An analog life

From the other side of the world

2008-12-06T01:27:00.004-05:00

We're now on an island in the middle of the Pacific, and Spain seems like another life away. In the course of a week I was in Barcelona, Oxford, London, Toronto, Kingston and then Maui. It was the longest week of my life somehow, and I still feel a little bit disorientated. We're settling into island life pretty quickly, and as we've been here several times before, we're enjoying just being, rather than running around to pack in all the sights and activities. Also, we're a bit burnt out.

I haven't yet gotten nostalgic for Spain, or England, or Europe in general, though that's probably because I feel like I'm just home for the holidays, and haven't quite grasped that I won't be returning in January. We spent all of our Spain time in Catalonia, so we've got a good handle on that part of the country (though not, sadly, the language). The rest of Spain I hope to explore on another adventure. Catalonia, though, is a really interesting place - lots of history, lots of cultural distinctions from the rest of Spain, and even a separatist movement. One great Catalan tradition is human tower - or castell - building. (Wikipedia link here.) It's incredible to watch - though nerve-wracking! There are teams throughout Catalonia - every town or even neighbourhood has one - and they compete at big tournaments that get televised. Sometimes on weekends, a few teams will meet up for a sort of friendly 'tower-off'. There is always a marching band that plays them into the square where they build the towers (and plays as the higher levels of the tower are built), and the crowds cheer them on.

Team members are all ages and genders, and they wear uniforms of loose white trousers, a waist sash, a shirt in their team colour and often a bandanna. There are always tiny children, who scramble like monkeys up the bodies of their larger teammates to the very top. Apparently they only just recently started wearing the helmets after a child was killed. Sometimes a child will lose his or her nerve while halfway up the tower, and it's heartbreaking to see them struggle with themselves, deciding whether they can do it or not while their quickly tiring teammates desperately urge them on. It reminds me of an ill-fated high-diving-board attempt I made once when I was a kid. Only I wasn't then responsible for the success or failure of a fifty-strong team.

We went to watch a tower meet in Gracia, a neigbourhood in the north part of Barcelona. Jeff knew one of the participants. He told us that it's rare for anyone to get an injury that takes longer than a week to heal. Yikes. The patience, strength and steadiness that this activity requires, not to mention the nimbleness of the small folk at the top, is remarkable to witness. Because the people at the bottom get shakier and shakier the longer the tower is up, the process of building it is swift and methodical, and the people climb up and then back down with incredible speed. There are lots of different kinds of towers - ones built with circles of four people grasping arms, standing on the shoulders of the circle under them, ones with only two people on each tier, and, most incredibly, the ones where just one person stands on the shoulders of the person below. Here are a few photos from the meet we went to.
Here you can see the hands of the people making up the base of the tower. They support the climbers and also catch people who fall. They are at three storeys now, and the people who will make up the higher stories wait in a row to climb the shoulders of their teammates as the tower gets higher (note the decreasing sizes).

Here you can see the little kid who is going all the way up to the top start climbing up - she's wearing the helmet.

The top child just needs to get up to the top and hold up one arm - she doesn't need to let go with both hands and stand upright. I missed snapping the big moment as I was mesmerized - but in this photo she's nearly there.

I might work through a bit more of a Spain backlog in the next few weeks. Around lying on the beach, snorkeling and drinking pina coladas, that is.

Random observations of a tourist pretending to be a local

2008-11-13T15:45:00.007-05:00

I have noticed lots of facial piercings on the youthful folks here. You would be forgiven for thinking it's 1993.

Yesterday as I was approaching our building from the opposite direction I saw a grocery delivery person park his van a whole block away (there's no good street parking), wheel a big cart full of grocery bins over the uneven and sometimes missing paving stones to the door of our building, struggle through the door and, leaving the cart at the bottom, make the first of several trips up the five flights of stairs to our downstairs neighbours. As those particular neighbours are neither elderly nor infirm, I thought it cruel of them. I can't imagine how grocery delivery works in the old parts of town where the streets are too narrow for cars. Well, I can imagine, and I hope they get good tips.

Butane sellers roll carts stacked with tanks of gas around the streets, banging on them loudly with a piece of metal pipe to get peoples' attention. People lean out of windows to call them to stop, then run down to buy a tank.

The stairwell of our building is decrepit: the paint is peeling, the lighting is intermittent, the floor tiles are broken and chunks are missing, an entire pane of glass is missing - as well as the corresponding part of the frame - from the window on our floor, leaving the window hanging slightly ajar. Despite all this, someone comes to wash the floors and windows in the stairwell every few weeks.

Women of a certain age wear these kind of house apron things when at home. They roll up the outside blinds of their flat every morning one at a time. Then they energetically scrub windows and shake carpets, hang out the washing, have conversations from one balcony to another even if it's across a street or an alleyway, and generally exhaust me with their boundless activity. They are also no slouch at climbing hills and stairs, no matter how pinching and uncomfortable their shoes may look.

Apparently, for the locals, winter has arrived. Jeff and I are the only people in our entire block still sitting out on the terrace in the morning over breakfast - granted we wear sweaters now. (Occasionally this one guy comes out for a cigarette, stares across at us balefully while he smokes it, then disappears back inside his flat. He used to sit outside of an evening, having loud conversations on his mobile phone.)

Milk isn't a big thing here. Some grocery stores don't even keep any refrigerated milk in stock - you can only buy tetra-packed milk, which is kind of gross. We also noticed this when we were travelling in Croatia. I like discovering what things I've taken for granted based on my background that are actually far from standard. Doesn't this make you wonder about the Canada Food Guide? Probably nothing but propaganda for the dairy farmers and beef farmers, and possibly the wheat farmers too.

On a related note, I have never seen skimmed milk in any stores, yet when I request it at Starbucks they cheerfully comply. Or do they? Where can they be getting that milk? Or do they think I couldn't tell the difference? Wait, could I tell the difference?

I am too tall, too wide of waist, too large of foot, wrist and hand, for the clothing or jewelry sold here. Today I was in a store that organized rings by size and had to nearly dislocate my own finger, smiling innocently through the pain, in order to get a size XL ring off.

Approximately half the apartments in our building are empty. We wondered about that (it's kind of freaky), so Jeff asked around at work and apparently it's the same across the city. Several years ago there was a loophole where you could hide your money in property (so as not to pay taxes, presumably), but the loophole closed leaving people with apartments they couldn't sell without making that money visible again. And owners don't want to rent because if a renter decides to stay you can't ever get them out - there's no law to back you up. A few weeks ago the apartment across the hall was opened and people were taking photos of it - I peeked inside and the flooring, walls and wiring looked like it had last been occupied in 1979. I gather that there is - perhaps in part a consequence - a bit of a housing shortage here and many people are being priced out of the central areas of the city.

When there is a loud party in continental Europe and you can hear obnoxious drunk guys smashing beer bottles and yelling along to music, the music is more likely to be something like The Cure than, say, Kid Rock. (I saw a whole balcony full of boorish guys dancing along to 'Friday I'm in Love' last weekend.)

There are brightly coloured feral parakeets in the parks here. And people like to keep birds in cages on their balconies so you always hear birdsong. Though someone on our block has a tone-deaf bird that sounds more like a goose.

I love cities where you can walk and walk and walk and keep coming to new neighborhoods with different atmospheres and people. Barcelona is a great city for walking. I'm going to miss that quite a bit - I feel like I've only scratched the surface.

A welcome dose of the girly stuff

2008-10-21T16:28:00.004-04:00

I just had a friend visit from Oxford and we browsed Sephora, lounged with expensive cocktails on cushion-covered beds at a beach bar, ordered ridiculously rich chocolatey desserts at restaurants, bought magazines and enjoyed being spectators at the fashion parade that is Barcelona. Fun stuff! We also discovered a store that is in close contention with Liberty for my favorite store ever. It's called Vinçon, it's in an opulent turn-of-the-century apartment building, and it's a dream.
I've seen lots of fantastic shoes, though always on people's feet rather than in a shop. Not that I have luggage space for more shoes (despite having sent several pairs home I have somehow still ended up with six pairs here in Spain), but I'm inspired. I've also noticed that women in particular wear really bright and groovy specs. If a person is wearing bright red and purple glasses - especially if they are also wearing sort of bohemian-rocker attire - then they are almost certainly local. If they are wearing comfortable sandals and any sort of backpack, especially on their front, they're tourists of course. I don't wear a backpack across my chest, but I will never emulate the effortless cool of Europeans. At least looking a bit like a tourist makes people more understanding when I am butchering their language.

Now of semi-fixed address but apparently unable to receive mail

2008-10-20T14:52:00.005-04:00

We're living it up in Barcelona now. For me it feels like an extension of our travels as I can't get beyond feeling like a tourist, except every now and then I do some freelance work or clean the flat, which adds a pinch of normalcy. I expect, given that Jeff has an hour commute to the office each day, he feels more like the holiday is over.
We have a flat in the Eixample, which has turned out to be better than we expected in many ways. It has a lovely back terrace off the bedroom, on which we eat breakfast every morning while enjoying the multi-channel soap opera that the neighbouring terraces provide. The flat also has doors opening onto precarious balconies over the noisy boulevard out front, and you can see the mountains from there. It has high ceilings, wood floors and lots of space. It has a washing machine and dishwasher (SCORE!). However, this being an old building, there are quirks too. Every room has a door that must be closed at all times or drafts slam them shut - and I'm too nervy to handle being startled several times a day. There is no lift in the building and we're at the top, six high-ceilinged floors up. Some of the rooms look out onto really narrow little light wells, so as to have a window of sorts, and sound from other flats carries up in strange and at times alarming ways. The shower oscillates at whim between scalding and freezing. We are not entitled to access the mailbox for our flat, and as we have trouble communicating with the agent (we are trying to pick up Spanish but my linguistically challenged brain keeps defaulting to French) we haven't bothered to ask about it.
In any event, we (or rather Jeff) did really well for having chosen a flat over the internet, sight unseen, and the location is as good as I could have hoped - walking distance to just about anywhere central including the beach. I managed to overcome a formidable language barrier to join a gym, and now face a bit of a cultural barrier given that I don't see too many other women working out in old gym shorts and baggy t-shirts. Neither do they appear to sweat - a faint glow is as good as it gets, and I seem to be a foot taller than everyone including most of the men. However, I have never in my life made working out look glamorous or effortless, so nothing new there.
So I really like the city, and I'm really glad to be here for a bit, but I do miss having friends about. And perhaps, very VERY occasionally, I miss having a real job - or at least the financial security. We are on very limited bandwidth (long story), but I'll try to post some more photos soon both from our blissful month of travel and from BCN. Boy, all it takes to get me blogging again is a work deadline ... procrastinate, procrastinate ...
Here's Jeff having a leisurely Sunday breakfast on our terrace, reading the international edition of the Saturday Guardian (sadly it doesn't come with the magazine part and costs a small fortune).

Currently of no fixed address

2008-08-30T13:39:00.003-04:00

I'm sitting in the middle of piles of half-packed suitcases and boxes, looking at that last batch of stuff - you know, the odds and ends you put aside to decide whether to keep them or toss them. As it is we have a rather embarrassingly large collection of stuff to get home - and honestly I think it will be physically beyond us to manage it all. I think perhaps we tried too hard to replicate our lifestyle back home in terms of having some good kitchen gadgets and a reasonable-sized wardrobe and library and in my case lots of shoes. These are the sorts of things you'd normally do without when living abroad for a short time, but we never knew how long we'd be here, and it's been over two and a half years. Sigh. And that's quite apart from all the cleaning. However, one way or another, tomorrow morning we will be leaving for the airport. A holiday could not be more welcome at this point!

Well thank goodness for that.

2008-08-26T20:07:00.003-04:00

The weekly ASBO report in the Oxford Journal, where various panhandlers and attention-deprived adolescents are written up like hardened criminals. Unintentionally amusing stuff. (Definition of ASBO here.)

The music issue (semi-annual)

2008-08-22T15:30:00.017-04:00

So many things I've meant to write about, and, much like the English summer, it's been a bit of a washout over the past few months. One of the things I planned on posting about was the Cornbury Festival back in early July. We decided we couldn't leave this green isle without experiencing the tradition that is the British summer music festival. However, as we are now old, we selected the one we thought would have the cleanest porta-potties and then bought a single-day pass so we would have the Sunday to recover from the uncharacteristic excitement. (All our camping gear is in Canada, anyway.) We rented a car and drove out to the Cotswolds to the grounds of a stately home, where the festival is held. After the most ridiculous goose chase to find it (hippies aren't exactly great with signage and organization) we parked in a field torn asunder by the Land Rovers of the wealthy.

We followed other people streaming in on a roundabout path through a woods, down a hill and over a bridge, where we were met by a man who said that, in spite of the complete absence of signs to this effect, we were meant to have exchanged our tickets for wristbands back at the car park. (Like I said, hippies are lovely folk but not terribly organised.) Swallowing our spleen as we didn't want to harsh out the peace and love vibe, we went back over the bridge and up the hill and through the woods, claimed our wristbands, and finally, finally, crested the final hill into the event. We were just in time to hear (3 of the original 4) Bangles perform 'Manic Monday'. They weren't bad, and have certainly been doing their pilates - you'd never guess they've been around so long. After that show, we wandered around the patchouli-scented stalls and snickered at the Pimm's Bus (staple of the summer festival) and the huge lineup at the Tea Tent (ahh, Britain). There were lots of families, which was fun for people-watching. The boys did their thing - large inflatable weapons were quite popular.

And the girls did their thing. Tutus and fairy wings were in abundance.

Near the second stage was the stately home itself, where a real live English Lord lives. Lord Rotherwick, in fact. I know this because, back when we were taking part in the project to locate England's ancient trees, he wrote us a very snooty letter about why we were Most Certainly Not welcome to wander off the trails in His Forest in search of venerable arboreal specimens. So I was quite pleased to see they had situated the porta-potties right outside his front door.

On the second stage we saw Mick Jones, formerly of The Clash, play with his new band called something like Carbon Silicon. Or Silicon Carbon? They were obviously rather forgettable, but further confirmed the vintage of person at whom this festival was aimed (and we are not far off that age). Before long it was time for the fabulous Toots and the Maytals, whose sunny reggae was accompanied by a drizzling rain.

After this we sussed out the various multi-ethnic food options (another reason to choose a festival for the middle-aged - decent food). As I have been dearly missing the Caribbean Roti Palace in Toronto, where I used to eat at least three times a week, I made a beeline for a stall that set my heart racing with those four blessed letters. We waited in line, only to be told that they were out of the wraps to make roti. Blinking away tears of disappointment, I made do with curry and rice. The sky grew menacing, and as I ate my meal a gust of wind quite literally upended the flimsy paper plate all over my lap and the ground. Some people next to me laughed until another gust knocked over their margaritas. Then it really started raining, and it was still two hours before Paul Simon went onstage. So we walked all the way back to the car and sat inside for an hour and a half watching the rain lash against the windows and listening to the live broadcast of the festival on Radio 1. When the radio announced that Paul's cortege of dark grey Mercedes Benzes had arrived at the festival (guess he is no longer bohemian enough to hang out and eat veggie sausages with the festival-goers - or he just decided the weather was too shite), we hauled on sweaters, waterproofs and wellies and set out in the blustery, rainy and now darkening night, reminding ourselves that it was the weekend and we were Having Fun. When Paul Simon went onstage, I had trouble spotting him. I had heard he was short, but really he is truly tiny. All I could see above the heads in front of me was his hat so I contented myself with watching his taller bandmates and occasionally holding my camera up to snap photos of what I was missing.

It was a great show. He played almost everything you'd want to hear - Simon and Garfunkel songs like The Only Living Boy in New York (one of our faves) as well as songs from Graceland. I had an unlikely moment of bliss as I danced around in a cold, wet and muddy field in July, in a resolutely cheerful crowd too similarly uncool to care that I actually can't dance, all of us wearing ridiculous head-to-toe raingear configurations, and I know I sometimes complain about this country but it was a moment of pure Englishness and why I love the place so much. On the way back to the car I turned to look back through the raindrops on my glasses (all the better to see tiny Paul Simons with) at the mass exodus behind me. Lit up by strings of lanterns on poles, umbrellas of all the colours of the rainbow flowed down the hill, across the bridge over the estate ponds and back up the hill to where I had momentarily stopped. It was breathtakingly beautiful. (Then Paul Simon's Mercedes Benzes nearly ran us down as they beat a hasty retreat.) As we hiked back up to the parking lot past all the forlorn, sodden tents of those who were staying the whole weekend, on our way to a nice dry car and ultimately a nice dry bed, I felt an enormous sense of well-being.

We haven't had much other musical activity this summer, besides a winning a capella performance (and I NEVER thought I'd find an a capella performance winning) by Out of the Blue, a troupe of utterly charming Oxford students who perform the loveliest version of a a great old Hunters and Collectors song:
Throw Your Arms Around Me
I really suggest you watch that video clip. Everything, including the 'drums', is done with voices (you can see the guy on the right beat-boxing). And aren't they just the cutest things? I want to pinch their rosy cheeks and ruffle their tousled hair and take them home as pets. If I were seventeen I'd have been completely head-over-heels in love.

Two nights ago we hung out with the 21-year-old hipsters at an MGMT show, which will be our last live music event in Oxford. I really like the old Oxford Zodiac, now the Carling Academy, and we've seen some great shows there. MGMT was pretty fun, though with only one album the repertoire was a bit limited and there were moments of endless prog-rock guitar noodling that might have sounded cool if you were really stoned but otherwise approached Spinal Tap proportions. However, you can't deny that Time to Pretend has been one of the year's anthems here. Even Noel Gallagher likes it. (I also like the song Kids. Yes, they have odd videos.)

So there you have a belated update of sorts. I've been so lax about writing lately, and haven't even been putting photos on Flickr though I've taken loads. The next week won't be great for writing either as it's going to be a crazy (and emotional) last week in Oxford. Then we have a one-way ticket to Dubrovnik next Sunday. We'll work our way up through Croatia and Slovenia, then around and across Italy, and be back in Oxford for two days at the end of September. Then we move to Barcelona for two months. Sounds like we'll be back in Canada for Christmas, possibly to stay for a while. Things feel very strange now, and I'm going to miss this place and these people so very very very much, and it's late and now I've made myself melancholy and sentimental. Time to go eat ice cream and listen to my happy song.
Five Years Time by Noah and the Whale

Movin' on up, movin' on out

2008-08-18T14:44:00.004-04:00

We've just sold our futon (high fives all around, cos that was a big headache), and the process of uprooting and upheaval begins all over again. We're selling everything we can, planning how to throw stuff out given intermittent rubbish collection, and trying to decide how much we can reasonably keep, just like when we left Toronto. Though this time, it's not just a question of jamming things into a station wagon for a trip back to the storage locker that is my parents' house in Kingston (thanks, guys!), but of jamming things into suitcases in the face of an ever-decreasing overseas weight allowance. I think of little else at the moment, and every time I pick something up, I find myself speculatively weighing it in my hand. I guess it's good to have something to occupy my time besides the Olympics, which is my other main pastime.

Actually, I've got lots to do, including some freelance editing work and waiting on Jeff hand and foot (let's see if he still bothers to read this), so I'm a bit worried about wrapping up every detail of our lives here in less than two weeks. Especially given how unhelpful (dare I say, unknowledgeable) the bank, inland revenue and the county council have thus far been. In fact, every telephone call has been an exercise in frustration, whether trying to get carpet cleaning quotes ('Well, love, I'll neither be the cheapest nor the most expensive, that's what I can tell you.'), trying to cancel my gym membership ('Just phone the number on the front of the card.' 'Uh, you want me to dial my membership number?'), or trying to find out why rubbish hasn't been collected at the flat in weeks ('Is that a new building? We don't have any record of rubbish collection at that address.'). I suppose in some sentimental way I will miss the way business is done here. On the eve of my departure I am more likely to respond to the quirks and irrationalities with a sigh of affectionate resignation rather than with apoplexy. And of course there are many many things about living here that I will truly miss. A partial list:

The Guardian newspaper
Marks and Spencer
The Beeb, especially documentaries by Andrew Marr
The musty, stony smell of six-hundred-year-old country churches
Rain falling out of a completely sunny sky (still don't see how that works)
The church bells in Oxford
Rambling through the countryside without fear of being shot for being on someone's private property
How every ramble hits at least one or two lovely country pubs
Beer gardens - but real gardens with sunshine and gracefully sloping lawns rather than a concrete patio packed with drunk students (what passes for a beer garden back home)
Thatched roofs
Wearing Wellies and not feeling silly
Proximity to Heathrow and therefore the rest of the world
Proximity to London and its garden of earthly delights
Twenty-five days of holiday (this is a biggie)

Out-takes from Hampstead:

Bad temper!

