So - had a great time in Canada (even though Fran did make me go to the gym nearly every day!) While there, we did a lot of searching to try to find a moose for a friend who loves them. Now, you would think that finding a moose in Canada was easy – not a real one, I don’t know how easy that is, but a soft toy or an ornament or something - but amazingly we spent a week looking every time we went anywhere and couldn’t find a moose; you could say we went on a wild moose chase! Beavers there were plenty of (joking aside – it’s their national animal) and bears and deer but NO MOOSE – or rather the few that we saw were the size of a small child and would never have fitted in the case. Finally, a friend of Fran’s kindly joined in the search and came up with this hockey-playing moose.
After that, of course, there were moose everywhere. But the cutest thing – a real animal this time – were the chipmunks which raced around everywhere so fast that I couldn’t get a picture of them...so here’s one I downloaded!
(By the way, Wikipedia lists the UK's national animals as: British bulldogs, Barbary lions, Mute swans, Red kites, Unicorns and Dragons - so 2 birds, 2 mythical animals and one that doesn't live in the country?!)
I
arrived back from Canada last Tuesday after a journey of almost 24 hours
door-to-door (not counting the 7 hours’ time difference). I was prepared for stricter security after
the awful events in Paris but there wasn’t an obvious increase.
My
biggest difficulty was packing my case.
Usually it is me laughing at guests who have bought too many things and
are trying to squeeze them into a bulging case – and worrying about the excess
baggage duties; this time it was me! I
borrowed a larger suitcase from Fran – but then I went shopping again and had
more to squeeze in. Having just about
managed to close it by a joint effort, I then managed to drop it on my foot
which is only just recovering – not surprising as when I weighed it at the
airport I found it was 30kg! We did a
quick rearranging and put a few bits into my cabin bag but the heaviest
items were several bottles of maple syrup which I couldn’t move as it would have
been confiscated. In the end, I just
sucked it up and paid the excess baggage, telling myself I have still saved
money on some of the things AND I have done most of my Christmas shopping!
Since
I got back, the weather has been amazing.
You could have got a suntan – you could have got sunBURNT – the last few
days. Friends in the UK have not
appreciated me sharing this news with them (Grant especially) as I gather it
has been pretty miserable over there.
Don’t worry - it is due to change here this week but you can’t blame us
for making the most of it!
I
have started giving Turkish lessons again.
It’s been a longer break than usual this summer – almost 6 months –
which makes it hard not just for the students to get back into it but for the
teacher too! Still once I do, I enjoy
it. I have several new groups starting
and I am also hoping to set up some conversation classes as the hardest thing
is often getting people to actually use what they learn outside of lessons. While this will still be a lesson situation
it will give people a chance to practice and hopefully give them more
confidence to do the same outside.
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| Sunset yesterday |
