Actually I read the winner recently too, Vernon God Little, and I have to say that I enjoyed this book a lot more. VGL was interesting but weird. This one I couldn’t put down.

Wow – we have a bathtub in. Mark worked on it last night from like 5:30pm to 2:00am and then again this morning. The good news is that we can take showers. The bad news is that we have to take them with the plug in and then he has to bail out the water. Gee I wonder how long we will have to live like that. I did keep telling him that I was going to be pretty useless at helping and he needed to get a neighbour involved, but whatever. The old extremely heavy and deadly metal bath is stuck in the hallway outside our bedroom where it shall remain for…let’s have a guess…3 years?

The slugs are eating all my plants! Only a few tomatoes and the mint are unscathed, plus some that I cleverly kept inside on the windowsill. I have to try to save them all now, and probably re-grow some from seed. The basil was growing like gangbusters but now it’s been all chewed on by the gross creatures. Oh well, I need a project anyway.

Thankfully the temp has gone down from 32 to 23, but it’s still humid and yuck.

Okay so I did survive the flight. I should have posted last night but I had a killer headache yesterday, had a nap after work for 2 hours and then overslept this morning. No idea why.

We did have a good weekend. Saturday we arrived in Bembridge around lunchtime, walked about 40 mins from the airfield into the town and checked in to our B&B. Had lunch at the Crab and Lobster Pub, chilled out for a bit, and then did a HUGE long walk around the coast and into the main part of the town. Unfortunately we were too late to shop in all the cute little stores, but we waited around and had a nice dinner for such good value compared to London.

Sunday I managed to see a bit of the Queen on Juno Beach with the Canadian veterans on tv, before we checked out of the B&B, and then met one of Mark’s work colleagues for a coffee (his mother in law lives in Bembridge and was there for the weekend). After lunch we took off from the airfield about 2, and had an interesting journey back. First there were war planes doing acrobatics to the left of us, then we flew over the whole the island and I took some nice aerial photos (including Needles, the west edge with chalky white cliffs, pretty cool), and then a big plane called a Flying Fortress from the war flew right underneath us by 500 ft and we didn’t see it coming until it was really close by!!

Now we are back in London and it is SOOOOOO hot here. It’s like 29 or 30 both today and yesterday, and no air conditioning or wind and it’s terrible. Probably why I had such a headache yesterday. Mark is meant to be tiling but it’s like too hot to work.

I am at work waiting for a colleague to arrive so we can plan out a big meeting we have on Thursday. I am launching a new program of housing estate-based learning for adults, to train people to be involved in their own neighbourhood’s regeneration and renewal. Catchy Labour government phrases there. Anyway, it should be good as it will involve teaching people to be more involved in community activities, the importance of voting and understanding government, and more. I am really hoping to teach some of that. I will be teaching a short course this summer, a few week’s at a women’s hostel, a literacy-focussed creative writing course that I am also excited about.

And speaking of voting, I am voting here on Thursday for the Mayor of London, members of the London Assembly, and members of the European Parliament. I am also hoping to vote in the Canadian federal elections – in fact I am photocopying my passport today in order to fax a form to register for a postal ballot.

Better get to it all…

This may be my last post ever as I am taking my life in my hands and going with Mark in his 2 seater plane to the Isle of Wight this weekend. Too bad, since Bembridge looks quite scenic!

We were planning to go to Sandown, also on the island, for Saturday and Sunday but we realised earlier this week that there might be an issue with the D-Day celebrations this weekend. And there was – we can’t fly to that airport. So the other airfield choice is Bembridge. But is it a good idea to be flying a small German plan on D-Day? I think not. We are probably going to fall into small stretch of Atlantic between the island and mainland UK! So farewell!

If we do make it there, we are staying at the Sea Change B&B which looks nice. The town is known for crab and lobster so Mark will be happy. And the good weather here is continuing so I think we will spend most of the weekend at the beach.

It has been a sloooooooow week at work with most people on holiday so I will be glad to be busy again next week.

Mark is tiling right now – thank god – as the bathroom is nowhere near being finished.

We didn’t work on it at all last night as we went to Canadian Comedy Nite at Canada House with Tami’s friend from Waterloo Dena and had a great time! Do you remember a terrible show called Ed’s Night Party on City tv? The co-host of that (e.g. not the damn sock), Craig Campbell, was the host last night and he was a RIOT. Really funny. And for the second year in a row, I got to see Phil Nichol, formerly of Corky and the Juice Pigs, perform the Gay Eskimo song. Alas no Grandma being used as a skateboard this year. Anyway, we had a lot of fun and there was Moosehead and Inniskillen wine all around.

Better go and make some dinner and do some ‘supervising’ as my contribution to tiling efforts! ha ha

Just think of the British slang you can learn from me!

diy = the ‘do it yourself’ addiction that Brits have for home renovation, including 50 million television shows on the subject, and unfortunately the bodge-it jobs that come with it. ‘Bodge it’ means screw it up. Badly.

Our house is a pit – there is no toilet and no sink upstairs, but luckily there is another set downstairs. The old tub is still in, but you can’t really use it much as we need to wait for the walls to dry as the plasterer came today to fix them up so we can tile them. Except Mark is out tonight, we are both out Thursday night at Canadian Comedy Nite at Canada House, and we are supposed to be going to the Isle of Wight on Saturday (Mark flying his plane) if the weather is good. So this is going to take forever for everything to be done.

I feel bad for the tenants, Liesle and Klaudia really. I can live with it since I am doing it, but they don’t have a choice!

It’s half term, which is a school break here, which means that loads of my co-workers are on holiday this week (mostly if they have kids) and for me means I have a nice ‘leisurely’ week. Well if no courses are running and no one needs me for anything, it’s not my fault if some of my time might be better spent supervising the building site!