Bad art!

The cat's name, apparently, is 'Psyche'.

Hampstead

2008-08-11T15:08:00.006-04:00

A life of leisure

2008-08-07T05:06:00.003-04:00

This is my first week of (voluntary) unemployment, and apart from the lousy weather I've very much enjoyed sleeping in a bit, idly browsing library and bookstore shelves, and being able to run errands during the week. I'm not without guilt, however. A man (purportedly) from the gas company showed up yesterday, and I opted not to let him in as I hadn't called them and I was pretty sure it was the wrong gas company. Without thinking I called Jeff at the lab to get reassurance that I had done the right thing. As I'm chattily describing the situation he had to politely cut me off because he was in the middle of a meeting. I had a sudden vision of myself as the bored housewife, pestering my husband with inane domestic details whilst he's busy trying to save the world or whatever it is that he does at work, as his colleagues roll their eyes in sympathy. And I shuddered.

Emo again

2008-07-03T14:55:00.005-04:00

One of the cities I've been hoping to get to before leaving this green isle is Manchester. One of the places I'd have hoped to visit in Manchester is Ian Curtis's grave in Macclesfield, to fulfill a pilgrimage first envisioned during my angsty adolescence. Unfortunately, as I've discovered from The Panic Manual, someone just bloody stole his gravestone! How unbelievably twerpy.
We watched Control a few months ago, based on the book his wife wrote (a really interesting read - I'd lend it to you but it's in Canada). What hit me most was at the very end, after Curtis has hung himself, the words flash up saying that he was 23 years old. Only 23. I first got into Joy Division as a teenager, so he always seemed to have been quite a bit older; then I hadn't thought about him much for a few years. But seeing those words when I am at the comparatively august age of 32 it hit me like a tonne of bricks - he was just so young. So young to write such life-weary, resigned lyrics like those in 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'. If only he had somehow managed to keep on keepin' on a bit longer ... he felt completely overwhelmed and I'm not making light of that, but things sometimes seem less urgent and less dramatic and less black-and-white when you get a bit older.
(This age-induced wisdom has not, however, prevented me from enjoying Gossip Girl.)

For Star Wars fans

2008-06-13T17:28:00.002-04:00

This Flickr photoset is the funniest:

Storm Troopin'

That's all for now. Too busy watching Euro 2008 ...

Unlucky again.

2008-06-06T17:06:00.007-04:00

I am participating in a Euro 2008 Sweepstakes at work. When I drew, there were only five countries left in the hat. Three of them were later revealed to have been Spain, Portugal and Italy. But I drew ... (drum roll) ... POLAND. Sigh.

I hadn't realised Poland even made it to Euro 2008, but they've wasted no time in making headlines. I hope they have some skills to back up the trash talking. (As my football-savvy friend Julie pointed out, however, the Polish coach's last job was with Jamaica - not exactly a legendary team - so chances are slim.) The tournament is big news here even though England failed to qualify this year, and it's interesting how these old rivalries between countries come up (only partly good-humored - genuine bile is apparent at times). Without the agony of watching England fail to live up to inflated expectations I think I'll quite enjoy watching the matches. As long as I can wrestle the TV remote from Jeff.

I saw one of the contestants from the current season of Britain's Next Top Model on Portobello Road last Saturday. The annoying one who brought a cross to put on the wall above her bed and pretends she's phobic before every photoshoot so it looks as though she has courageously overcome her fears. But my friend trumped me (ha! that will soon prove to be a pun) by spotting Margaret, aide to billionaire businessman Alan Sugar, who occupies the Donald Trump role (see?) on the British version of The Apprentice. My co-workers found that much more impressive as they're all obsessed with The Apprentice.

Photos from our London Saturday:

Portobello Market

Can anyone tell me what this stick figure in peril is warning about? It was on a footpath in Kensington Gardens, near the Round Pond. It looks like a person being attacked by his or her shadow.

Emo kids run amok! (And why you should grow your own garden.)

2008-05-29T16:37:00.004-04:00

This article amused me:

Emo kids march in protest

And this article inspired me:

Why you should bother

I can't wait until the day I have a little plot of land to call my own. I'm totally gardening.

Winds of ch-ch-ch-changes

2008-05-28T16:30:00.007-04:00

It was one of those days. The fourth rainy day in a row. Hadn't been sleeping well all week. Had nothing but tedious tasks (and a lot of them) to get through in the afternoon. I was going to need chocolate to get through the day. I sheepishly slunk up to the canteen counter to buy a Kitkat, feeling slightly ashamed at my weakness and hoping to beat a hasty retreat afterwards. The surly canteen worker at the till gave me a baleful glare when I inquired as to the price. 'It's 35 pence, love, YOU know that, you buy them ALL THE TIME' he bellowed, so that everyone in the busy canteen could have heard. I stared at him blankly. It had honestly been at least six months since I had bought one, and I'd never made it a regular habit. I started to defend myself, to insist he must have mistaken me for somebody else, but then I realised that it would only draw more attention to myself. I studied his face for a sign of deadpan humour, which the English are enviably skilled at. There was none. I wondered if it were instead a comment on my robust figure, and then berated myself for reverting to adolescent self-consciousness. I paid him, took my change, and left the canteen feeling vaguely relieved that in two months' time I will never see that man again.

Yes, we are potentially nearing the end of our adventure on these shores, and like the bohemians that we are, we have no idea where we will be living in a few months' time. Come September we hope to stash our suitcases somewhere and roam a bit, as we'll be kicked out of the flat when the lease ends. But longer-term, no decisions have been made. I am truly sad to leave, but it has always been a temporary arrangement. I've just gotten a little more attached than I had planned. (Resulting self-pity and denial of forthcoming large decisions is part of the reason for no blogging of late.)
Whither shall we go?

Quick recap of the last few months: Mom visited at the end of March, and we went to Paris and Rome. (I had that Cranes song in my head the whole time as a result - kinda cool that when I listened to it in high school those cities were still only hazy impressions.) Then Jeff and I went to Barcelona to see some friends, and met up with still more friends there, making it the most social five days us misanthropes have had in years. Then Natasha and Jonn visited and much merriment ensued, including one night where we shut down three different bars in the same night. (Sounds more racy than it was - after all, this is Oxford.) Somewhere in there I turned thirtysomething. When I am able to face the 867,800,000,000,000,000 photos I took while on holiday, I'll bang a few up here. I think I may have gotten a couple of really good ones.
Guess who forgot to take off the audio guide for the photo?

Starbucks guilt

2008-05-04T06:44:00.003-04:00

Have I mentioned that a Starbucks opened up across the street from the flat? This was initially a source of great excitement - though it's 7 pm closing renders it largely useless to me except on weekends. I popped in yesterday, and discovered that they have installed a 'Community Board'. I'm all for multinational chains investing in local neigbourhoods, but this one made me distinctly uncomfortable. Apparently Starbucks has donated 50 books to a local primary school. On the board were many photographs of children eating clearly-branded Starbucks products (hopefully not their industrial-strength coffee). And all around the board were hand-made thank-you cards from the children, addressed to 'Dear Starbucks'. Many of the children had tried to draw the Starbucks logo in green crayon.
As a North American I already feel a twinge of embarrassment when going into a Starbucks, knowing that I am proving myself to be a hopeless cliche. Now I feel guilty that not only has Starbucks gained a foothold in Summertown against the wishes of some residents, it is also impressing its consumerist yuppie land-of-excess faux-granola lifestyle upon very young British schoolchildren. I wonder if any of their parents would be horrified.
It's not as though companies haven't shamelessly marked to children before, and it's not as though there aren't loads of affluent faux-granola yuppies here, but still, I can't help but feel a bit dirty. A bit of innocence lost, or summat.
Anyway, I'll still be going for my chai lattes at weekends. Can't deny what I really am ...

Tecktonic redux

2008-04-20T15:58:00.004-04:00

So it seems that 'tecktonic', that bizarre dancing perpetuated by teenagers in France that I wrote about a while back, is still going strong. I just found an article about it, with some more great links. Check it out!
I'm disappointed I didn't see any of this while I was in Paris. Though I definitely saw the fashions.

What the ...

2008-04-06T07:36:00.009-04:00

Everyone in Canada can have the last laugh, because this is what we woke up to this morning:

Speaking of polar conditions, there was an article in The Guardian this weekend about the battle over Arctic sovereignty. I don't much feel like defending Canada these days, but I was annoyed by one thing in the article - this statement: "In a frivolous but slightly passive-aggresssive gesture, Canada's postal service has assigned a postcode to the North Pole: H0H 0H0." The paper even used it as a pull quote in large bold letters, lending it greater weight when it's otherwise just an ill-researched, perhaps even half-joking throwaway comment. Wasn't that postcode assigned simply as a place to send Santa letters in the 70s or 80s, well before the Arctic sovereignty issue blew up? Those letters don't go to the North Pole. But even though I don't think the statement was that serious, it implies that the assignation of the postcode was a response to the sovereignty issue, and that's what people over here would assume given that no further background or explanation is given. It's not that Canada isn't guilty of petty gestures, but I loathe how some journalists dig up dirt that isn't there to fan the flames of conflict. It's a tiny little thing, I know, and I probably sound like I've got no sense of humour. But I'm sure this issue will get much uglier in the future, and then the little things could matter quite a bit.

And since I'm on a roll with the good news today, would you be surprised to know that England has considered abandoning what it thinks are futile efforts to preserve the Norfolk coastal defenses in light of climate change, and moving those defenses further inland (thereby abandoning several villages to the encroaching seas)? Coastline erosion has been a problem for years, so the prospect of rising sea levels has caused greater alarm. Here's one article about it.

Well, I'm off to spread more good cheer about. Tra la!

Oh, okay, here's something funny that Jeff was watching today, from The Onion (bet some of you have already seen these):
Proposed Classified Bill. Man, you've got to see some of those other videos too. They're brilliant. Like this one: Delicious Snacks Distract Congressmen From Horrors of War.

CBA

2008-03-10T19:04:00.003-04:00

For your amusement and edification, here is a judicious selection of the words that UK kids 'don't want you to know' and how to 'crack their code' (according to the Times Educational Supplement, that epitome of hip youthfulness; likely these are several school terms out of date already).

404: stupid or idiotic
Bait: obvious
Beast: something very cool
Benny: tantrum
Bipod: to share an iPod with someone
Blaps: to hit
Blates: blatantly
Butters: ugly
CBA: too lazy ('can't be asked/arsed')
Caj: cool (from 'casual')
Carnage: hangover
Compunicate: chat to someone online
Cotch: hang out
Deffo: definitely
Flat-roofing: working hard
Fomo: fear of missing out
Fudge: complete idiot
Hufter: idiot
Lash: borrow/lend
Lush: very nice (I learned this one through watching Gavin and Stacey)
McPee: using the toilet of a restaurant without eating there
Minging: disgusting
Nang: cool
Peng: good-looking
Randomer: (used as a noun!) a stranger
Rinsed: overused/overplayed
Snap: school lunch
Soz: sorry
Tonk: good-looking
Twoc: take without consent

Twee!

2008-02-28T16:51:00.004-05:00

In case you've been wondering what Swedish bands I'm listening to right now, since all cute bands seem to be Swedish these days, my Scandi band of the week - even though they've been around for ages - is Club 8. (Not to be confused with S Club 7.) Another adorable duo with requisite blond hair and stunning cheekbones.
Whatever you want
I'm not normally keen on songs with 'Jesus' in the title, but go to their myspace page here and listen to the song 'Jesus, walk with me'. It's haunting and I can't stop humming it. Pitchfork had a video of them performing it a while back.

And, just for kicks, here's a (Swedish) Tough Alliance video I like: New Chance

We spent last weekend in Bristol and quite liked it. It's not a huge city - the centre is walkable in a day - but there are lots of cafes, laid-back neighborhoods and a Whole Foods, so we were happy. In a rather granola bistro cafe in Clifton Village we heard a song I would never, ever in a million years have expected to hear in such a place: 'Poison' by Alice Cooper. It's not just Alice Cooper, it's 1980s Alice Cooper, and therefore not remotely cool. To me it says 'hockey arenas' (along with Def Leppard, Poison and Skid Row), though that could just be that I spent a lot of the 80s in hockey arenas. I have since found out that 'Poison' was a UK #2 hit. I just don't associate that kind of music with the UK. Okay, so musically there wasn't much else happening in Canada, but in the UK there was SO MUCH GOOD MUSIC going on. Who in heck was listening to Alice Cooper?

Incidentally, did anyone else notice that 'Sebastian Bach', erstwhile lead singer of Skid Row and inhabitant of Peterborough, Ontario, was on at least one season of The Gilmore Girls? That is one casting meeting I'd have liked to sit in on. I think he might be losing his edge.

On the upside ...

2008-02-18T15:02:00.001-05:00

... I found my missing mobile phone!

angel of doom in a boiler suit

2008-02-16T17:00:00.003-05:00

On Thursday a man from the gas company came around to do the annual check on the boilers in our building. While working on our boiler he broke a part in behind the washing machine, which didn't invite confidence. Today it rained in our kitchen when the girl upstairs did her laundry, presumably because the gas company guy didn't reconnect the pipes properly. Then, a few hours after the water had all been mopped up, our boiler - the boiler which was just checked and ostensibly given a clean bill of health - broke down and now we have no hot water or heating until at least Wednesday. (I should add that it's -6 outside right now.) How can one man cause so much chaos? Better he had not come at all. And why, oh why didn't I have the prescience to wash my hair this morning before all hell broke loose?

I am already tired of 2008.

Two-and-a-half-day weekend!

2008-02-01T15:26:00.000-05:00

I took Friday afternoon off. It would have felt like skiving off except that I had already, earlier this week, put in more than enough overtime to cover it. A friend and I spent the day at ... an antiquarian book show!

I know, you can't believe how cool I am. I think we were the youngest people there by at least 30 years, but I was clearly among my kin. All the vendors were doing crossword puzzles, for starters. I saw lots of spectacles on cords, cardigans and elbow patches, corduroy and tweed. Quite a number had come from the pub, if the tang of alcohol was any indication. There was loads of ephemera as well as books - old maps, travel guides, magazines, souvenir booklets, postcards, etc. etc. I would have bought Baedeker's Guide to Canada from 1900 except it was 75 pounds, and I longingly gazed at old ordnance survey maps and the collected British Vogues of 1960, which at 60 pounds and about 80 pounds in weight, was a patently impractical purchase for one living overseas. There was a lot of money about, antiquarian books being rather big business here. I was charmed by a 5800-pound (price, not weight) leather-bound book of hand-written recipes for food, wine and medicine that a family had kept in the early 1700s, and shocked to see a series of Rudyard Kipling books with swastikas on the spines (I realised they predated WWII and, being about India, were instead referencing the Hindu/Sanskrit symbol). A surprising number of vendors had elegantly-bound copies of Darwin's 'Earthworms and Vegetable Moulds', which must have been a best-seller at one point. Several old books had letters or photos tucked inside (sometimes related to the author, sometimes to the book's past owners) and this was considered to add to the value. For hours we wandered and work was completely left behind and why am I not an antiquarian bookseller? I have missed my calling.

While I didn't invest much in books at the show (I knew I would just get taken for a ride as I don't know enough about what things are worth), I bought a print of one of Howard Phipps' etchings. He is a new discovery for me, but I adore his little etchings of book shops, staircases and sitting rooms. They have a mysterious, empty feel as though someone has just left or something has just happened or is about to happen. (The web link is not to anything I bought, just to an example of his work. I spent far far less than that!)

After a brief foray into gadgetry, I have managed to lose my first and probably last mobile phone. I hadn't used it for ages, because I had forgotten my online password to put more money on and couldn't be bothered to sort it out. I probably shouldn't admit to things like this lest I overwhelm people with my togetherness. Anyway, it really could have gone missing any time in the last few months, which means I am highly unlikely to find it. I looked about the flat, and suddenly became aware of the myriad ways that something so small - for it was small - could be lost forever. It could have gotten swept into a wastepaper basket and thrown out. It could have fallen out of my backpack pocket when I was getting something else out (I do carry around a lot of junk). I could have thrown it into a plastic bag with a bunch of other stuff when repacking my carry-on for the return flight, and then forgotten it was there and thrown out the bag. The possibilities are endless. If I ever do get another mobile phone it will have to be a 1980s toaster-sized one so I can keep track of it.

Because it's Friday and Fridays warrant silliness, may I direct you to my favourite video of the day?
Finnish disco lesson.
What's that catchy song, you ask? Why it's that old chestnut, Moskau.
Here's the video.

Sunday in the park with King Arthur and his knights.

2008-01-27T12:12:00.000-05:00

It took two whole years (during which everyone else I know has seen him multiple times, and he apparently lives in my neighborhood), but today, while walking in University Parks, I had my first Thom Yorke sighting. He jogged past me, inches away, wearing royal blue shellsuit-style trousers and what looked like a royal blue football jersey. He was red-faced and sweaty, and seemed to be a good foot shorter than I am. But I finally saw him! I have also seen the actress who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter films in my neighborhood, in case I haven't mentioned it before. Quite remarkable that I noticed her, given that I'm usually too oblivious for celebrity sightings. You know who else I would like to see? Kirsty and Phil from Location, Location, Location (and Relocation, Relocation). They're all over the country ... it's bound to happen sooner or later!

January is almost over, which is a good thing. Here, the payback for too-early sunsets and rising damp all winter long is that in February you start to get those spring flowers out. In fact, because it's been fairly warm here, the flowers started to come up a few weeks ago. Crazy to one morning be in a land where it's -25 Celsius and your plane wings need de-icing, and the next be in a land where winter never seemed to have happened. But the rains have been unrelenting, and many parts of England are under water again. High ground is not something I would ever have worried about in buying a house, but it's on my list of criteria now!

Nothing exciting happening here ... just waiting for sunnier weather. Hoping to plan a bit of travelling, have a few more visitors, and spend a lot more time in beer gardens (at least on the nice days). Had a chance to take the wellies out for a spin in the completely flooded Port Meadow last weekend. I can't believe I haven't had proper wellies since I was a kid - they're so much fun. And we needed them just to get into the meadow, as anyone without sufficiently tall boots had to be carried or else turned back.

This is as close as I could zoom in, given that there was an ocean of water between us, but this lump in the distance is, according to a kindly local, one of the Roman burial mounds I'd been trying to find out in the meadow for ages (there is apparently also an Iron Age earthwork out there somewhere, but while you can apparently see them from the air, they're nearly impossible to spot when the meadow is dry and grassy).

And this weekend it was sunny and glorious, and everyone was out, including the Oxford University Medieval Battle Recreation Society. At least, I'm guessing that's what they would be called. I see them out there a lot. I love that they are not at all embarrassed to be mock swordfighting in ragtag faux medieval armour in a public park where they would likely be spotted by their peers. Where I'm from, membership in the Medieval Club wasn't exactly a badge of honour, not as far as social standing, anyway.

Crocuses!

Beer in the sunshine ... the end to every good Sunday afternoon.

Working through the 2007 backlog

2008-01-17T15:52:00.000-05:00

Happy new year!
Hope 2008 is great so far, even though it's a crap time of year. Our 2008 had a bumpy start, what with Jeff coming down with norovirus (which is epidemic here at the moment) before the jet lag even had time to wear off. Despite the gloomy predictions of every pharmacist I came into contact with, I have so far (touch wood) managed to evade it, and Jeff has more or less made a full recovery, thankfully. But work has been brutal. And we have had some truly nasty days, during which I was hit with WALLS of water splashed up by speeding trucks every time I left the flat. Indeed, my January had been all doom and gloom until, on my way home from work after the third ten-hour workday this week and feeling mightily sorry for myself, I saw a beaming ray of hope. Across the street, next to the lacklustre Co-op grocery store, they are putting in ... a Starbucks! Oh happy day! I may have jumped up and clicked my heels with joy. The cafe's evening hours will likely be nonexistent - it is Oxford, after all - but I am very much looking forward to recreating my Toronto morning routine of picking up a chai latte and walking to work. On the very same day, in a cosmic convergence of what I like to think of as good karma, Jeff's parents informed me that they had found a much lamented mitten, which I had given up as lost forever. (Seriously - I've had those mitts forever and they are the best, cosiest mittens in the world.) Tonight I survived my first football match in at least two months without injury despite muscular atrophy and the extra baggage I brought back from home (around my middle). So things are looking up indeed!

I've realized I never posted any photos from our trip to Portugal in December. We had a really nice time, though were typically overambitious and spent less time relaxing than we'd planned. We had a lovely hotel in a great location (which I care more and more about the older I get), gorgeous weather, and lots to explore. It's pretty easy to get around, people were friendly, and when we were in the Bairro Alto they thought I looked young enough to be interested in purchasing recreational drugs. That always wins me over. (Though I am guessing they just hit up anyone who looks like a tourist, just like in Amsterdam.) The night we arrived, we joined a queue for taxis at the airport. All the taxis were posh shiny new white Mercedes, so we were excited until we counted back and realised that the single, solitary battered 1980s-vintage taxi was the one we would be getting. With the axe-murderer-looking driver. Everyone around us in the queue gave us pitying looks. Remember those kiddie amusement park rides with lots of little cars shaped like different animals, but always one or two that were just plain boring old benches? And you stood in line waiting, hoping for a unicorn, but realising you'd be getting the bench? That's what it was like. We warily got into the car with the completely silent axe-murderer, who gave us inscrutable looks in the rearview mirror and was a terrifyingly reckless driver, and we bounced around on seats with no shocks but lots of uncomfortable metal springs and things sticking up. Then that warbly 'Are You Going To San Francisco?' song incongruously came on the radio. Now every time I am in a Tim Horton's (or some such place) and that song is played, I will immediately be transported to Portugal in December, hurtling down boulevards lined with palm trees and crumbling pastel-stuccoed buildings, with the windows down, and wondering whether the driver was in fact taking us to our hotel or to some back alley to rob and kill us, because we honestly wouldn't have known better. (He didn't, obviously, though we later discovered that he had totally ripped us off on the cab fare.) That's the best thing about travelling, those weird incongruities.
Lisbon was lovely. Normally the lack of a Starbucks wouldn't be a plus, but it was refreshing to be in a place that felt like someplace different. No chain cafes and restaurants - only little local places with remarkably homogenous menus. Lots of people out and about in squares and on patios. An atmospheric faded, crumbling elegance. Sun shining off intricately tiled sidewalks (the sidewalks amazed me - so much work! you don't get that in a country that gets a hard frost) and intricately tiled buildings. When we took the train out to Sintra, though, I was surprised by the endless dense swaths of apartment buildings that stretched almost all the way there. Paris is like that too, and, I suspect, lots of other European cities what with borders opening within Europe and with former colonies. The city centre is kind of sanitized and touristy, and generally only the affluent live there, but there are miles and miles and miles of high-density and often pretty grim apartment blocks spreading out in all directions. Europe is at a really interesting point in time, I think.
I'm sure while we were there I had a million things I wanted to write about, but that holiday feels a bit like ancient history now. So I'll just bang up a few photos ...

Lisbon from the top of the Elevador da Santa Justa

The Bairro Alto, Lisbon

Lisbon

Elevador de Bica, Lisbon

The Baixa, Lisbon

Cascais

Castelo dos Mouros (Moorish Castle), Sintra

Palacio da Pena, Sintra

The Music Issue

2007-11-25T16:18:00.000-05:00

This month we've managed to see two gigs! In a single month! Two! (Gone are the days of two a week ...)

First was Asobi Seksu. Two or three nondescript guys (who looked surprisingly young, but then nearly everyone in these new bands is younger than I am), and one tiny Japanese woman who totally ran the show. They hit us with a wall of noise which brought back blissful memories of gigs in the 90s, and of many of the bands I listened to (obvious MBV influence). But I have to admit that they weren't exactly tight. The singer's voice is pretty but not especially powerful and kind of got lost in the mix a bit - though that could just be a bad sound guy, too. And the guitarist's backing vocals were pretty ragged. They ran through their songs from Citrus, and played a serviceable cover of a Mazzy Star song. It was fun, and loud, and I've got a lifelong soft spot for dreamy overlapping guitars. But it didn't blow me away.

I've rhapsodized about giant 11-member bands and what a great show they put on (Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Godspeed You Black Emperor). But I like the other extreme just as much - the super tight two-piece or three-piece. I remember seeing Black Rebel Motorcycle Club a few years ago (with Bridget, if I recall correctly), and I was blown away by how much noise three people could make. Fantastic noise - the kind that hits you in the chest with the first pounding bassline. The Raveonettes were like that on Friday night. We never managed to make any of the shows they played in Toronto, but here we got to see them in a really small venue (don't Oxford students go to gigs?). They have a crisp live sound, are effortlessly cool, made lots of noise (duelling feedback!), and yea verily, it was good. I think every guy in the place (Jeff included) fell for Sharin, who looks looks like a cross between Nico and Debbie Harry. Totally stunning. Guys were yelling inane things like 'I love your shoes!' to her between songs. And Sune looks like a cross between A-ha and one of the Jesus and Mary Chain (which, come to think of it, would be a brilliant combination). After they played they came out and set up a table to sell their own merchandise. As soon as Sharin's peroxided head appeared there was a stampede of late twenty and thirtysomething indie guys (it was a slightly older crowd - we were definitely about the average age), while their girlfriends/wives stood back in groups with wryly amused expressions. All this and we still made it home by 11, since we are old and need our rest.

It's beginning to look like Christmas, in Oxford ...

... and London.

Not long before we'll be landing in Toronto. Can't wait!

November Spawned A Monster

2007-11-20T15:10:00.000-05:00

I don't know about you, but I've spent far too much time enjoying this in November: shoes, endless pictures of shoes! That and working my tail off so I can use up the rest of my holiday days and lieu days before going home for Christmas (irony, no?).

One of the most exciting things that has happened to me lately is this:

(I've cut off the part with the incriminating stuff on it.) I haven't been this excited since getting my Metro Toronto Zoo Littlefoot Club card all those years ago. (My gym card doesn't quite bring such joy, redolent as it is of sweat, pain and tears.) Doesn't come close to matching the crazy but awesome giant LFC tattoo my friend just got, but now I'm at least an official fan. So yep, we're gonna put our names in the hat for tickets to another match this year. Fingers crossed! Not that the team has been performing well, but hey, you can't beat the experience of a match at Anfield. Especially when they win ... mind-blowing stuff.

We had a great long weekend in Wales while Jeff's parents were here. And except for the foul-mouthed, madly-gesticulating drivers I fell in love with the place. And wondered all over again why I don't just spend all my days rambling over hill and dale in the Brecon Beacons. While we were there I read, with envy, an article about a young couple who'd given up a hectic life in London City, and moved out to Wales to start a mail-order outdoor gear company. I'm torn between wanting to live in a place where you have endless green outside your door, and a place where you have a Second Cup and a Sephora close at hand. (Among other essential amenities.) But while I deliberate further, here are some photos from Southeastern Wales.

The ruins of Llanthony Priory, with a newer (but still quite old!) cottage built into them.

Hay-on-Wye.

Brecon Beacons (those are the ruins of an Iron Age fort in the foreground).

Tintern Abbey, of the Wordsworth poem.

What else? Ah, yes, the Tudors. We visited Hampton Court Palace recently and got our fill of Henry VIII trivia, so I was stoked to watch The Tudors on TV. Except, except ... what possessed them to cast the unlikeable Jonathan Rhys Meyers as a man meant to have been ginger-haired, strong, well over six feet tall and handsome (in his youth, at least)? And why use an actress with an LA fake tan, collagen lips and implants as a medieval princess? Not to mention the amusing departures from historical record and the video-game graphics when they show Whitehall in London. (That last part bothers Jeff more than it bothers me.) Oh well, that's entertainment! At least until we can get more episodes of 30 Rock.

Monthly progress report:
Number of slugs found in the bathtub: 1 (um, gross?!)
Number of Portugal travel guides purchased: 2
Number of frivolous magazines purchased: 3 (*hangs head*)
Number of mince tarts consumed: 4
Number of days I spent hobbling about in agony after an overzealous session on the leg press at the gym: 5
Number of days before I had handily reinjured myself at football: 1
Number of weeks I plan to stretch out this excuse for inactivity: 6! At least until New Year's Resolution time, heh.

Ready for the rocking chair

2007-10-27T11:09:00.000-04:00

Say Anything was on television last night. Not that I ever thought it was the world's greatest movie, but I always had a soft spot for those old-school teen movies. I remember watching them when I was in high school and really enjoying them, even (cringe) relating to the characters or thinking that the film was really saying something. But the other night I was spent most of the movie thinking 'Oh, COME on!' and 'It's HIGH SCHOOL, it's no big deal.' And 'You've only been dating for TWO WEEKS, how heartbroken can you BE?' Man, no wonder my parents never took me seriously when I was a teenager (or at least never seemed to think my personal dramas were as emotionally devastating as I imagined they were). I think I've crossed some kind of threshold to adulthood (notwithstanding my lack of car, mortgage, kids, life insurance policy or knowledge of RRSPs). I didn't even find John Cusack's character particularly endearing - what kind of grumpy old woman do you have to be to not love Lloyd Dobler? This is almost as disillusioning as the day, about six years ago, that I realised I could no longer make it through Dirty Dancing. It really is an awful film, and Patrick Swayze's character seems way too old and creepy to be hitting on teenaged girls. And yet, in 1988 or whenever I first saw it, I LOVED it. And Patrick Swayze. Shudder.

Gone to the dogs

2007-09-29T13:28:00.000-04:00

Well, we haven't been to the Royal Ascot races, or even anywhere I'd need to wear a fancy hat. (Which is okay by me.) But we have been to the dog track, which as you can imagine is almost as posh. The cover of Blur's Parklife album is as close as I've come to greyhound racing in the past, and I hadn't realized it was a bit of a thing here in England. It flies under the radar as you aren't likely to find dog tracks in the sanitized touristy areas of a city, nor are you likely to encounter Prince William at one. We had to take the bus out to the part of Oxford the tourist hordes never see. We even went beyond the ring road. And there, in suburban wasteland that could have been almost anywhere in the Western world (brown 1960s and 1970s duplexes and row houses with the odd smattering of apartment blocks and parking lots), was the Oxford Greyhound Stadium. Every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday night they have races. You pay five pounds to get in, and they give you a programme of all the races that night, the dogs competing, and lots of complicated information about the dogs' previous races and statistics, whether they're a wide runner or middle runner (whatever that means), etc.

The place reminded me of a hockey arena, not least because it was bloody freezing outside so we stayed in the warm part behind glass as much as possible, in an area with grungy chairs and tables and a canteen suffusing the air with the odours of french fries (okay, chips) and watery hot chocolate. Except there was, of course, also a bar. So the first order of business was to pick up a beer, and then peruse the programme to plan our first bets.

Before each race, handlers would parade the dogs past the stands. For what purpose I don't know, as bets were already finished by that point so if you discovered that your dog was half the size of the others, or even lame, it was too late to change.

When the dogs went into their little chutes to start the race, we'd rush downstairs to take our places along the track. The mechanical hare would go whizzing past, followed by the pack of greyhounds, and the whole thing would be over in a few short minutes. As no flash was allowed, this was the best 'action shot' we could muster.

The betting system proved to be a challenge for someone with no tolerance for small print, calculations and statistics, and the weighing of several options (this is why I could never be bothered to choose a cell phone plan). After a cursory glance at the programme, I decided to bet on the dogs with the cutest names. Because I forgot to visit the bank machine Jeff and I placed one bet between us, taking turns to choose the winner. He was actually thinking about which dog might be likely to win based on its stats, and didn't notice that I wasn't until I bet on a dog named 'Tullyvin Laura'. Naturally that arose his suspicions. 'Tullyvin Laura' comported herself much like her namesake. She was big and ungainly and clearly aspired to nothing greater than mediocrity, placing an unremarkable fourth out of six. (You don't want to do well, because then there will be Pressure and Expectations. The coach might erroneously think you have Potential and make you work harder to realise it. I've run every race I've been in with the sole objective of being Not Last.)

Jeff kept saying he didn't understand it, he won three times at his last trip to the dog track, how could we go an entire night without success? But he hadn't been out betting with me before. I am a black hole of despair when it comes to any kind of gamble or lottery. In fact, by the end of the night people were asking me which dog I was betting on so they'd know which NOT to pick. Hmmm ... perhaps that's a power in itself. Knowing how to pick a loser is surely almost as useful as being able to pick a winner? (I am here obliged to preclude jokes by acknowledging that I have picked a winner in Jeff.)

Anyway, as I may have mentioned earlier, it's suddenly quite chilly here. The sun has been setting as I've left work the past couple of days which means the long dark winter is uncomfortably close. But in the meantime, it's an excuse to make tracks for the nearest pub, or curl up with a book and a nice hot mug of tea. Eh, to heck with books. We've got a whole new season of TV shows to get on with! If you haven't been watching Mad Men and can catch up on previous episodes, it's just swell. As is Flight of the Conchords. (We'll also be looking out for Scrubs, Heroes and My Name is Earl.)

Snapshots

2007-09-16T08:17:00.000-04:00

A Flickr set will soon be underway as you can only reasonably fit a few photos in a blog post, but here's a few shots from our trip. We really need to sort out plans for another trip (if we can squeeze it in) and our Christmas flights. We've just had a great visit with friends from Canada, and Jeff's parents arrive in only a few short weeks. The autumn will fly by, I can already tell.

Stockholm

Gamla Stan, the old island in the city.

Sergels Torg, Stockholm.

Jeff looking over Lake Malaren, Sigtuna.

Stockholm at night.

Another fad has apparently passed me by.

2007-09-10T17:06:00.000-04:00

Check this out. So bad it's good. Who is this band? I am intrigued.
A Cause des Garcons

The remix vid is crazy.
A Cause des Garcons 'remix tepr video tecktonic'

What is going on? Is this good dancing? Is it very bad? We found little information about 'tecktonic' other than that it seems to be a style of dance in France that started in 2000 and was 'completely ignored in the rest of Europe.' At least that's my understanding ... my French isn't so hot. So now you know. Sort of. At the very least, if you see these people on the dance floor, give them a wide berth. Do a search for 'tecktonic' on YouTube. You'll see what I mean.

In other music-related stuff, how cute are The Tough Alliance? And how cute is the song 'Anorak Christmas'? ('He Keeps Me Alive' is also cute, except for a brief misguided dalliance with the vocoder.) Why are so many of the bands I listen to Swedish? Something to do with the fact that my parents have only ever driven Volvos, almost certainly.

I have had Rihanna's 'Umbrella' in my head all day. Mostly just the dumb part where she goes 'Umbrella, Ella, Ella, Ella'. It's driving me bonkers.

My sentiments exactly.

2007-09-05T17:53:00.001-04:00

I've been listening to lots (and lots!) of physics talk lately, as we have a houseguest from Jeff's old lab at U of T. Naturally we took him punting, and en route to the pub I gleefully spotted this graffiti. (To be honest, it's really nice to have a familiar face about - we like getting visitors.)

I plan to post some photos from Sweden, but as always I took approximately thirty million of them. This means I may never look at them again because I can't face the enormity of the task ahead - deciding which of the ten identical photos of the same scene is the best, over and over again. I don't know why I do this. No one else in my family does this. My brother took about ten photos during his entire round-Europe expedition. One day I will take one photo too many and Jeff's head will explode - at least the veins popping out in his forehead when I get too camera-crazy predict this.

But I really liked Sweden. Here are some of the reasons why:
* The taxis are all Volvos.
* There is lots of granite, trees and lakes everywhere, which reminded me of Canada.
* Hardwood floors. Even in hotel rooms!
* Double beds in hotels always come with two duvets - which is great when you are sharing with a DUVET HOG. Ahem.
* Nearly every restaurant or cafe with a patio put out blankets on the chairs so that people could curl up in them while sitting outside. This is an idea I think Canada should embrace.
* Efficient metro and commuter trains.
* Sodermalm, a neighbourhood with lots of low-key cafes and bars the likes of which we sorely miss in Oxford.
* Every cafe or restaurant had lots of open flame - candelabras in windows, on tables, even giant floor-standing ones, all lit. It is a miracle that Jeff emerged unscathed.
* They have yummy alcoholic pear cider.
* People kayak, canoe, sail and swim almost in the center of the city. (And presumably use the roughly five minutes of daylight in winter to ski and skate.)
* Ikea isn't completely uncool there.
* The people are friendly and all speak English, which always makes me feel like a meathead for not being multilingual myself.
* Jeff liked the free refills on coffee - a rarity in Britain.
* I had the best sandwich of my entire life - sundried tomato, brie, lettuce and pesto on some sort of dark malt bread that was like a slice of heaven.
* Every (or nearly every) public restroom has self-contained rooms with toilet and sink - no nasty public stalls. This saved me some humiliation when I was visited by severe food poisoning (unrelated to the above sandwich).

Yes, everything was going swimmingly. We had great weather, we got to see all the major things on our list and still had time to just walk about and window shop, and most of the restaurants we visited ended up being really nice (and suitable for a gluten-free eater and a pseudo-vegetarian). But on the last day I felt progressively weirder until, as we reached the airport to check in for our flight, I was extremely ill and would not have gotten home if it weren't for Jeff. Food poisoning is very humbling. If you've ever had it badly, I probably don't need to go into more detail. It was everything I'd ever dreamed it would be. And I think it'll be a few more weeks before I've fully recovered. (Before you say 'ate a dodgy meatball, eh? yuk yuk', I'll have you know that a vegetarian buffet restaurant remains the most likely culprit. But the views were fantastic.)

On the positive, what could be better than returning from a holiday to find that the September Vogue magazine (with all the fall fashions - the best issue of the whole year) was too big to fit through the generous mailslot at our flat? I will end up with carpal tunnel syndrome from holding it open to read it, but the pages and pages - and pages and pages! - of unwearable shoes, unaffordable handbags and inexplicable couture will all be worth it. It might not make sense, but I just adore that stuff.

Well, it's off to self-medicate and then sleep, as I've been struck down with a bad cold lovingly shared with me by Jeff. Normally his germs are no match for my superhuman immune system, but what with weeks of no sleep followed by weeks of no food, my defenses are a little low right now. I figure I'll get the whole year's illnesses - physical and psychological - out of the way in one go.

The science of sleep

2007-08-22T15:00:00.000-04:00

So has anyone else ever had a really sudden, weird bout of insomnia, when there's nothing particularly wrong in your life beyond the usual day-to-day worries? Insomnia lasting weeks at a time, where you can only sleep anywhere from 45 minutes to three hours a night, and no matter how exhausted you get, as your short-term memory vanishes, your muscles start cramping from exhaustion and you have a permanent headache, you still can't sleep? Even with the aid of over-the-counter sleeping pills and every other combo of drugs and alcohol you can think of? Even after you've convinced your doctor to prescribe you something heavier and it still doesn't knock you out? After you've tried every gosh-darned thing you can think of and more, and are starting to think you may never sleep again? And you have started wondering what you should tell your employers because if it goes on much longer you will cease to function and have no valid medical reason for it? Yeah. I think I'm finally coming out the other side of one of those bouts. I've had two nights in a row of drug-free sleep now. For which I feel a tremendous sense of achievement, which is ridiculous as it's something you should be able to take for granted, isn't it?

Anyway, I'm going away for the bank holiday weekend. Want to know where?

All I know about Paris comes from Indochine videos

2007-08-13T15:29:00.001-04:00

I slept for just 45 minutes last night, a new low in my recent bouts of insomnia. And then today I went to Reading to sit in on hours of audio recording sessions. I am just about hallucinating, I'm so tired.

But though I feel like a ninety-year-old woman right now, I am able to relive my youth through the old Indochine videos people have finally started putting up on YouTube. One of the best things about growing up in Kingston was that we got MusiquePlus (the French-Canadian MTV) as well as MuchMusic (the English-Canadian MTV, inferior to the French in my opinion). One of my first music-related crushes was on the lead singer of Indochine, and I would watch for their videos on MusiquePlus. You couldn't find their albums in Kingston (I'd buy them in Montreal or Quebec City on school trips), or any more information about them as it was before the internet and they never appeared in English-language music magazines. Though my crush faded in high school due in part to my inability to learn anything more about them, Le Birthday Album is still one of my favourite albums and has permanent residence on my vintage (and therefore limited-capacity) iPod. I googled Indochine recently - how did I get by without being able to do this? - and discovered that, despite the death of the lead singer's twin brother (who was also in the band), they've continued recording through the nineties and oughties, including duets with Placebo and Melissa Auf der Maur. Some of their new songs aren't bad either (though their videos are still odd and kinda derivative). But it's been particularly fun to watch those old videos from the late eighties again. I literally haven't seen them for about sixteen years. The videos for 'More' and 'Le Baiser' were one of my first introductions to Paris. A black and white, moody, artsy, romantic Paris populated by cute boys in French/Belgian bands. Though I love Paris, having now been under all those Seine bridges myself I can attest it's not as romantic in real life. Especially with all the tourists (maybe I need to visit in winter). However, Paris is always best imagined in black and white, isn't it, like those atmospheric old Brassai posters. No city could live up to that in the flesh.

More
Le Baiser

Laugh at the dancing girls if you will, but this song is still one of my favourites for dancing around the bedroom and singing into a hairbrush:
Les Fleurs Pour Salinger

Where is the summer going?

2007-08-05T14:22:00.000-04:00

I've just returned from holidays in Quebec, a blissful interlude during which I swam, cycled, canoed (that spelling just looks weird), napped in a hammock, visited a Benedictine Abbey where they make great cheese, crossed the world's longest suspended walking bridge, read the last Harry Potter book, and ate my weight in maple sugar. Oh, and drank a lot of beer from Quebec microbreweries (which must be among the best on the planet). I am now struggling with the sad reality of being back at work. When you live for the weekend, life starts going by pretty fast. I mean, there are only, what, twelve weekends in the summer? Anyway, we're trying to plan some more trips to have something to look forwards to.

The floods in Oxford got some press in Canada. While I was at the cottage, unable to access TV or internet, I began to fear that the whole of southern England was under water. But when I came back from Heathrow by bus you'd never have known anything had happened (judging from what I saw between bouts of exhausted unconsciousness - those overnight flights kill me). Parts of the city along the Thames did flood, soaking homes that in some cases were still recovering from floods just over a year ago. A friend of mine spent a week on high alert, piling sandbags around her place (which ultimately escaped flooding), while a Scandinavian TV crew camped out across the road and annoying tourists walked around with cameras, presumably hoping to see exciting flood destruction. Many towns were worse-hit than Oxford though, all along the major rivers in this part of the country. But other than stories from a few people I work with who weren't lucky enough to be on high ground (and from many others who suddenly can't get home insurance), the only sign we've noticed is that grocery stores have been poorly stocked because the floods blocked roads and impeded agricultural production. Now, however, the news is all about the latest foot-and-mouth outbreak, which they are trying to contain.

Last night I saw the Canadian show The Newsroom on TV here. I am curious as to what British people would think of it. (They also broadcast Canada's Next Top Model, presumably filling the void between seasons of Britain's Next Top Model and America's Next Top Model.) I was also astonished when Jeff came home with little Fraggle dolls that Barclay's Bank is selling for charity. I always had the idea that Fraggle Rock was a Canadian show, but it turns out it was a collaboration between HBO, the CBC, a British TV company and Jim Henson's company. (Though it was filmed in Toronto and Canadian poets Dennis Lee and bpNichol apparently wrote for it. Now my next question is whether kids here ever read Dennis Lee poems.) Different countries filmed the human segments to be recognisable to kids from that country, so for example in the British version 'Fraggle Rock' is a 'rocky sea island with a lighthouse' based on Falmouth, Cornwall (I'm quoting Wikipedia). In France, the human segments take part in a bakery. And apparently there's a movie in the works, to be directed by Ahmet Zappa, which seems right in all kinds of ways. I think there is nothing I would rather be than someone working on a kids' TV show back in the day. I'll bet the people behind Fraggle Rock had a blast. I also watched a documentary on British children's television, and it was full of eccentric people building plasticine and felt models in backyard sheds for very odd shows like The Clangers. Hey, here's a fun trivia fact: the band The Soup Dragons was named after a character in The Clangers. It all comes together ...

Speaking of Canadian culture, I got a free CD with an NME magazine a couple of months ago that claims to be 'the sound of the new Canada scene'. Out of fifteen bands I'd only heard two (The Stills and Metric) and heard of two more (The Besnard Lakes and You Say Party! We Say Die!). This proves that either NME is out to lunch or, most likely, I am now truly, irredeemably out of touch.

Suspension bridge.

Misty evening on the lake.

Scary artwork in an antique shop in Quebec (below). I think this is one for the Museum of Bad Art, though at 90 dollars it's probably a bit beyond their budget. I don't know what it is that disturbs me ... perhaps that the cat's features are human when viewed up close - the eyes in particular. Yikes - imagine this on your wall.

Tour de Hangover

2007-07-08T15:36:00.000-04:00

On Friday night we had our annual summer party for work - pirate-themed this time. I had a fantastic time - from what I remember. Because I seem to have forgotten that my liver is into its fourth decade, and I went to town with the open bar. So did just about everyone else, which means I probably didn't embarrass myself too badly. However, I have not been so staggeringly drunk for over ten years. And I didn't handle it nearly as well as I could ten years ago. The night of the party was fine, but I went to bed still seeing two of everything, and woke up about seven hours later with the room spinning in a most gut-wrenching fashion. And then I was suddenly, violently ill. I took water and Gravol, and twice more was ill. And the headache - my god, the headache. I quite literally wanted to die. I was severely dehydrated and couldn't keep water down, so naturally I figured there was something seriously wrong with me. Jeff was characteristically unsympathetic.
"Maybe that wine had gone off!"
"It's called a hangover."
"I think I have food poisoning!"
"It's called a hangover."
"What does botulism feel like?"
"You have a hangover."
"I must have caught a virus."
"Hangover."
"Parasite."
"Hangover."
"Liver disease."
"Hangover." [etc. etc.]
I was particularly upset because we were supposed to meet friends to go into London to watch the Tour de France (which started in London this year and after two days has just crossed the channel to France, where it resumes tomorrow). I missed the train and went to bed, hoping against hope that my third dose of Gravol and water would stay down. And miraculously, an hour and a half later I felt just barely well enough to stand unassisted, though not well enough to eat, and we headed to London after all. I was able to find our friends in Hyde Park, but it was a real endurance test as I felt like crap and apparently looked like crap too ("paler than I thought possible" according to one friend, though they were all very kind and refrained from teasing me too much).
I'm glad I rallied. It was fun to get the Tour experience in person as I've followed it on TV for years now. The riders really hoof it in the time trials of course, especially as this was basically a sprint (a mere 7.9 km!). That was the coolest part - appreciating just how fast they can go when you're standing stationary beside the track. You don't get a sense of that from watching it on TV. We had to listen for the crowds cheering and the engine of the motorcycle that rides in front of each rider, and then WHOOSH! the rider flies past in a blur, followed by his team car. It was awesome. I took many useless photos of the motorcycle before the rider and the team car after because it was so hard to time it to get the rider himself before he was gone in a flash. But eventually I managed a couple.

After that - because I wasn't the only one with a hangover, just the one in the worst shape - we sat in the sun and watched the riders reaching the finish line on the big screen. That part was lovely.

Everyone was cheering for Brits Bradley Wiggins (a Londoner; the route apparently went past his mum's house) and David Millar, who placed 4th and 9th in the trials respectively (and after today's stage sit in 3rd and 5th places). But whenever anyone posted a new top time there were appreciative cheers. Considering that Britain isn't regarded as a big cycling nation - not by European standards at least - it was heartening to see how many people came out. And the weather this weekend was glorious compared to the long, long spate of rain, high winds and hailstorms that we've had.
Today I am mostly recovered (except for a bruised foot which I suspect is from another enthusiastic pirate-garbed person stomping on it on the dance floor). And I've decided that drinking is like riding a bicycle - best to get right back on after a fall. So I had a Pimm's and lemonade at a beer garden this afternoon. But just one.

Rainy weekend part two

2007-06-30T14:00:00.000-04:00

I'm having an indoors day, so I might as well use the lull to write another post. So ... this weekend begins the smoking ban in indoor public places in England. Including pubs! Apparently 1 in 4 people smoke here - I can't decide whether I think that's a high percentage or not. Most people I know here don't smoke. Anyway, rest assured there will be belligerence and controversy. Though, locally, perhaps not as much controversy as this shocking ban will elicit. Has anyone ever been punting without booze involved? The whole ritual is based around Pimm's and champagne.

Since I'm otherwise studiously avoiding the news at the moment, I've been surfing the web for a little light entertainment. I checked out the new Rufus Wainwright video and nearly snorted Diet Coke out my nose about a minute in. (Another narrow escape for my laptop.) I've always gotten a kick out of purportedly macho men in the little unitards worn for athletic activities around the turn of the century. It reminds me of one of the many old books that has charmed me at the summer cottage in Quebec. (Only three weeks until I'll be there!) I present to you Frank Eugen Dalton and his magnum opus:

He apparently developed his own method, 'the Dalton method', which as you can see was a particularly masculine approach to swimming:

He used his (no doubt) long-suffering wife 'Mrs. Frank Eugen Dalton', she of the Pre-Raphaelite locks and grim smile, to represent the 'beginner'.

Among the many topics covered in the book is how to swim with your clothing on, an 'exciting feat guaranteed to be a hit at swimming exhibitions' and that 'never fails to inspire admiration and wonder in onlookers.' Has the fact escaped him that women always swam in a full set of heavy and hindering garments? (Including shoes!) Here's another little gem from the book: 'Swimming is a tonic alike for muscle and brain. The smallest child and the weakest woman can enjoy it equally with the strongest man.' The inside front cover of the book is inscribed with the name of a predecessor of the cottage's current owners, who would have been elderly at the time. I like to imagine a prim and proper Victorian woman, tired of fanning herself on the veranda on the hottest days, determined to learn how to swim ('scientifically', no less) in the lake just outside her door, the lake in which her children and grandchildren spent most of their time. It reminds me of how I, at the mature age of 25, finally got upright on waterskis while my twelve-year-old cousins (expert skiers themselves) encouraged me with a mixture of excitement and fear for my obviously fragile health.

Rainy weekend

2007-06-30T13:02:00.000-04:00

Last weekend we decided to experience something quintessentially English - a Henley regatta. Not THE Royal Henley Regatta, as I'm told that the crowds are manic and it's hard to even get near the river. (There are 'royal enclosures' along the river - which you'll never get into as a lowly pleb - where men have to keep their jackets on regardless of how hot it is. There has only once been an announcement that jackets could come off - when it was about 38 degrees.) No, we went for the comparatively subdued women's regatta, which was nonetheless an international and well-attended event.

Here we are walking along the towpath to the race site, 2 km down the river from the town. You can see the racing lanes extending into the distance. They went as far as the eye could see. On the right are some of the pavillions. On the left are some rowers and umpire boats turning back at the end of a race.

Just like Glastonbury! Okay, maybe not. But most people had thought to wear wellies. Had we? Of course not. Hence Jeff's very fashionable rolled-up jeans, exposing the white socks and boots look that will be all the rage next season.

Because it's England and they do everything in a delightfully civilised fashion, there was an outdoor bar with loads of seating on a lovely green lawn, and Pimm's on tap (with the requisite cucumber, apple and orange slices).

Oh dear, a little bit of gentle English rain. Nothing to worry about, we've got our 'brollies!

Oh DEAR.

After the deluge, and after getting our feet thoroughly drenched (though we no longer go anywhere without rain pants and coats so the rest of us stayed dry), we walked back to town. In the photo you can see one of the grandstands for the Royal Regatta, and the lovely (and costing millions of pounds) boathouses along the Thames. Henley is clearly an affluent town, if the number of antique shops is anything to go by.

And, to close, some classic Henley attire.

It ain't the heat ...

2007-06-14T16:07:00.000-04:00

At least I think it's the humidity that, in conjunction with the rainforest moisture levels that are our flat's natural climate, is preventing me from achieving my optimal amount of beauty sleep. Since dark circles and bloodshot eyes aren't my idea of beauty, anyway. But I am enjoying the mid-twenties temperatures and sunshine. If only the whole summer stayed like this!

Jeff's latest quixotic mission has been to attain a barbecue in a country that is lagging far behind in outdoor-grilling technology. As usual I fretted and dithered unhelpfully, and he stubbornly persisted, spending all last night assembling a rather rickety and alarmingly inexpensive model. Tonight we had barbecue chicken, roasted red, yellow and green peppers and grilled mushrooms for dinner. Spectacular! Though Jeff made the mistake of muttering about the gas line not looking quite right, which guarantees I will spend barbecue nights huddled inside, far from any windows or items likely to shatter in an explosion.
(This is a reenaction of actual events - because we forgot to take the picture while the food was cooking.)

Last week I spent a day in the lovely countryside hunting for and then measuring ancient trees for the Ancient Tree Hunt, which was good fun. There is nothing more exhilarating than a Tuesday out of the office, enjoying sunshine and fresh air, having pints in a beer garden at 4 pm and feeling wonderfully naughty. (Even though we cleared our absences with our superiors - honest!)

We've also gone on a few more weekend rambles - probably the thing I'll miss most when we leave England. Here we're in the countryside near Reading. The bridge was built by Isambard Brunel, a pretty cool guy who has left his mark all over the country in the form of bridges, railways and Paddington Station. I am embarrassed that I hadn't even heard of him before moving here. I apparently need to read more books and fewer fashion mags.

My football (soccer) 'team' has joined a 5-aside league now, so we're trekking out to Abingdon once a week, where we inevitably get clobbered. I think we'll improve though. And here's a pop quiz: which of the following did I do in tonight's soccer training?
a)step on the ball while trying to stop an opposing forward, landing flat on my back, slightly winded
b)step on the ball while trying to deke out an opposing defender, landing flat on my back, slightly winded
c)wallop my own teammate with the ball in a rather sensitive area with a grievously misplaced kick (it was a guy)
The answer is, of course, all of the above. I can't figure out whether I pose more danger to myself or my teammates. Time will tell.

Hair and Fayre

2007-06-03T11:05:00.000-04:00

Right now my hair looks the best it will look for the next year and a half. It has fullness, body, and flips out in all the right places. This was only achieved with three different types of styling product and a professional blow-out. When I wash my hair after going to the gym tonight, it will resume the regular program of lankness and disorderliness. But at least it no longer reaches to my lower back. We have only one small bathroom mirror in our flat, so I hadn't realised just how ridiculously long it had gotten. Embarrassing, really.

Last weekend we went to the Oxfordshire County Fayre (sic). Rather, I dragged Jeff as I had a yearning for fresh air, fresh produce and wholesome rural lifestyles. It was raining horizontally, but since we have wellies, rain pants, raincoats and umbrellas, I figured it was worth a shot (we wore all of the above and didn't regret it). The weather probably cut attendance at the Fayre by half, but those who showed up rallied in support. There were camel races and horse jumping, sheep shearing, vintage tractors and modern tractors, dog trials, a craft tent and beer tent, and demonstrations of competitions local farming kids had participated in. Competitions like advanced bread-slicing, chicken de-boning, coldcut and cheese platter arrangement, floral arrangment on a theme (England's rugby team, Elvis and the Little Mermaid were popular), wiring a plug, ironing a shirt, making a farm sign, decorating pairs of wellies, and of course art and poetry. I kid you not - these were all categories and the entries were on display with judges' comments and winners' tags. I was hoping to see those 'largest vegetable' competitions you see on Midsomer Murders, but none were in evidence.

The deflating bouncy castle gives you an idea of the weather:

Anyway, out in the middle of nowhere, at this poorly-attended but spirited little Fayre, we heard it announced that the presenter of the awards for the art and poetry competition would be none other than Alex James, former bass guitarist with Blur. And lo and behold, there he was. We huddled under an umbrella with approximately eight other people, all of whom were either parents or children receiving awards, watching this surreal event unfold. In front of me was one of the heroes of my youth, in a place and manner in which I'd least have expected to encounter him.

I think we were probably the only two people at the entire Fayre who were Blur fans - the little girl in the photo just looks afraid of him. He IS rather tall. I guiltily snuck a few photos because, hey, what are the chances? But I wasn't about to approach him - I'd nothing of interest to say and I didn't want to intrude on a family outing (he had his wife and kid with him). Far from a sign that Alex's fortunes have drastically declined, his appearance here was merely an indicator of his rural lifestyle of late. I have since discovered that he's bought a farm in Oxfordshire, and is dividing his time between writing a book and a column, appearing on radio, and exploring the art of artisanal cheesemaking. Life must be pretty sweet! Oh, and hey, he wrote about this same appearance at the Fayre here ... glad he didn't notice me taking ardent fan photos.

I've just booked flights to go back to Quebec to spend a week at the cottage again this summer, and Jeff will go back to Toronto for a week. We're hoping to fit in a shorter trip somewhere in Europe between now and then - we'll see what we can get organised. Even though I get a lot of holiday, it disappears pretty quickly. I don't know how I'll ever adjust to the North American working lifestyle again. Life is just too short.

Goings on

2007-05-27T07:54:00.000-04:00

I survived that soccer tournament, by the way, but only barely. It was two weekends ago and I still have stitch mark imprints on the inside of one knee where I blocked a shot (the other pentagons imprinted on my skin have faded). It took a week for the pain in my knees, shoulders and lower back to ease up enough to go to the gym. That's what I get for trying to keep up with teenagers. But not only were the other teams in the tournament composed of teenagers - they were composed of teenagers from sports academies. Yes, those jock schools where you read a book for five minutes of the day and then spend the rest training. These girls possessed an alarming amount of testosterone. They grunted and growled, gave the ref lip, behaved more like prima donnas than Cristiano Ronaldo, and nearly got in fist fights with one another. Needless to say, we got annihilated by every team except the only other team with players over 20 years old (we did beat them). As I've said before, not many women play football just for fun over here. Anyway, my main achievement was the world's most dramatic slow-motion fall (which has entered team legend). The kind of fall where you stagger backwards a few paces, sway unsteadily, and slowly crash to the ground while everyone around stares in fascination. A younger person would have absorbed the blow and remained standing, but at that point I was so tired I thought 'oh, to heck with it, I'm going down and then at least I'll have a moment's rest'.

But I was able to recover just in time for Natasha's visit. We shopped, hung out in London, had cocktails at the Grand and pints at the Trout.(The Perch had sadly burned down the week before - those thatch roofs catch fire easily.) I see her so rarely, and always for just long enough to remember all the many reasons I like her so much. And then we are cruelly separated again for another year or two. Why haven't they figured out teleportation yet? That's ahead of space travel in my list of priorities. Cause I really miss all the folks back home!

Chocolate and Chanel

2007-05-22T16:44:00.000-04:00

We spent a long weekend in Paris a couple of weeks ago. Since we'd already done the tourist thing nine years ago, we basically went to enjoy some city life, sit in cafes and parks and stroll about the neighborhoods. The older I get the more I like that kind of vacation - too adventurous and you need another vacation to recover from it. Besides, the center of Paris feels like Disneyland - packed with English-speaking tourists. Best to stick to the left bank, where just a few blocks in from the river things feel comparatively normal and you can actually get a seat on the patios. My brother was in Paris at the same time, creating further occasions for sitting on patios to eat dessert-like pastries and drink pure molten chocolate - for breakfast! I've never been a porridge girl, what can I say.

We were there during the elections, and while we saw the riots at Place de la Concorde from the top of the Tour Montparnasse, we'd never have known otherwise. Besides, I was preoccupied with my hunt for Sephora stores. The company started in France, and I can only guess that their failure to open any stores in England is due to lingering resentment from the Hundred Years' War. The only truly touristy things we did were visit the Louvre and then Montmartre on a Sunday. Horror show! Go midweek in winter or leave hating all of humanity. Here are a few Eiffel-Tower-free photos:

St. Germain

La Rive Gauche

Bistro!

Hotel room with, er, French doors!

While in Paris I also took the awesomest self-portrait EVER.

Now I'm caught up as far as early April.

2007-05-14T16:21:00.000-04:00

Sooner or later I'll get back on the Flickr wagon. Or rather, on it at all, as Jeff has been handling our account and I shudder to think what photos he has been posting.

Anyway, in the meantime here are a few final photos from our trip up north. We visited Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire on the way back down from Edinburgh. It was founded in 1132, and abandoned in 1539 during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. Ever since it has sat in graceful ruin.

Here Jeff is trying to figure out whether he's in the chapter house, dormitory, infirmary, or billiards room.

A lot has happened since that trip. Maybe one day I'll tell you about it. However, in two days an esteemed guest arrives and we have many cocktails and fashion magazines to consume in the meantime.

Keepin' on trucking ...

2007-05-14T15:49:00.000-04:00

I am now so ridiculously behind in all the things I've meant to write about that I'm tempted to wipe the slate clean and start from today. Except that today was rather dull, so I'd then put off posting until I felt I had something more interesting to recount, and before you know it I'd be behind all over again. I'm behind at work, behind on chores around the flat, behind on birthday cards and gifts (and now Mother's Day too ...), and behind on reducing my behind in anticipation of yet another swimsuit season. It seems like just yesterday that I cast aside leg-revealing skirts, arm-revealing tops, fake tan lotion, razors (hah - kidding - sort of) and my punishing gym routine with delight, looking forward to a winter of bulky sweaters and carb-loading. Every autumn I do this, and every spring I pay for it, meaning that from the months of April to July I am hungry and therefore angry and unpleasant. Consider yourself warned! I do wish the people I work with would stop finding reasons to have cake. Always with the cake! Cake that sits there on the table in the middle of our 'pod' - yes, I work in a pod now - and becomes absolutely, completely, impossibly irresistable during that 4:00 pm sugar crash.

Anyway, to follow from the last post, our travels continued from the Lake District on up to Edinburgh. This was the first time Jeff and I had returned since living there nine years ago (good lord I'm old). I was kind of anxious about what it would be like to visit again, since that year was probably the hardest one of my entire life. As soon as I opened the car door I smelled the peculiar baked beans odour that permeates much of the city, or at least the area around the residences we lived in. I had entirely forgotten about the baked beans smell! No one ever seems to comment on it, so I have no idea what it is - though a whiskey distillery is a safe bet in Scotland. You're never far from one! (Another time I'll tell you about my ill-fated attempt to join the university's 'water of life' society - I'm apparently just not man enough for the single malts.) We had spectacular weather - warmer than Greece on one day - and I really enjoyed hitting our old haunts again. It was reassuring to discover the Metropole Cafe still there, the Elephant House and Cafe Florentine still kicking, the university campus as drab and depressing as ever, and the streets that same mix of picturesqueness and grittiness that I remember so well. A few photos, if you will:

Like I said - warmer than Greece!

Looking toward North Bridge and ultimately the castle:

We climbed Arthur's seat for old times' sake. I rather suspect this perspective will confuse anyone who hasn't climbed it themselves - look for the little person at bottom left for scale. You can see the castle and the Scott monument in the background, and Salisbury Crags in the foreground.

And, as always, I close with the pub.

These are a few of my favourite things

2007-05-01T16:08:00.000-04:00

While my mom and brother were here, we took a trip up north to the Lake District for a few days, where we had some fantastic hikes and stopped for many pints along the way. That's one of the nice things about hiking about the countryside here - you almost always come across a welcoming pub sooner or later. So civilized.

Naturally, I sang 'Climb Every Mountain' or whatever that Sound of Music song is the whole way up. You can't help it when the birds are singing and the sun is shining and your muscles are aching but alive and you're escaping fascist ... er, anyway, the occasion seemed to call for it.

Jeff set a bold pace for us to follow the second day:

To make sure that we made it down the mountain in time to catch the last taxi home:

And we very much enjoyed the fact that the clocks had just moved back so sunset came much later:

And we finished the day with a good ol' pub meal (this one is Jeff's - I opted for roast chicken):

I also got my nerd on and visited Dove Cottage to fawn over Wm. Wordsworth's shaving kit, passport, lock of hair, pen nib, valise, fingernail clippings (okay not really), etc. I adore old everyday stuff. My favorite part of working in the Lennox and Addington County Museum and Archives - besides laughing at 1970s high school yearbooks - was examining all the odd little daily items that belonged to the Loyalist pioneers in the area. I particularly liked them because their owners weren't anybody in particular - it's like those old photos you see at antique shops where someone has dressed to the nines for the photograph, with a visible sense of self-importance, and years later no one remembers who they are. Anyway, Mom came along to Dove Cottage, but the boyz weren't interested. Hardly surprising. My brother has been travelling around continental Europe for the past several weeks (coincidentally sending me a postcard from Salzberg, the Sound of Music town). He got to drive a few laps at the most famous racetrack in Europe, which apparently merited rapturous description, but sent me an email saying Venice was 'OK'. Start quote, end quote. I think he's just reached that point where, if you see another breathtaking castle or cathedral, you might vomit. You start craving mid-century-modern furniture and elevated bungalows. It really does happen.

Perennially cheerful person that I am, I will leave you with my pet peeve of the day: trendy environmentalism. Apparently people lined up at Sainsburys grocery stores at 5 in the morning to get one of those canvas bags that say 'I am not a plastic bag' on them. Well good for you. What's that you're climbing into to drive home ... an SUV? (Or, as they fondly call them here, 'Chelsea Tractors'.)

Aw, rats. Now 'Climb Every Mountain' is in my head. Oh well, at least it's better than that 'How Do You Solve a Problem like Maria?' song. Oh no ...

Older and wizened

2007-04-25T15:16:00.000-04:00

Well, look at that, would you. It's nearly May! Boy howdy the time flies. I've now been gainfully employed for a year, which I guess means my favourite excuse - that I'm new to the company and don't know any better - is wearing a little thin. I feel as though I ought to have saved more money by now. But then I am high-maintenance.

So yeah, work is busy and will continue to be. In addition to my editing work I am devoting brain cells to generating excuses to get out of a national (national - eep!) five-aside soccer tournament on May 12, since two-and-a-half weeks (of which five days will be spent indulging while on holiday) isn't nearly enough time to get down to fighting weight. And my knees, they are creaky. And I'm too old to be competitive against the dreaded teenaged teams. And I always get picked on by referees. And I've been asked to play goal-keeper for a game and I have the world's slowest reaction time (though admittedly I cover more of the net than my waifish teammates). If I am forced to play my only goal will be to remain uninjured, or at least unhospitalised.

And Facebook. What's the deal? All of a sudden, over the space of a few weeks, I get at least ten invites from people in all corners of the earth who to my knowledge don't know one another. It comes up in phone conversations and blogs. It's almost scary how pervasive it is at the moment - and it wasn't even remotely on my radar. THEN I find out Jeff has had an account for ages. It's almost like finding out your partner has a whole other life and ten secret love-children. (Almost.) Everyone who has invited me to join has about 785 'friends'. Since I only know about 25 people in the world I'm paralysed with insecurity about giving everyone who ever hated me in high school the chance to snicker at my atrophied social circle.

My mom and brother recently visited for a few weeks, and it was really great. We did some traveling and I will post some photos when I get my act together (check back in, oh, September maybe). My brother is still abroad and I am envious indeed, though perhaps it's as well that he does his 'Grand Tour Of All The Racetracks In Europe' without me - I'd only fret about his speed on the Autobahn. There's more traveling in the works and more visits from very cool folks and the flat smells like hyacinths and in general life is good.

In the meantime, here are some photos from a fire festival in Oxford that by now probably happened at least two months ago. As always, I am running behind.

Reasons for cheer

2007-04-13T14:32:00.000-04:00

1. The birthday wishes and goodies that STILL keep trickling in ... I did well this year, from a Vogue subscription and tickets to the London production of Spamalot - it was all that I'd hoped! - to chocolate and jewelry and nice dinners. It almost eases the pain of being older (and finding more grey hairs). Thank you everyone!

2. Tickets to see Camera Obscura play at the Oxford Zodiac on Thursday.

3. The new Arcade Fire and Feist albums.

4. Temperatures predicted at 22 degrees tomorrow.

5. It's Friday and I have no homework this weekend!

It's been a whirlwind lately. I am looking forward to relative calm. Not just yet, but soon.

Uneventful weekend

2007-03-12T18:17:00.000-04:00

The next few weeks will be a bit manic, but at least at the end of them I'll have something more to say for myself! In the meantime, more scenes of our town. (Jeff gets credit for the first one.)

All of a sudden, it's spring!

2007-03-04T19:13:00.000-05:00

The last time we visited that tavern was a year ago, when we first moved here and were still jet-lagged and disoriented. I was unable to believe I'd get through a year here - much less three - because everything felt so uncertain. It was nice to go back, and the rainbow was the perfect, if slightly Hallmark-ish, symbol of the comparative calm now. It's pretty darned comfy, this town. I've started to grow attached.

Another week gone by already?

2007-03-01T17:43:00.000-05:00

I've just outdone the ugliness of all my previous driver's license photos including the one taken before I started reigning in my eyebrows - trust me, this is quite an achievement - with the horrific image I sent to apply for my British driver's license. (I ran out of coins at the only photo booth in town and had no time to redo it.) I fully expect the DMV to take one look and decide that giving a person who looks like a washed-up addict with a bizarre facial rash a license to operate a motorized vehicle is hardly wise. (I didn't have a facial rash, for the record, but it inexplicably showed up on the photos.) My British license will annoyingly forbid me from driving a manual transmission, which I can do more than competently, because Ontario does not keep any record of whether I did my test on a manual or automatic transmission. I would have to do a whole new driving test to prove that I will not destroy the clutch on any vehicle I come into contact with - and who wants to go through THAT all over again?

I've finally bought a pair of Wellies, to take advantage of all the fine opportunities a walk in the country provides to jump in a puddle and splash my boyfriend head to toe. Unfortunately, my He-Man calves mean that there's no room to tuck my jeans inside the boots like all the stylish folks do. I am instead forced to roll my jeans up outside the boots, culminating in tire-sized folds right at my knees, which, it must be said, are far from my best feature. It also means I must walk slightly bowlegged. Still, we finally made it across the muddy and waterlogged meadow to the pub. Which, as it turns out, is now closed for renovations. (Cue mournful music.)

All these challenges pale, however, when compared to what a friend of mine has been enduring. Her boyfriend has set up a blog of their amazing adventure at the South Pole, where they have participated in the Antarctic Marathon to raise funds for Alzheimer's research. Check it out for some great photos and an account of one of the more gruelling endurance races: The Last Marathon

A la carte

2007-02-17T11:11:00.000-05:00

How was your Valentine's Day? We finally got a table at a posh restaurant we've wanted to try ever since moving to Oxford. It has a really romantic atmosphere, especially at night when it's lit by ancient chandeliers and candles. We sat among many young and wealthy Oxford students on awkwardly sweet dinner dates.

Jeff started our own date off perfectly by accidentally setting the menus on fire.

How does a person manage to sit there calmly perusing a menu without noticing it's in flames? And that his girlfriend is urgently trying to catch his attention without rousing nearby diners to a panic? However, I upped the ante by developing crippling stomach pains just before dessert, and spending the rest of the night groaning in bed. We have a long and storied history of dinner mishaps, whether glasses crashing to the floor, inadvertent whacking of passing servers while making a grand gesture with one's hand, spectacular nosebleeds and concussive blows to the head when diving under the table to retrieve dropped cutlery. It wouldn't be romantic without feeling that, together, you have escaped mortal danger.

By the way, the British Museum is looking pretty cool lately.

This is one of my favorite things at the museum: a chess set (Scandinavian origin) found on the Isle of Lewis in 1170. It's the bored guy in the middle I really love. Dude, I can relate. (Click on picture to enlarge.)

Innovation

2007-02-12T14:16:00.000-05:00

How I love YouTube! Hours of fun. And education, too. This video is apparently from 2004 so it probably made the rounds a while back. But it's worth a listen - really interesting, especially if you've been a fan of the various incarnations of electronic music over the past ten or twenty years.

6-second drum loop

Also fun: looking for old TV commercials on YouTube. Especially when you can tell the company really tried hard to make a new catchword or slogan that would become all the rage. Sadly, 'mindsticker' doesn't appear to have, uh, stuck in peoples' minds. Check out this creepy commercial that frankly makes me glad I'm not a woman in the 60s. Then again, commercials still convey the impression that a woman's worth is based on her weight. Sigh.

Be a mindsticker

Speaking of innovation, I have just discovered that Onion Goggles exist. Which is fantastic, as nobody needs them more than I do. I cannot cut up an onion without a prolonged break partway through to regain my vision. Put that on my birthday list, right along with the Banana Guard. Mushy, bruised bananas make me want to vomit. This could change my life!

Miss Universe

2007-02-09T16:32:00.000-05:00

The lovely Natasha turns 30 today, and I'm very lucky to have known her for at least twenty of those years. Errr ... sorry ... she's turning 24. 24, I say! In honour of her eternal youth, a list of the reasons that everyone should have a Natasha as a friend.

Freaky memory power:
She remembers what she studied in school, unlike me. She can recite all the best lines from films. She is particularly good with numbers - I'd swear she could memorize a thirty-digit number after hearing it once. I have often considered paying her a yearly retainer to serve as my personal password management system.

Physical protection:
This is a woman with martial arts training and marathon-running experience. She rides bikes up mountains and across chasms, and can bench-press her husband (hi Pete!). She pumps iron and wears stiletto heels. You definitely want her on your team. (Thats her doing a jump on her bike at left - sorry it's so small.)

Your own personal think tank:
She has studied astrophysics, philosophy, architecture and law, making her very good at the hardest Trivial Pursuit topics. She also has uncanny research abilities. If I so much as mention looking for a job, she will, within the hour, email me eight exciting opportunities, none of which I'd have been able to find for myself.

A fashion consultant on call:
She appreciates the importance of kick-ass shoes, sparkly silver (but always modern) jewelry, and the colour black, and uses all to devastating effect. She forces you to buy things you wouldn't have otherwise, but immediately love.

Psychic powers:
She can post you fragments of old notes you passed back and forth in school in grade eight so that they arrive exactly on the day when you most need a laugh. From what corner of the Land of Lost Memories she retrieves these ancient bits of ephemera, I shall never know.

Makes anything boring fun:
The best (and most dangerous) person to have next to you in a dull class, school assembly, lecture, film or over-earnest theatrical production, or when you're being lectured by a teacher or parent. Without words she'll manage to convey the ridiculousness of the predicament, so that you dissolve into stifled giggles that erupt into an unseemly snort at the most inopportune moment.

Makes exquisite cheesecake:
I think this one speaks for itself.

Self-sacrificing to a fault (at times):
She will, with good humoured resignation and admirable panache, be the one to wear 'Dum' across her chest - at an age when it's just asking to be tormented for the next three years - when someone has the brilliant idea of dressing as Lewis Carroll characters for Hallowe'en. Of course, she hadn't yet become Lara Croft and I was approximately three times her size at the time, so perhaps it wasn't a fair fight.

I wish I had a photo that does justice to her beauty, but she lives across an ocean and a continent and I have hardly seen her since I got the digital camera. Rest assured she is also easy on the eyes, and deserves to have a fantastic year ahead. Of being 24 years old. Ahem.

Spoke too soon ...

2007-02-08T14:43:00.000-05:00

Not much can top the excitement of two Canadians far from home who wake up to discover this going on outside their flat:

We went to sleep with dry pavement, and though snow was predicted we didn't expect it to materialise. But after the disappointment of Christmas, we got a taste of winter after all! Today most people didn't make it into work. Those of us who did had cameras along and went outside at noon to marvel at the snowy trees and make snowballs. Seems like this is a real rarity here. According to the BBC one man took his young son for a ride on a sled that hadn't been used for 38 years. I've seen so many photos of children excitedly making snowmen for all they're worth, cos it's meant to be 7 degrees tomorrow so it won't last. Which seems really poignant. Don't all children deserve snow? Even the Oxford students (for I assume 'twas they) had a little fun:

The snowmen take a stand (click on photo no. 3)

And besides, this country looks so pretty under snow, just like Narnia.

I'm trying not to be an obnoxious Canadian, all 'you call THIS snow?' I do smile behind my hand when I see this sort of thing:

"The deepest snow recorded so far fell in Worcester, where 10cm (4in) is lying and overnight temperatures plummeted to -4C (25F)."

Four inches of snow! Temperatures plummeting to -4! But, in a country without snow tyres and snow removal equipment, even that can lead to this:

"It is expected that the lateness and loss of work hours caused by transport disruptions will cost the British economy up to £400 million ... All schools in Birmingham, Solihull and Dudley have been closed, as well as some in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Essex, Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and East Anglia. More than 300 schools are also closed in Wales."

Though the government's unhappy about this dire loss of productivity, people here were just genuinely enjoying the weather. Like I said, these people deserve more snow! Except for the brats who hit me with snowballs on my way to work. Never hit a Canadian with snowballs, especially a Canadian who hates mornings. We know too many deadly tricks - ever heard of a gravel ball, kids? Just kidding. Grumble grumble.

Give me whistling, hand-claps or la-la-las and I'm hooked.

2007-02-04T18:27:00.000-05:00

The latest song I just can't get out of my head:

Young Folks

Guess what? They're Swedish (like We're From Barcelona). Maybe I should just move there. While we're on the subject of Swedish music, may I direct you to the original version of 'Heartbeats' by The Knife? The cover version by Jose Gonzalez (also Swedish! or partly, anyway) is pretty popular due to a Sony commercial but the original is definitely best.

Heartbeats

The band consists of a brother and sister who tend only to be photographed in bizarre masks. The photo on their Wikipedia entry will make you fall in love. I can't stop listening to their song 'Pass This On'.

While I'm plugging music, I owe a long-overdue mention to Bed is Rude, the one-man band of a former soccer teammate. The only time I'd ever heard him sing he was screeching along to Axl Rose, so I was blown away by his gentle pop sensibility on 'A Certain Age' and 'Get Social'. Did I mention he sings and plays all the instruments? And has a full-time day job? Amazing.

Anyway, what are you listening to lately?

Quality

2007-02-04T14:47:00.000-05:00

The paint on the walls of our flat comes off under your fingernails if you accidentally nick it (leaving a visible spot of drywall). It also appears to be water soluble.

Probably only four haircuts ago, sadly enough

2007-02-01T17:44:00.000-05:00

I have been carrying around a Daytimer (TM) for ten years now. The good old-fashioned entirely paper kind of agenda. I have misplaced it several times, and each time been unable to sleep until it was safely returned. I refill my Daytimer with new week-at-glance pages each year, but don't very often bother with a proper clean-out. Which means every now and then I stumble across goodies in the note pages. Like a list of possible career options, from when I panicked about my future in fourth-year university. ('Editor' was not on the list. 'Architect', 'lawyer' and 'art curator' were, meaning I hadn't yet adopted my 'aim low' philosophy.) Notes for job interviews (hi Napanee Museum!). A to-do list for moving to Toronto (1999). Shopping lists for three consecutive Christmases. A list of radical ways in which I was going to Change! My! Life! during my quarter-life crisis. Lists of books to read. Recipes to make. Quotes to remember.

Because my Daytimer has grown heavier over the years, under the weight of responsibility for keeping my life together and my mind clear, I decided to rid it of all unnecessary items. And hidden under the front flap I found this:

This photo is at least twelve years old. I'd hazard a guess that it's from 1994. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Yep. It's just about time to try a new look.

The week in review

2007-01-28T09:51:00.000-05:00

Greetings from Oxfordshire! It sure has been a dramatic week in these parts. The waters are high, so you can't rely on taking your ordinary route home.

And you realise it would have been a wise idea to invest in a pair of good ol' knee-high English Wellies. That way you might have made it across the meadow to the pub, the pub with the roaring fire and cider on tap, rather than standing mournfully in your suddenly woefully inadequate hiking shoes. (Not pictured: the Mudpit of Doom.)

Also this past week: Oxfordshire's snow of the season! It happened overnight and was almost gone by noon, of course. This paltry dusting - shown here just before sunrise - caused many to call into work saying they were 'snowed in'. (Photo from here.)

Allow me a moment to snort in disbelief. Sure, call in and say the roads are slippery and you'd rather not risk hitting black ice. Fair enough; cars don't have snow tires - sorry, tyres - here. But two centimetres of wet snow doesn't make you 'snowed in'. 'Snowed in' means having to dig your car out. And having to climb into your house through a second-story window. I don't know about you, but that's what I tell foreigners about winter in Canada. Besides, it's obviously what they want to hear. In a recent Guardian article about expat Brits, their single, solitary example of a Brit who had emigrated to Canada was some guy who became a Mountie in Nunavet (sic).

In other exciting developments, we've acquired a dehumidifier. Since moving into this flat I've had a pair of hiking boots and a knapsack grow mold. We were fighting a losing battle against black mildew on the window frames, but the discovery of fuzzy white stuff growing on the inside of our side door was the final straw. When we first plugged in the dehumidifier and allowed it to calibrate, it got a humidity reading of 89 (out of a possible 100!). This is one damp country. On the positive side, static cling, the curse of winter in Canada, is but a distant memory.

We've also inherited a powerful vacuum cleaner (to replace the old, useless one). The amount of dust it just took out of the carpets has increased my resolve to abolish wall-to-wall carpeting. Not to mention all the hair it picked up - anyone who lives with a long-locked person can guess the horror show that results from the combination of carpeting and an ineffective vacuum. I know I'm obsessed. But many people here genuinely believe carpeting is superior, that hardwood floors are cold and sterile, and my conscience won't let me rest until I make them understand how much better their lives could be.

Anyway, no need to worry: we've survived Snowstorm '07. Today it was 10 degrees and we flung all the windows open to clean. Laundry is hanging on the line, surfaces are sparkling, curtains are waving merrily in the breeze. Feels like spring!

Warms the heart, it does

2007-01-22T15:01:00.000-05:00

Saturday morning, well before daylight, which arrives at approximately noon in these northern climes, I hauled myself out of bed and down to the train station for a four-hour journey involving four different trains. One of which apparently never existed - thanks for the accurate trip itinerary, Virgin Rail!

Remarkably, I managed to make it to Liverpool, each consecutive train carrying even more fans in red, so that it seemed the entire surrounding countryside was flooding in for the game. In the environs of Anfield Stadium, the streets were filled with people coming from all directions on foot, wrapped in coats that hid their full regalia until they reached the stadium.

I was there through the efforts of a good friend, Julie, card-carrying member of the Liverpool FC Fan Club, Toronto Branch, who scored tickets and then came across the ocean for the match (and to visit old friends). My affection for Liverpool FC is largely due to her enthusiasm and encyclopedic knowledge. And Steven Gerrard. But it would have melted anyone's heart to hear the entire stadium singing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' at the start and end of the match. Against predictions and a very uninspiring Chelsea side, Liverpool went up two goals early and held on, making it truly the perfect day. Well, actually, fighting for a cab with two Chelsea fans and winning was the final icing on the cake. Though it's become just too easy to hate Chelsea FC, hasn't it? Almost boring.

Seeing just how consumed the city was by the match cast into stark relief the delusions of those who think Beckham will make soccer big in the States. The people at the game - the outfits, the non-stop cheers (each player has his own), and the passion was crazy. These people are hard on their boys! Liverpool were up by two goals, playing rather well, and I'm all 'oh, good try!' and 'it was a good thought' and 'that's okay, get back into position' and 'oooh, unlucky!'. But these Liverpool fans, they were yelling 'ya bunch of f'n pansies!' and 'let's see some football for a change!' and 'that's right, give the ball away, ya #$@*s!' Affectionately, I'm sure. It surprised me how human the players appeared when seen in person rather than on television. They were suddenly so obviously life-sized (well, except Peter Crouch, visible at the center of the photo below), and vulnerable. You could see them mess up and get out of breath. You realise they're all just young men, none too bright, many not long out of high school. And suddenly I understood the attitude of the fans a bit better. We were the parents, cheering on our kids with a hockey-dad-and-soccer-mum mixture of frantic pride, embarrassed annoyance and sympathetic resignation (tho' spicier language than I'd normally use). On Saturday the pride won out, and the entire stadium got warmer and fuzzier as it became obvious the Reds would hang on.

I borrowed Jeff's camera for the day, as it's lighter-weight and less expensive to replace had I been embroiled in any hooliganism. But the zoom isn't as good and the shutter kept getting stuck because there's jam in it. A story which almost certainly deserves its own entry - though it's really Jeff's to tell. Anyway, I didn't get the best of photos, but it was the best of days, so Julie, thanks a bunch and here's to a Reds winning streak! One can dream.

Adventures in text messaging

2007-01-19T14:14:00.000-05:00

Today is a momentous occasion - I've just sent my very first text message! And my god, it took forever. I'll have you know that, while I couldn't figure out how to make capital letters, my punctuation and spelling was otherwise impeccable. I'm still awaiting confirmation that it actually arrived, but if hell freezes over tonight, it's probably my fault.

Tomorrow I'm voluntarily getting up at 6:00 am. On a Saturday. So if you see creatures of the porcine variety flying, that's probably also my fault. Here's a not-so-subtle hint as to my destination:

Something must be afoot ...

2007-01-15T18:46:00.000-05:00

I've been coveting a pair of Trippen shoes for ages. They're weird, architectural, and really groovy. I finally bought a pair today - on sale, but still expensive, and the closest things to designer shoes I've ever had. So I was wearing them around the flat happily.

I decided out of boredom to glance at what else was in the shoe box: a little package of talc in case the insoles squeaked in the shoes, and two full A4 pages full of tiny type, containing, among many other salient points, the following nuggets of information (suffering a bit for the translation from German). Read on - they get better and better:

'Please be aware of sharp objects and edges and please avoid dirt, moisture and direct sunlight as this can damage the shoes.'

'When buying your shoes please make sure that they are neither too loose or too tight and only wear the shoes with socks of the same thickness.'

'Do not wear light coloured socks in dark or coloured shoes and take extra care with your clothing. If you have worn the shoes barefoot the dye can usually be removed with soap. If the dye has stained your feet permanently, your skin type is not suitable for our dark or coloured leather. In this case please choose a leather in a light colour like nature, white or perla.'

'All chrome-tanned leather are unsuitable for people with chrome allergies. In case of a chrome allergy please only take shoes made from vegetable-tanned leather into consideration.'

'Please avoid any surfaces with sharp edges like stone beaches or mountain paths, and also avoid metal grids or hot tarmac as it will destroy the rubber soles. Avoid any activities such as kneeling as otherwise the rim can be damaged and parts of the sole may come off.'

'Please keep in mind that all our soles are made from rubber and might become electrical charged.'

'Please take extra care on wet, icy or badly soiled surfaces as well as on sandy ground or wet tiles and be aware of any objects you could slip on like wet leaves, banana peel, garbage, oil, etc.'

[They briefly interject to warn that the soles of their 'Penna' line, which I did not buy, are 'usable structures that should be treated this way - any misapplication can harm you and damage the soles.' Uh, are we still talking about shoes?]

'All Trippen shoes are designed for European 'norm feet' with average width and people with an average body weight.'

'Our shoes cannot be recommended for people with strong foot perspiration or aggressive sweat, as sweat can dissolve dye from the leather, which can shorten the life span of the shoes as a whole drastically.'

'Zips are nice and practical, but when buying a style with zips please make sure that the shoes are not too tight. No tension must be applied to the zips as otherwise they might break.'

'Please be patient and open any fastenings on your shoes completely before putting them on and be careful with zips, laces or buckles. Please note that with too much tension applied the zips, laces or eyelets might snap.

And the grand finale:

'As much as you love your shoes, it is best not to wear them every day, but rather only every third day, so in between the leather can dry completely. Constant use can reduce the life span of your shoes drastically!'

What the hell??? It's utterly absurd - it's an anti-sales-pitch. I have no recourse if anything goes wrong as they've basically absolved themselves of any responsibility for the quality of their shoes. I almost wonder if the company is having a joke - do I just lack a sense of humour? Cause this has pretty much made me decide to return them. What would you do ... take a chance and risk an expensive mistake, or take 'em back and move on?

Dreams Burn Down

2007-01-13T09:22:00.000-05:00

Alright, enough with the artsy-fartsy photos. It’s just so drearily, unrelentingly damp here that I’m unmotivated to think about anything. Everything in our flat feels slightly damp. In resignation I’ve just hung out the washing in a light rain, which is perhaps the most British thing I’ve ever done. Because even when it’s not raining here it’s still raining, in the sense that the ground and air are wet. I miss the dry cold of winter in Ontario. (Then I complained about my desiccated skin peeling off in large sheets, now I complain about it mildewing through excessive moisture. Clearly I will never be satisfied.)

We listen to a lot of internet radio here. They play a lot of Ride; this morning it was Like a Daydream, one of my 16-year-old anthems. The band was four very cute English boys from Oxford and I was madly in love. Now that I’m living in Oxford I’m looking for some extra meaning or excitement but it’s not really there. Back then I wanted nothing more than to live in England, like any number of teenaged Anglophiles who were deeply wounded by the demise of Select magazine. Now I think I’m too old to appreciate it in that sense.

I just read an article in the Guardian about the closing of a famous London club, Trash, that for years was the hub of the indie scene and from which emerged Bloc Party and the Klaxons, among other bands. The manager started it when he was 22, and the revelers in the photos looked like teenagers. It occurred to me, with horror, that I am old enough to be the mother of a teenager. I’d be a colossal disappointment to my sixteen-year-old self, since I have failed to frequent any London clubs, but on a day-to-day basis I’m more concerned with my job, my finances, keeping the flat clean and making it to the gym. In other words, I'm a crashing bore.

And anyway, living here means I don’t get to be romantic about it anymore. I think visitors can find the England they want to – the country is very canny about providing what tourists want and you can find potted experiences easily enough. There’s certainly an awful lot to be seen and appreciated. But some days all it means to me is that I can’t get my laundry dry, I can’t run hot and cold water out of one tap, I can’t find a place to buy stamps, and the banks are so unapologetically irrational that I have to laugh (and then cry). The country’s history is criss-crossed with powerlines, there's a Starbucks on Carnaby Street, and people love their cars here just as much as anywhere else. I’m both disappointed to see 'big box' stores and excited that I can find Kiehl’s products – a contradiction that pretty much sums it up. When not living here I want it to be that idealized, unrealistic England, when living here I just want all the mod cons I’m used to. That’s not to say there haven’t been great moments – just not at this time of year. When the land dries and the sun is out, there’s nothing better than a stroll in London or exploring country lanes, which really are as beautiful as the postcards.

I have to start planning some adventures for the new year. Need I remind you that I have 30 days of holiday this year? Ah, the bright side emerges.

Winter sun

2007-01-04T15:37:00.000-05:00

One more photo from home. Not snowy, but still pretty.

Holy cow it's 2007

2007-01-04T14:17:00.000-05:00

Remembering to write '2006' on stuff still took effort! Now I got worries.

I am back in England and the forecast is rain for the next four days. Sigh. At least I survived my first day back at work. Survived it by avoiding all the urgent stuff (that will, once I reacquaint myself with it, reduce me to semi-hysterical panic) and sorting through my inbox, taking down Christmas tinsel, putting books in alphabetical order, setting up my 2007 day planner, and making my desk area immaculate. I am tempted to leave the out-of-office assistant on for the next two weeks while I wade through everything I had hoped to get done before the holidays. Oh well. Stress ... keeps you young, you know?

The holidays went by far too fast, and yet they were escapist, almost as though the intervening year never happened. I had some great visits with much-missed friends and family, but didn't see nearly enough of anyone, didn't even see everyone I wanted to, and tragically failed to make it to Sephora. (They have stores in Paris, so that's my next goal.) I did fit some shopping in, though. It's much more fun to spend British pounds in Canada than to watch your Canadian savings vaporize while unemployed in Britain. Since I can't gloat about having had a nice white Christmas, I am instead reveling in the fact that I bought jeans and a skirt for the equivalent of nine pounds total. The last jeans I bought here cost forty pounds, and the last skirt fifty pounds, for comparison. (I love Monsoon, but it's expensive!)

Some highlights of the trip home:

Discovering that the last house we lived in is, against all odds, still standing;

Feeling Canadian in my hometown (skating, hot apple cider, and toques!);

And experiencing two days of winter before it melted away again.

I am a sporting hero

2006-12-14T16:26:00.000-05:00

Any day that starts out with the replacement of our nasty bathroom carpeting with linoleum that almost looks like hardwood when you squint ...

... and ends up like this ...

... is a good day indeed. The NEXT, however, is a little painful. Today I look as though I aged twenty years overnight. I love my champagne, but when there are free top-ups it's a bad scene. (In my defense, I was sitting through Physics-related slideshows. Oh alright, I admit it was a pretty fun evening.)

We had our end-of-season football dinner (curry and beer!) tonight. I tied for Player of the Season. As goofy as the award was, I couldn't help but feel a rush of giddiness. (I've spent my life getting also-ran awards such as 'Most Sportsmanlike Player' or 'Most Consistently Late Player' or 'Longest Ponytail'.) I also got nominated for Player of Steel - with the comment that I'm scary out on the field! I prefer to think of myself as a gentle giant. I have only injured one person and that was due to an involuntary slide tackle when I stepped on the ball and sailed about ten metres into someone else feet first (I maintain that I bore the brunt of that collision). I know, now you can see why I'm Player of the Season. Anyway, I was expecting to come away with 'Most Own-Goals of the Season' so it's a pleasant surprise. My cheer was considerably diminished when I became an object of pity after failing to get a prize three Christmas Crackers in a row. What a stupid tradition.

My festive events are finished, which is a bit sad, although good for the liver. Now it's just work work work and pack pack pack. And then I will finally have time to start hyperventilating about getting onto an airplane. Yes, good times are ahead.

A large-footed woman's hunt for fabulous shoes

2006-12-10T14:47:00.000-05:00

It did not go well, as one might expect. I may have to attend a formal dinner in dull, ordinary flats. Either that or risk the dreaded Black Toenail of Doom (which later falls off - not that you needed that gory detail) on my left foot, which is oh-so-conveniently over a half-size larger than my right.

I lost the second half of last sandal season when I wore my only shoes with heels (which were the largest the store carried but still a smidge too small) to a job interview without realising that after taking two buses I was still a brisk fifteen-minute walk from my destination. By the time I hobbled back in my front door hours and hours later the carnage was alarming. To add insult to injury I didn't get the job, although I had already decided the commute wasn't worth it.

As you can see it was a lovely day in Oxford. Christmas shoppers tend to be jolly when there's a gentle sprinkling of snow coming down. But when it's rainy, grey, and getting dark at 3 pm, and all the stores are closing at five, at which point you'll have no chance to do your errands until the following weekend, things get a little ugly. I have only a week before holidays now, and feel vaguely nauseated at the thought of everything that has to happen at work this week, around a plethora of Christmas lunches and other festive company events. I'm all for holiday spirit, but I wish that project schedules would take it into account. Not participating looks misanthropic, but attending means working quite late to catch up. It's a dilemma.

I'm having fun making lists of everywhere I want to visit back home. Our old 'hood, Little Italy (not sure I can bring myself to walk by our old house though), Aunties 'n' Uncles, Kensington Market, St. Lawrence Market, Queen West, Sephora, my old workplace, as many Second Cups as possible, cheap sushi places ... basically I just want to walk and walk, and soak up the city. And of course I can't wait to get back to the hometown, for cosy pubs, driving the Volvos (they have seat heaters!), tree decorating, brunches, crossword puzzles, and my parents' habit of starting dinner with two bottles of wine. (Dinner for four, I should add ... they stick to one when it's just them. I'm probably in trouble now.)

Blue Christmas

2006-12-06T14:58:00.000-05:00

Regent Street, London

ROFL!

2006-12-05T18:04:00.000-05:00

If you haven't seen it already, go to Torontoist and watch the vintage news clip about the new phenomenon called 'Internet'. (It was posted Dec. 5 so you'll have to scroll down or just watch it here.) It all seems so innocent and optimistic (especially the comment about how there's no curse words). Every time Peter Mansbridge says 'Internet' with that forced tone, or they show someone 'surfing' a black screen with neon green eighties type, or they explain the purpose of 'emoticons' in painfully obvious detail, see if you don't guffaw. And look! There's still some hair on Peter's head!

Right - I'm adding more linkage because I don't have energy to write anything and because these are really brilliant:

Mary Poppins Film Trailer

The Shining Film Trailer

Hey - it's December! I'm going to be home in 13 days!

One-day weekends

2006-11-26T13:54:00.000-05:00

I worked most of yesterday. I got a fair amount done, and expected to feel satisfaction and/or accomplishment, but mostly I felt resentful that half my weekend was consumed by what I do every weekday - sit on my rear in front of a computer. I spend so much of my life seated and staring at a computer screen, which seems completely unnatural. I've read that our distant ancestors would travel up to 20 or 25 miles a day in search of food, and would often go days without eating. Compare that to how we live now! I like my job, but I do fantasize regularly about landscaping or a more active profession. Something that wouldn't involve my muscles atrophying and my hips attaining secretarial proportions. So if I haven't been sitting and writing much here lately, it's because I'd rather be doing this:

No footage of our mats in action, but we like to think we look a little something like this. Or we would, except we haven't figured out how to make them both work on one computer, so we're taking turns or using our own laptops. Fun!

Anyway, today we did get out and about. I met a friend at an art show in our neighborhood, then Jeff and I walked around (not across! see photo below) the Port Meadow and ended up at a cosy thatched-roof pub with a roaring fire and Chrismas decorations (it amuses me that they put fake snow on the windows). We walked back into the city centre, stumbled by accident upon a travelling French Christmas market on Broad Street, and ended up sitting in the front window of a coffee shop (okay I admit it, it was Starbucks) watching shoppers rush by and the city's Christmas lights flare up. I LOVE this time of year! I have so many deadlines to meet at work before I fly home that I haven't really been able to get excited yet. But I'm starting to have that holly jolly feeling. Bring on the mulled wine!

Not that it looks like Christmas around here. It's a balmy twelve degrees, and all is muddy, all is wet. The Port Meadow has become a lake.

Also, just when I thought the British had covered EVERY POSSIBLE REALITY TV SHOW IMAGINABLE*, I've discovered Cirque du Celebrites. Yes, celebrities doing circus stunts.

* Some of the more horrifying: Chubby Children, where kids audition to go on a fitness and diet regimen; Break with the Boss, where a boss takes two or three of his/her employees on a vacation where they compete for a promotion; or Jade's PA, where people fight for the extremely unappealing job of PA to a D-list celebrity, famous only for distinguishing herself as the stupidest person in Britain on ANOTHER reality show, Big Brother.

Maybe postpone that safari

2006-11-19T13:00:00.000-05:00

This is the saddest, most unsettling article I've read in a long time. Shouldn't come as a surprise, though.

The elephants are going mad

I'll owe you an apology after this

2006-11-15T16:56:00.001-05:00

For about a week, we've been inadvertently and annoyingly breaking into song. I've done it at work when I wasn't thinking. I've done it while walking down the street. I'll arrive home, having blissfully cleared the tune from my mind with my iPod, and Jeff will walk in the door an hour later and be singing it. The reason is a ridiculously catchy tune by a ridiculously large group of people who rented a high school gymnasium to record a ridiculously low-budget video. They're called I'm From Barcelona. They're Swedish. I know, it blows the mind.

Click on this link to see 23 twenty- and thirty-somethings who appear to have stepped out of a 1970s class photo (outsized specs! inexcusable hairstyles! cardigans on men!). You'll hate me tomorrow when you can't stop la-la-la-la-ing. Twee, indeed.

Ha ha, and then watch this one.

The first of many years of being 29

2006-11-11T14:43:00.000-05:00

The nicest thing my parents ever did for me was to give me a brother. One whose laid-back demeanour allowed me to boss him around. Who never pestered me when we had to share the back seat on long car rides, because he was too busy memorizing makes and models of every other car on the road. Who made my parents' anti-television laws bearable by being a great Lego architect. Who wasn't embarrassed to have a sister on his all-boys soccer team, and made a great lead singer in our band.

I sometimes resented his smallness and cuteness, since I was freakishly large and had terrible front teeth (he never needed braces; I had them twice). I still remember standing at either side of a door frame to be measured, he standing on tip toes, me scrunching down in hopes of denying the three inches I always seemed to grow. Until he started to catch up, and then it got competitive. At age 18 he passed the six foot mark and kept going, enabling him to eat twice the calories I could and not gain weight. I have never forgiven him for this. (Though his thinness is also due to admirable discipline and lots of biking and hockey.)

He quit a respectable engineering job because he had the sense to know it wasn't what he wanted, and has spent the past several years travelling all across North America with an auto-racing team. He seems to get eight times more things done in a day than I do, but still finds time to phone me on his lunch hours and make mix-CDs of all the great driving tunes I could want. Which makes it just a little easier to be living so far apart.

He's turning twenty-nine today. It's a very weird moment when you realise your little brother is almost thirty. I find that more shocking than being thirty myself. You probably won't be home to read this, bro, but happy birthday! I hope the year ahead is a great one.

Perspective

2006-11-11T08:11:00.000-05:00

Both my grandfathers came overseas during WW2, as very young men, much younger than I am. I'm not sure one of them had ever been far from his rural Ontario farm. When I was in Edinburgh eight years ago, contemplating getting on the next plane home, I found some comfort in sitting beside the same floral clock (in the Princes' Street Gardens) that he had been so impressed by nearly sixty years earlier. Even now, when I get homesick, I think of how much more overwhelming it would have been for them, facing genuine hardship and knowing they might never make it back to Canada. I don't think I'd have been strong enough.

For Fawkes' sake!

2006-11-06T14:34:00.000-05:00

I've been even jumpier than usual lately, because people have been setting off fireworks at random times of day and night all over the city for a week now. Just a few minutes ago I died a little death when, minding my own business and washing dishes at the sink, I was blinded by a flash of light and then deafened by a squeal and an insanely loud CRACK. I'd swear it was in our backyard, but it must have been the neighbours. I can hear other bangs and pops in the distance. Honestly, people. It's called bonfire NIGHT, not bonfire MONTH. I know it's a subtle distinction but let's give it a try. This is even more tiresome than the week-long car-horn celebrations in Toronto whenever Portugal beat some downtrodden developing nation in the World Cup. People of delicate sensibilities, such as myself, should not be subjected to such shocks. My right eyelid has developed a twitch due to jangled nerves. (Or it could be due to the fact that I stare all day at a truly awful computer monitor at work. I put in a request for a flat-screen LCD monitor. I was given a voucher for an eye test. Stalemate.)

Today I experienced my first real old-fashioned English pea-souper. I walked to work this morning in a thick fog. I walked home from work nine hours later in an even thicker fog. (I spent the intervening hours also in a thick fog, but that was the lack-of-sleep variety.) It was dark by then, and I had to pass a cemetery on a fairly deserted stretch of road, and, well, reading all those mystery novels doesn't help at such times. It was like something out of Sherlock Holmes. The other side of the street was nothing but dark shapes. Bikes and pedestrians, and the Hound of the Baskervilles (or at least an impossibly large dog), loomed out of nowhere. Headlights and streetlamps ineffectually bounced off the droplets of water in the air, only decreasing visibility. Trees dripped even though it wasn't raining. Double-decker buses looked like alien ships. It was all kind of cool in an eerie way, for about five minutes. Then it because claustrophobic. The air was vaguely suffocating, like breathing through a damp cloth. The pressure on my sinuses was intense.

And then more of those blasted fireworks! In a dense fog! When I'm struggling to focus my eyes on anything a few feet ahead, and momentarily wonder if I've been shot! It's such a trial to be high-strung. (As opposed to strung high, which is what happened to Guy Fawkes before he was summarily drawn and quartered. The English are nothing if not thorough.)

Well, at least I made some sort of impression.

2006-11-02T15:47:00.000-05:00

My close encounters with mystery novelists continue. I went to see Ian Rankin talk about his new Rebus novel tonight. He charmed the audience with his self-deprecating wit, charmed me by admitting the last two albums he bought were Mogwai and Arab Strap (he quoted Cure lyrics in one book, and I swooned), promised not to kill off Rebus in his final novel, answered inane questions about his favourite cheese, and drew naughts and crosses in the book he signed for me.

I totally dorked out, as I do in these situations, and blindly rambled to him about how I discovered his books while living in Edinburgh and how they enhanced my appreciation of the city (or some such mortifying drivel). This of course surprised him as Rebus's Edinburgh is dark, gritty and crime-ridden. He asked where I was from, and said 'Ohhhhhhh, I know Kingston'. I suspect the fact that I hail from a city with four prisons made everything illuminated. You KNOW I'm tough.

Sigh. He's just so cool.

Champagne lifestyle, beer budget

2006-10-30T18:21:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Jeff's parents, who have just landed safely back in Canada after a wonderful visit, we spent the past weekend in a flat in Mayfair, London. I was in my very own Breakfast at Tiffany's heaven, a dream from which I am only grudgingly coming down to earth. We window-shopped on Bond St., I spent money on overpriced and frivolous but oh-so-lovely products from a few of my favorite places, and we had dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Everything we wanted was within walking distance, which meant no underground trips (truly, the tube is about the only thing I loathe about London). Even better, for the first time since moving here we didn't have to return to Oxford at night. We could stroll around at our leisure as evening set in and the crowds dispersed, leaving a much more laid-back vibe.

Has anyone else read From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler? Well, replace the Met Museum with Liberty and I'm there. I'm ready to move in.

Then again, I've also read Secrets of the Shopping Mall, and mannequins can be pretty creepy after dark.

Land of Land Rovers

2006-10-26T19:37:00.000-04:00

Exmoor in autumn.

The coast on a rainy day.

Things are busy but good. Need sleep.

Gerrrrrrrronimo!

2006-10-24T16:46:00.000-04:00

Just can't get enough of those sheep. Highly intelligent creatures, I hear.

More sheep, more old stones

2006-10-17T17:31:00.000-04:00

Been a bit busy, so this won't be much more than a hasty travelogue for the next week or so. We're having a lovely visit with Gaby and Richard, who arrived last Thursday and have since been covering lots of ground. Tomorrow they're off to Warwick, then perhaps Bath. (Me? Another day in the rat race.) Last weekend we took advantage of the weather by punting, having ciders in a beer garden, and visiting Avebury. So far we've had no incidents with the rental car. Cross your fingers for us. It's the size of a small tank, which doesn't bode well on these roads.

Avebury. Ancient, y'know? And, like Glastonbury, smelling of patchouli and incense. I like it.

turkey: a lament

2006-10-09T15:21:00.000-04:00

We forgot that it was Canadian Thanksgiving until midway through this past weekend, and it was just as well. Less time to feel sorry for myself that I can't go back to the homestead. I think you have to special-order turkeys here, and it would have taken approximately two weeks to cook one in our oven anyway. So we didn't bother - but I sure do miss pumpkin pie! I miss walking in the local conservation area, going to the market, and, as ever, Second Cup chai lattes. I've already started to get that bubbly Christmas giddiness (partly because I've booked my flights home!), but I am unable to engage in my traditions of bopping around Williams Sonoma to their jazzy carols, buying something for myself with each gift for someone else at Sephora, and walking home slowly along Queen Street West, window shopping and stopping for goodies in Dufflet's. I miss Toronto!

Still, it's a time for thanksgiving, n'est-ce pas? And I do appreciate what I have. Yesterday I watched Jeff fold his laundry while watching an episode of MI-5 on his laptop, and I got a cosy homey feeling. (Perhaps the significance of this event is lost on you, but at the laundromat in the old days he used to shove his clean clothes in a bag - where they would sometimes sit and wrinkle for days - and leave me behind, painstakingly pairing socks and ordering shirts by colour.) And he made his heavenly crepes last night and has just gone to the store to buy eggs because it's raining and I am weary from soccer and can't be bothered to change into pants that are acceptable in the outside world.

Today I cut my tongue while licking an envelope, which was really cool and everything. I thought it would at least help with the diet, but it's amazing what pain can be endured in order to enjoy a Ben's cookie. I'm eating as though I plan to hibernate for six months. Where will the madness end?

P.S. Happy thanksgiving, everyone - I miss you loads!

Aren't we cosmopolitan ...

2006-10-05T15:55:00.000-04:00

I've counted and I think I've now been to fourteen countries, because we spent last weekend in Denmark. I've always longed to nonchalantly mention, when someone asks how my weekend was, something like 'Oh, great, just hopped over to Denmark for a few days.' There are so many cool places to go in Europe that all seem really close. This flight was only one hour and forty minutes. However, what with getting to and from airports, security lineups, train delays, etc., it actually took almost ten hours door to door, which has us rethinking weekend escapes.

Denmark is lovely. It's incredibly flat, which I somehow hadn't expected, and mostly farmland and fishing. There are windmills everywhere, because the country gets 15% of its energy that way (and exports the technology around the world). They drive on the right side of the road, and their highways are perfectly sensible (there truly is no excuse for British roads). There's only one river in the country, but the fjords go quite a long ways inland. Danish people have great taste in decor and never use nasty wall-to-wall carpeting. They have an odd penchant for salty candy, but make fantastic chocolate. They call danishes 'wienerbrod' or 'Viennese bread'. (Will no-one admit responsibility for those things?) Babies always take their afternoon naps outside bundled in their prams, even in cold weather. There is little fear of theft, doors are open, neighbours pop round to chat, the food is simple and healthy. It felt like one of the most liveable places I've ever been.

The street we stayed on, in Mariager.

Look, a fjord!

Lego is Danish. Here's what it looked like in the 1940s.

But the best part about visiting Denmark, that made the travel time worth it ten times over, was seeing Rikke again. I met her in Edinburgh, when we were both exchange students at the university. Back then we giggled over hot chocolates, marvelled at the miniscule size of her windowless bedroom (it was the boxroom in the flat she shared), and spent a blustery day in St Andrews. This past weekend Jeff and I met her husband, Villy, and her adorable (and incredibly energetic!) one-year-old daughter, Sofie. We stayed in their lovely home, ate apples straight off the tree in their backyard, and enjoyed their company enormously. It was like escaping into some sort of idyllic storybook land ...

Franglais

2006-10-03T14:41:00.000-04:00

The Office, in addition to becoming a surprisingly funny US series, is being adapted in Germany as Stromberg, in France as Le Bureau, and in French Canada as La Job. Heh.

An article about some of the remakes.

David Bowie guest-stars in the second season of Ricky Gervais' new series, Extras. And the new season of Veronica Mars starts tonight, which will give me a reason to carry on now that it's only barely light out when I have to get up for work and sandal season is officially over.

Oh, something else cool ... I saw this guy on the bus last week. I wanted to tell him I've read almost every Inspector Morse book (except the last one where Morse dies), but we had only two stops together before he got off, and we passed liked ships in the night ...

In which I lose my sense of humour

2006-10-02T14:16:00.000-04:00

So. That other weekend, when we rented the car? When we were white-knuckling it the whole way, getting tailgated like crazy, honked at and passed unsafely by British drivers, finding it hard to get the confidence to get anywhere NEAR the speed limit they post on ill-designed and incredibly narrow and twisty roads, because we were so worried about not hitting cars careening around corners towards us halfway into our lane or not hitting the kerbs (no shoulders on most roads here) and flipping over?

Here's the tremendously unfunny punchline. We got a speeding ticket.* In the mail today. Apparently from a speed camera about a kilometre from our house, on the return journey. We were six miles over the speed limit. Because we had just come off a roundabout from a major ring road with a much higher speed limit and were trying not to get rammed from behind. What the %$#@*! is THAT? 6 miles an hour translates to just under 10 kilometers an hour. Has anyone in North America ever been ticketed for going less than 10 km over the speed limit? I rather think not. On top of this, the lovely rental agency is charging 35 pounds (about 80 bucks) just to pass the ticket along to us.

Neither of us has ever gotten a speeding ticket in our lives. Neither of us has ever had a flat tire. Neither of us has ever had any trouble with car rental agencies or been dinged for charges in excess of basic rental fees.

Driving in this country Is. Not. Worth. It.

* For the record, Jeff was driving. Very cautiously and safely, might I add.

In love with a view

2006-09-25T17:33:00.000-04:00

The company I work for has a long-standing tradition (nearly forty years) of sending groups of employees to the Lake District for fell-walking trips in the mountains. These trips are pure enjoyment - basically a free holiday. The accommodation was everything a cozy old stone cottage should be, the food and wine was abundant, the walks were gorgeous and satisfyingly exhausting, the weather was lovely, and the other people on the trip were great fun. Fantastic!

We adored the Lake District when we climbed there eight years ago. If possible, I love it even more now. Being built like a heavyweight wrestler, I'm not exactly made for tripping merrily up steep hills. But there is something so refreshing about days of sunshine, fresh air and physical exertion. Especially after spending most of my days as a desk jockey in a hermetically-sealed office environment. Besides, the views make up for the pain of the climb.

(song reference in the title, anyone?)

Horsing around (ouch!)

2006-09-18T16:05:00.000-04:00

This morning it took me about twenty minutes to fully adjust to reality - I had been in the middle of a very vivid dream when the alarm went off. Those were twenty minutes I didn't have, however, resulting in my leaving the house without most of what I needed for the day, and on the bus I realised I had also put my skirt on the wrong way around. I had to wriggle as I walked from the bus stop to work to try to turn it so the zipper, seams and extra fabric allowance where my rear end should have been were all successfully relocated. The fact that the waistband is a little snug due to pre-winter carb-loading made this even harder to do inconspicuously. At lunch I slowly and elegantly tipped the juice from my fruit cup into my lap, until my motor skills belatedly kicked in. Some days, I can't take me anywhere.

But. But! We rented a car this past weekend, and returned it without mishap! Yes, mistakes were made, British drivers were irritated, arguments were had (one roundabout just about ended our relationship), but we did it. The greatest challenge may have been maneuvering in and out of the two metres square that masquerades as a parking space in front of the flat. (The neighbours enjoyed a drama complete with song and dance as we tried to fit the car in each night.)

No overly ambitious trips across the country this time. Instead, we drove around the Cotswolds on Saturday, visiting Great Tew (and a dreamy little pub), Stow-on-the-Wold and Bourton-on-the-Water. On the way we stopped at the 3000-year-old Rollright Stones. Not exactly Stonehenge, but blissfully off the beaten track.

On Sunday we drove down to Uffington to see the oldest and most famous of the 'white horses'. The drive to get there was gorgeous but stressful - not unlike the Road to Hana in Maui (though admittedly without 400-foot drops down to the ocean). The horse is thought to be 3000 years old, and except for becoming a bit thinner (heroin chic, y'know) has changed little in that time. The finest views are from further away ... here's the best shot I could get:

It's hard to imagine just how much human civilisation this area has seen. To the right of the horse (not pictured) is an even older burial mound, and just above, at the highest point in Oxfordshire, the remains of a 2700-year-old hill fort. Today people graze their sheep in it; in the 16th century they held sporting competitions there. Below the white horse is a valley where you can see terraces made by medieval farmers before the Black Death cut back the area's population in 1349. Below is Dragon Hill, where, according to legend, St. George slew the dragon. The dragon's blood supposedly poisoned the grass, leaving the bare patch you can see.

We hiked a little ways along the Ridgeway, a trail that follows the course of an iron age road, to visit the site of a 5000-year-old tomb. (It has rather obviously been restored.) Here they found lots of ancient dismembered human bones! Jeff dared me to crawl inside but I declined due to my fear of spiders, centipedes, rats, zombies, and other creepy crawlies.

All in all, a good weekend, though my nerves were so shot from the driving that I could have used a day of recovery before returning to work. (I have a litany of complaints about English road design, but perhaps that can wait for another day.) Still, it's a short week. Thursday I'm away up north for four days. Hopefully I'll bring back aching muscles, great photos, and a renewed zest for life. Ha.

Indian summer

2006-09-12T18:30:00.000-04:00

Finally made it to the coast this past weekend. Walked along the beach. Smiled into the sun. Wiggled our toes in the sand. Splashed in the surf. Ate ice cream. Watched the sky grow pink and orange. Nearly missed our train.

Highbrow meets lowbrow

2006-09-06T16:09:00.000-04:00

Beyonce, Pamela Anderson et al bring a little South Beach to Balliol College:

Went to St. Giles' Fair last night. It's great fun to see this otherwise rather stodgy part of the city come alive with carnies, candy apples and crap music. People flood in from around the county, and the university warns all departments against complacency in the face of "ne'er-do-wells known to roam far and wide in their search for ill-gotten gains." My friend described it more succinctly: 'Eat a hotdog, watch your purse.' Apparently it's a tradition since Edwardian times:

As you can see, they still have the lighthouse slide thingy (visible in background of the old photo). It's called a helter-skelter. I went on one in Brighton, England eight years ago. Burned a hole in the elbow of my coat as I slid down. Decided not to try it in a T-shirt.

In fact, decided not to try most of the rides, which were pretty hard-core for a travelling carnival. Also, I've been scarred for life by an episode of CSI in which a rollercoaster derails and mass slaughter ensues.

Broken Social Scene saved my weekend

2006-09-02T17:30:00.000-04:00

Allow this to be my paean to the shambolic Canadian 'collective' band. I love eleven people on stage at one time. I love two drummers duelling it out. I love real trumpets and violins and trombones and wacky noisemaking gadgets. I love giant crescendos when the whole group crashes in to finish a song (the only thing I ever really liked about high school band). Arcade Fire and Godspeed You Black Emperor are both on my list of favorite shows ever. But the BSS show last Monday night was pretty good too. Mind you, I think my appreciation was increased by the fact it's been so long since I've been to a show, that I've been missing Canadian accents and humour, that the club reminded me of Lee's Palace, and that all band members had unwashed hippie hair. (Also, the singer referred to the movie 'Oxford Blues', a painful Rob Lowe vehicle from the 80s, and even though I don't think anyone in the audience had heard of it, he kept interjecting with 'Rob Lowe!' throughout the whole next song.)

Today I slept until 11 and then we wasted three hours watching Laguna Beach. I know that there's really no excuse for this behaviour. (Other than maybe Veronica Mars withdrawal and rubbish weather.) Jeff couldn't relate to the teenage girl culture in the show. But I LIVED that stuff, in Kingston township back in the heady 90s. Cruising in my BMW, getting pedicures with the girls, hanging out in hottubs and infinity pools, red carpets and Gucci gowns for prom.

Squandering a Saturday afternoon reminds me of something else I've been putting off. I just bought two pairs of frivolous footwear, but what I really need is new running shoes. Given the family history of knee injuries, I've been comparatively lucky. But I can't run for the bus without pain shooting up my shins, and warmup laps at soccer are agonizing even though they're on grass. When I run on the treadmill at the gym it's a given that I'll get ankle pain (my sprain never healed properly), dull grinding knee pain, shin pains or an aching lower back. I'm puzzled about why it's so bad. I am, and have always been, a big person, but I'm not terribly overweight anymore, not terribly old yet, and have always been active. I know shoes are never magic bullets, but the ones I use are several years old and I think it's time to revisit orthotics. This all means a specialty running store, of which there is only one in the area. About 40 minutes away by bus. Store hours 9:30-5:30 Monday to Saturday. I really can't cope without evening shopping. And I can't bear to waste a whole Saturday afternoon on a single errand. Not when there's such quality programming on TV.

Oh, and because Jeff thinks I should post more photos, here are a few of our abortive adventure last weekend.

Making our way through Somerset, excited about having acclimatized to driving on the 'wrong' side of the road.

Look! Glastonbury Tor!

Wandering around the impressive ruins of Glastonbury Abbey in blissful ignorance of the flat tire awaiting us back at the car.

Big brother

2006-08-30T15:39:00.000-04:00

I felt a frisson of anxiety when I googled myself (I'm not vain - honest it was the first time in years) and found this blog was the number one hit. If it is true that employers google employees these days, I'll have to be on my best behaviour from now on. Which is pretty unnerving.

My last name is intentionally nowhere on the web page. Has anyone linked to this using my full name? (I'd appreciate it if you didn't, just for the record.) Are there other ways for this to have occurred? I'm kind of creeped out.

And Rob and Jessi, thanks for the chocolate! So few people take my need for sweets seriously (ahem, Jeff). You guys are the best!

A tale of woe

2006-08-27T13:50:00.000-04:00

I arrived forty-five minutes late for my seminar in London on Thursday because every stinking tube line in London was either experiencing signal failures, closed platforms, unexpected delays or 'incidents' - it took me two hours to make the trip from Paddington to Canary Wharf when the London transport board route planner said it should take twenty-nine minutes. You might think this would be enough bad travel karma for one week. You would be wrong.

I think yesterday we wrote the book on how not to do your bank holiday weekend. For example, don't book everything at the last minute on a busy week when you're going to be exhausted at the end of it. Don't have one cocktail too many out with co-workers the night before. Don't pack at the last possible second. Don't rush into work the morning you leave to fire off an important document you forgot to send the day before. Don't accept a rental car with visible damage to the hubcaps which suggests someone has already hit a few bumps in it. Don't get lost in the suburbs of Bristol because you're trying to take a 'scenic route'. Don't bother making a sidetrip to Glastonbury when the main point of your trip is hiking in Exmoor. (Even if you have unwashed hippie hair and find yourself among your own kind when you get there.) Don't assume that just because a North American car can handle the odd bump in the road that the tiny tonka-toy tires on European tin cans (ours was about the size of our new dishwasher and almost couldn't fit our suitcase in the back seat - there was no trunk) will be similarly resilient. Don't go off and explore a ruined abbey if it means you'll come back to a flat tire - though you almost couldn't tell because there's only two inches of rubber before you hit rim even when inflated. Don't wait until this point to discover that there is no spare tire (where would you even put one?) and only a tube of glue for patching punctures. Don't bother holding onto ANY hope at this point, because the aluminum-foil wheel rim will inevitably be bent precluding any repairs but a replacement wheel. And said wheel or a replacement rental car aren't going to happen at 4:00 pm on a bank holiday Saturday in a country where everything closes on Sunday.

We were forced to abandon our entire vacation, two and a half hours from our destination, because of a flat tire. Not even the roadside assistance guys, when they finally arrived, could handle the situation. It's so ridiculous that even now I want to scream. Last night, as we sat in the tow truck on the way back to Oxford (our only available option) the driver kept reminding us how he was supposed to be on his way home. Yeah, cry me a river, you're getting paid overtime and we've lost our one-night deposit on the B & B, the cost of a rental car for the weekend, whatever they'll hit us with in damage, and our entire vacation. I didn't even get to climb the damned Glastonbury Tor after all that. Or get my turn at driving.

We were so dejected we couldn't even talk the whole way home. It was an awful night. Today the weather is beautiful and we're aching to be out hiking on the moors, as we were supposed to be. So we coped with our depression in ways appropriate to our respective genders. Jeff bought a new gadget (an even cooler mobile phone) and I bought shoes. The magnitude of the crisis required two pairs. I may need to add another if I still don't feel better tomorrow. Send chocolate.

Underachieving since high school

2006-08-23T16:33:00.000-04:00

You know how you get in those ruts sometimes? Or maybe it's just me, and my chronic lethargy. I'm a compulsive to-do list maker, because if I don't write it down I don't remember it (my memory has a very finite capacity). Lately I've been writing down things I've already done, just so I can cross them off. Or adding very small, easily achievable tasks. Like finishing a book. Or sending a postcard. Or buying more laundry detergent (note: store is 50 metres from my front door). All of which have been carried over to the next week's to-do list three times now. Other areas in which I have spectacularly failed to meet my own expectations:

Booking a hair appointment
I haven't had my hair cut since November. Because of the rather - dare I say it - 'edgy' cutting style of Coupe Bizarre, my formerly rock-n-roll 'do now sports eight inches of split ends and says nothing so much as 'unwashed hippie.' Make that 'unwashed hippie with malnutrition and hard water.' And yet ... and yet ... booking a hair appointment requires a decision and a risk. (Committing to an untested hairdresser and trusting them with my hair, which took years of determination and focus to grow.) And we all know that means I'll never get around to it.

Arriving at work before 9:30 am
Did I say I was a morning person in my job interview? Did I say I spring out of bed each day full of energy, ready to bring fresh new ideas and enthusiasm to the projects at hand? Did I say I was invariably punctual, polished and professional? Well, that's what you get for believing someone with the hair of an unwashed and malnourished hippie living in a flat with hard water.

Spending more than five minutes in the kitchen
There is photographic evidence to prove that I am not starving. But I can't seem to regain any motivation to actually cook. Dinner means one of three things: a) I've eaten so much junk earlier in the day that I'm not hungry; b) I throw together a prewashed salad with pre-crumbled feta and tomatoes small enough that they don't need to be cut up; c) I microwave something from Marks & Spencers. I've never been one for cooking, but this is ridiculous. There could be some relation between this, my lack of energy, and my inability to achieve glossy, shampoo-commercial locks. But damned if I can see it.

Buying a car
The only things I'm worse at than the little decisions are the big decisions. And this is a biggie. Especially as I'm too scared to test-drive anything on the wrong side of the road. Hey, look at that - something else I've failed to do. Six months here, only six months left before I need to apply for a British driving license, and no UK driving experience. I'm outdoing myself here. But there's more!

Applying for a British credit card
Wouldn't you rather get charged an arm and a leg every time you use your foreign credit card? Anything to avoid having to sit down and read some boring paperwork. I'm really good about doing my taxes, too, by the way. If it weren't for my mom I'd probably never be able to return to Canada.

Hooking myself up with a mobile phone
Jeff has even acquired a used phone for me in an attempt to vault me into the 1990s. But, see, getting it set up requires choosing a phone plan which means a decision AND reading boring paperwork. And then I'd have to change my blog name.

Responding to emails
Many of you will already be aware of my shortcomings in this area. I wish I could say it's because I've been breathtakingly busy with a flashy social life, gruelling workout schedule and meteoric career trajectory.

I need an annoying but un-ignorable super-motivating Richard-Simmons type person (but not in short shorts) to get me off the sofa. Oh dear, have I just admitted to needing a LIFE COACH? Gag.

Off to London for a seminar tomorrow. And then hopefully (if I can borrow Jeff's mobile phone) to meet up with the lovely Kathrin. She's a go-getter. Maybe I'll be inspired ...

P.S. Still raining.

The rains, they have begun.

2006-08-19T15:25:00.000-04:00

A recap of yesterday's weather:

8:00 am: rain
9:00: 5 minutes of sun
10:00: drizzle
11:00: great grapefruit-sized chunks of hail
11:30: torrential rain
12:00: fire and brimstone
1:00: plague of locusts
2:00: rain
3:00: rain
4:00: rain
5:00: rain
6:00: drizzle
7:00 pm onwards: no idea as I wasn't about to leave the house again

A recap of today's activities:
Running in and out of the flat with my clean laundry every ten minutes as thunder rumbled, lightning flashed, rain came down, and sun shone in erratic cycles all afternoon. At one point I just stood outside staring at the sky for about twenty minutes, paralyzed with indecision, being rained on gently as the sun tried to break through the clouds. Why do people have clotheslines in this country?

Amidst these trials, however, I am always cheered by dancing nerdily to nerdy indie rock. And by watching others doing the same. Here are two particularly commendable examples, which you've probably seen already. I definitely haven't been getting enough out of my treadmill workouts.

OK Go: Here it goes again
Mates of State: It's all in your head

Addendum: Another YouTube classic I'd forgotten about - he has his own web site too, where you can also see the original version from his first round-the-world trip.
Matt

Perhaps I was Amelia Earhart

2006-08-12T09:09:00.000-04:00

Have I mentioned that I'm deathly afraid of flying? Overseas flights particularly scare me, since large expanses of water cause knots in my stomach. (I'm also freaked out by large ships and submarines.) I'm a feet-on-solid-ground kind of person. Once I'm on the plane, fatalism or sedatives keep me calm. But in the weeks before an overseas flight I get panicked about making sure my affairs are in order. I've almost wondered if it's a past life thing, even though I don't really buy into that stuff. In any case, this certainty of doom means it takes a lot of psychological pep-talking for me to plan a big trip.

I had just decided I didn't have it in me, financially or time-wise, to go back to Canada again in September, even though I was heartbroken about missing Chelsea's wedding. Then all hell broke loose at Heathrow and now I probably couldn't have forced myself onto a plane around September 11 anyway, even though many others will and will be just fine. I'm worried about encouraging people to visit us, now, too. (You can quote statistics about the number of flights each day and car accident death rates, and argue that when your number's up your number's up. That's the thing about irrational fears - reason doesn't help.) I had started to consider ways to extend the European sojourn while we're fairly young and unencumbered by offspring. But for the past few days all I can think about is how much I wish I were only a comparatively safe VIA rail trip away from my family and friends.

A quick and inelegant rundown of what we've been up to:
We went to a lovely wedding at Christ Church Cathedral last weekend. The cathedral is beautiful, the choir was haunting, and it almost made me reconsider church weddings. During the civil war in the 1600s, Charles I resided at Christ Church when he made Oxford the royalist stronghold against Cromwell (there are remants of the war all over Oxford). His queen lived at Merton college, and he used to visit her through a little gate in the cathedral yard. After the wedding we all got to proceed through this gate, which is almost always locked, to a reception of champagne, Pimm's and strawberries and cream in the gardens of Corpus Christi college. (The vice-president of our university dorm at Queen's was at the wedding - since the groom was Dutch and the bride American it makes it an even more unlikely coincidence.) Naturally the celebrations ended up at a pub along the river. After that we had friends visiting from Canada, which necessitated more champagne and punting.

Otherwise, work is busy and stressful but good experience. The coworkers I am playing soccer with are improving really fast, and the numbers are if anything increasing. Women of my age here didn't have much opportunity to play as kids, so they are having a blast. And we even have some men coming out. The only problems is that noone can afford a house in Oxford, so they all have to drive home to neighboring towns after practice. This considerably reduces the amount of alcohol consumed at the pub. I miss the number of pitchers the Panic squad goes through! Jeff's job is also a bit stressful at the moment, mostly because there have been unforeseen challenges in getting projects off the ground. He's getting backup come autumn so things should fall into place. We haven't been travelling much other than day trips because it's nice to relax at weekends and catch up on miniscule loads of laundry and dishes in our micro-appliances. It's a chance to throw open doors and windows, hang sheets on the line, and freshen everything up. (I've brought back rolls of acrylic screen from Canada so now I just need to figure out how to rig it up.) We've also grown quite attached to a nearby village and conservation area, within an easy bike ride of Oxford.

A view from the hills of the Port Meadow (green space - look for the sailboat on the river) and behind it our neighborhood in Oxford. You can see how dry it has been here by the colour of the hills in the background and foreground.

Only in England

2006-08-10T18:09:00.000-04:00

I absolutely adore this kind of story, and there seem to be so many of them here.
The Mole Man of Hackney
Best quote: 'Tunnelling is something that should be talked about without panicking.'

But, lest it seem that I always poke fun at Britain, there is much to be learned here too. Part of the reason the English countryside is so lovely and accessible is the fact that the government protects its green space. Last year almost three quarters of new homes were built on 'recycled' land in urban areas, curbing the type of sprawl that blights North America. I think that's pretty darned cool.

Thirtysomething

2006-08-07T15:38:00.000-04:00

Today is the day that age-thirty jokes stop being riotously funny to Jeff (lord knows I've heard enough of them since March). Annoyingly, he's ageing far better than I am, and in another ten years will probably still look thirty.

For his birthday, his parents sent a beautiful bound copy of his PhD thesis, on paper expertly selected by his mom. It has pride of place on our bookshelf, but doesn't begin to tell the story of what went into that degree. I've been along for the ride since he first decided to pursue physics, and I've been blown away by the hard work, commitment and courage he's shown to get this far, especially during a few rough years. He's come through it all with an impressive record of publications and awards, and I'm enjoying tagging along and vicariously experiencing Oxford academia as 'doctor and the missus.'

Along the way he has built a canoe, become a great photographer, learned some Spanish and kayaking skills and become a certified scuba diver. He can pick up anything easily, and I jealously guard my editing manuals because I MUST be allowed one area in which I can be the expert. We have a dynamic of him pulling and me digging in my heels, and I would never have tried sushi, gone canoe tripping or spent a year in Scotland if it weren't for him.

We met when we were nineteen, when Jeff was a member of the International Socialists and wore big combat boots (and a moustache, which I was fortunately able to get past). We bonded one evening in a university dorm over our respective CD collections, excited to find someone else into the same bands. Total nineties cliche! We have grown up together, and I adore him more each year. I mean, really, what's not to love? He's super smart, goofy in all the best ways, and cleans up pretty good, too.

Happy birthday, old fart!

One year short of a Beatles song

2006-08-05T15:30:00.000-04:00

When I was packing to move here I ran out of time to choose some pictures and easily transportable tchotchkes to remind me of home. So in celebration of my dad's recent birthday, I have only a lousy photo of a photo. Photos from the 70s and early 80s have an odd finish - almost like a woven texture. And they acquire an orangey-gold glow that makes everything seem softer and warmer like it took place in late afternoon sunshine. But the glow doesn't exaggerate my dad's dashing good looks.

Or his seventies rockstar hair.

My dad was a varsity athlete and trained as a tank commander. But he also wore sandals, drove Volvos (LONG before they were popular), voted NDP, grew alfalfa sprouts and made yogurt, lobbied for and helped maintain conservation areas and nature preserves, and refused to let me play with Barbie dolls. He was a demanding dad, but he devoted more time to us than most parents I knew. He coached sports teams, took us on hikes and attended every excruciating music recital. After a day of work he still had the energy to sit on a child-sized chair and pretend to be impressed by a plate of Lego blocks in a make-believe restaurant. He drew cartoons of insects to stop me being so afraid of them, and the characters still appear on my birthday cards. He once got a speeding ticket because he was belting out the hits from 'Sesame Street Singalong' with us and paying no attention to the speedometer. I owe my appreciation of puns to him, and also my crazy eyebrows. He's working on my appreciation of red wine, which he no longer drinks out of Tupperware cups (see photo).

Happy birthday, Dad! I hope it's another great year.

This will get me through an English winter

2006-08-03T16:26:00.000-04:00

My favorite things about the cottage: big skies, eating every meal on the deck overlooking the water, and toasting heavenly sunsets with wine.

We had fifteen people at dinner one night in Quebec. Being immersed in extended family after close to ten years is really strange. So much has changed, so little has changed. My inner socially awkward teenager always emerges in spite of a decade of adulthood. But it was a great holiday, with lots of swimming, biking, canoeing, and fresh local food, in one of my favorite places on earth. It was wonderful to see everyone, and I feel grounded again now.

(It's surreal to start a new life among total strangers who don't have any reference points about me. I am coming across bland as white bread in my attempts to get along with everyone. I need someone to really tick me off so I can be the surly, cynical and slightly arrogant person inside the deceptively affable exterior. British Gas is coming pretty close. After six months they still can't find our account and have yet to bill us for electricity. The collapse of the Empire suddenly seems a bit more understandable.)

Jet lagged

2006-08-02T14:37:00.000-04:00

I'm back. I'm tired. I have eight million emails and phone calls I owe people. I desperately wish I were back in that hammock with a cold beer.

On the upside, it's a very comfortable 18 degrees here this evening.

Oxford has two seasons ...

2006-07-16T13:01:00.000-04:00

... winter and French schoolchildren!

I remember from our last trip around Europe in '98 that many places in England were overrun with French, Italian or Spanish schoolchildren. At the time I never really bothered to think why that could be, other than the proximity of those countries. But now I've figured out that they're all at that age where nobody likes them, including their parents. So they have been sent to England on English-language summer courses. In '98 group leaders spray-painted the kids' heads different colours to know which ones were in which group. Now they just give them all matching backpacks. Backpacks which, being at THAT age, they fail to remove when on crowded public transit and whack you with repeatedly. They stand around in self-absorbed groups, blocking sidewalks, doorways, store aisles, train platforms, basically anywhere you need to be. We biked into town to do errands this afternoon, and it reminded me of Toronto during Canada World Youth. Shudder. We usually spend weekends biking out of town, away from the tourists, visiting outlying villages and their 'gastro-pubs'. (A trend I highly approve of, which makes me a total yuppie.) Or visiting places like Winchester or Bath, both of which I'd recommend.

I'm finding I don't have much energy for writing, though. The past few weeks I've either been at work or been worrying about work, and I can't really write about that. I considered the much-used 'humorous list' format for a cheap and cheerful entry about things that have happened lately: Maybe 'Ten things it is hard to do in a wrap skirt on a windy day' (nah, guys couldn't relate). Or 'Physical manifestations of my advancing age' (but why ruin the illusion of perfection?). How about 'Things that have given me acid reflux lately'? (No, because that would be everything, and it's too big a list.) Or 'Cultural references I have made at work that have merited only blank stares' (Chef Boy-Ar-Dee and Tofurky aren't, apparently, on peoples' radars here, and are therefore decidedly Unfunny).

Anyway, I don't have a lot of material. Or I didn't, until Jeff unexpectedly completed his latest quixotic mission. See, I am an over-thinker. I weigh all the options, consider the consequences, plan for all eventualities, and as a result rarely accomplish anything. He is an under-thinker. He decides something would be cool, and goes out and does it with unseemly haste. Usually we balance each other out, but I thought he'd gotten away from me on this one. After he unsuccessfully bid on about thirty dishwashers on e-Bay, to my horror he actually won one. I had no idea how he would ever fit a dishwasher into our teeny tiny Euro kitchen, and envisioned the thing becoming an impromptu end table. It arrived, sat on our living room floor for a week, and seemed to fulfill my fears. But Jeff figured out how to hook it up, and it works. In a mere three hours (about as long as one of the wash cycles in our teeny tiny Euro washing machine) we can now wash approximately two glasses, two plates, and four forks, ALL AT THE SAME TIME!

Okay, so it takes a few more dishes than that, but you can see for yourself how ridiculously small it is. I had no idea such a thing even existed until I moved here!

Europeans love their teeny tiny appliances. Here, in only about four square feet of space, is our fridge, washing machine, furnace, and dishwasher. Not pictured: diminuitive microwave and lethargic stove.

(I'm going on holiday! In only three days!)

Through the looking-glass

2006-07-08T14:43:00.000-04:00

Today began with both of us being too ill to get out of bed. Why were we under the weather? That would be the surreal Alice-in-Wonderland experience that was last night. The company I work for held a summer party. And while you might think 'work party, ugh,' as I did at first mention, it was mind-blowingly awesome. When I saw my coworkers taking entire bottles of wine away from the (free!) bar rather than messing about with mere glassfuls, and singing, air-guitaring and making the 'rock on' sign along to 'Living on a Prayer' and 'Summer of '69' just as enthusiastically as any red-blooded North American, I fell in love with them all over again. Work hard, play hard!

Buses picked us up and took us out to a country manor, where we were met with glasses of champagne at the door.

There was dinner and schmoozing:

And croquet:

And lots and lots of wine:

Which made me think this was a hallucination:

Later in the evening there were more stiltwalkers, feathers, maracas, whistles, glow-in-the-dark toys, fire-throwing acts, and a packed dance tent. There were rumours of indiscretions in the manicured topiary shrubs. Jeff spotted a man on the dancefloor wearing women's underwear on his head (not someone I know, sadly, because imagine the mileage you could get out of that back at the office on Monday!).

In other words, this crushing hangover? Well worth it, a thousand times over!