Mostly lemon based

Category: Canada

  • Wakey wakey rise and shine

    Said my body at 4:45am. I’m not quite sure why, I think I was woken by my throat, and then my brain started listing all the things I need to do today. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) Kathryn said I wasn’t to do anything that might upset my throat further – so my cunning plan to strip the paint on the door frames, and uh, paint them is off*.

    I’ve still got a fair bit to get on with. When the frost’s melted a bit I need to take jejy round to the tyre place, having found that the ‘slow’ puncture’s got quicker, and that it’s leaking from the valve. Now I can point and go “look, it’s leaking from the valve; that’s definately your fault, please fix it”. I also am debating getting an external enclosure for my now spare SATA hard drive (what? why?!)…

    Let me explain. I want to sell the G5 Mac. The G5 Mac currently sports 2 largish harddrives, a lot of memory, a 20″ monitor, a 14″ LCD monitor and so on. To sell it, I have two options:

    1) Dump all my data onto and remove the second HDD.
    2) Copy all my data onto the 500Gb ex-entertainment-Hackintosh drive in an external drive case and then nuke the two drives.

    I think the latter is probably the better solution. Whilst it will cost 20 quid, it will probably add more than 20 quid to the value of the Mac, selling it with two big hard drives in. Mind you, if one of them is bigger than 500Gig it’ll be being swapped around.

    At any rate, I’ve been travelling in the DAF a lot recently, and it’s come to my attention that the Radiomobile radio doesn’t work…

    It did work when we got the car, it stopped working a while ago, and has not spontaneously reanimated itself. But I rather like the look of it. Ratty and tatty though it is, it’s part of the car’s 1970s charm. The plasti-chrome is peeling and the volume knob turns on it’s spindle. But I have a solution. Rip out its guts and throw them away.

    I’ve finally found a cheapie company making (almost certainly lousy quality) automotive amplifiers (but you’re in a car with no soundproofing to speak of). In fact, the one I’ve bid 75p for (but £9.99 shipping) also sports 2 inputs (but no means of switching between them, switches, presumably, are extra). But since I intend to gut the poor wee beastie, that’s fine. I’m also hopefully going to get my grubby little hands on one of the Matsui DAB tuners. Back before I planned to move to Canada I debated buying one of these for the Minor. But they were 30 quid at the time.

    Now, at a few quid second hand, they’re tempting to again be the subject of my soldering iron. The plan is simple; gut the DAB tuner, gut the amplifier, make Radiomobile into DAB tuner. Leave socket for MP3/CD player. And lo, we’ll have the perfect modern stereo in a 70s box.

    Mind you, that’s how it is in my head. How it’ll work in practice is another question. The other thing I quite fancy, having driven the car a while now, is a small amount of illumination around the air vent controls and the hot/cold air selector sliders.

    I usually end up waving my arms around under the dashboard to find them (when driving in the dark) so a little glowy white LED illuminating the up/down arrows seems quite tempting to me. And a little red/blue illumination on the hot air and cold air sliders also seems like quite a nice idea (potentially mounting them in a small piece of sanded perspex to diffuse the light). I’m slightly concerned she might look a little boy-racer though with the blue/red glow eminating from the dash, but at least I’d be able to control the temperature while driving without too much concentration. I’m also slightly concerned that I might get overly attached to Jejy. But hey.

    This all comes about because I need to prepare Jejy to be Rebecca’s temporary replacement while I fit the diff (when it arrives), the gearbox (when it’s ready), the new swivel pins (when they’re manufactured; if ever), trunions, poly-bush the front suspension, and repaint the damaged paint areas of the engine bay. Oh, and strip out the dash, find all the things that are rattling, stop them from doing so, clean out the heater, fit a new inline heater control valve (from a golf, apparently), and potentially convert her to Left Hand Drive (which involves moving the brake master cylinder and associated plumbing, remanufacturing the dash I made (otherwise the worry gauges will all be in front of the passenger), fitting the other gearbox front plate and somehow working out how to lock and unlock the passenger door from the outside), oh and ideally fitting a heated rear window that works, and in a perfect world sending off the speedo to be recalibrated, the revcounter to be reinternalised and the clock to be made to work (a car with a working clock! that’d be a novelty).

    Just a short list of jobs…

    So Jejy may have to do service for the minor for a while. Which is why I fancy a radio and a CD input.

    Anyway, today I need to get my act together and sell the Mac, and possibly the Dell (although I doubt the dell is going to sell). And in aid of getting started, I shall now have my breakfast.

    * Yes, yes, I know she’s right, but it seemed like a good idea in my head :)

  • Distracted by the shiny

    So, I’ve been looking on in joy watching the new Obama led government put a stop to torture in their name, signing orders to close Guantanamo, and generally being shiny in all the ways I’d hoped they’d be. Happily reading good things in the papers. It’s been a bit, well, different.

    Feeling quite positive about the world.

    And my MP wrote back to my previous ‘please vote against this’ with a ‘already was, but thanks’; which I rather liked. And then I came across this: who needs privacy?

    So, today I crafted another e-mail to my MP – I’m hoping she’ll be on-side with this one as well. I never really thought of myself as being a political creature, but as I’ve got older and realised that I disagree with a lot of things that are going on, and I am really unhappy with where the country’s going (in general terms) I find myself being more and more politically motivated. Even though I don’t intend to be here much longer I don’t think that anyone should have to put up with the level of invasion of privacy that they’re suggesting.

    The irony is I’m one of these weird people who’s pro the NHS having a massive database of health records; or at least basic information shared across the country. Why? Because I stand there and have patients who are dying in front of me who might have hideous allergies to the drugs we’re about to give them, who’ve been in accidents and can’t tell me that they’ve got some medical condition or other and I think, well, it’d make sense to have that information available. However, I disagree with the way they’ve done it. I disagree with virtually everything about computers in the NHS that I’ve encountered. Ironically the best (and most reliable) systems I’ve encountered are the early 80s ones with the text interfaces running on Unix based systems. Although ours has a really dumb-ass bug where if you press any of the arrow keys (except the up/down ones) it instantly crashes your instance of the software, which can be dreadfully annoying when you’re hurridly discharging the patient walking out the door at 3hours 59mins (4 hours is a breach, and a great sin).

    But having the government having access to that information? Makes me want to go back to storing all information on paper cards and in little folders, just to make life as difficult for them as possible.

    In other news, the TV appears to be soldiering on, I’m suspecting it was just a loose connector (bad me, should have checked) – it seems happy enough though. I’ve had to give in and order a new HDD for the Hackintosh though, it still freaks me out, that once a 20Meg HDD was ‘huge’ and now I’m about to stick a 1Tb drive into this computer.

    I’m actually tempted to keep the 500Gig one as a ‘backup’ and just decruft it a bit and stick it in a box. I’ve no way to back up stuff otherwise.

    In other (other) news, it has come to my attention that I’m not being as good about ‘doing things’ as I should be. I’ve got a pile of paperwork building up, again, which needs sorting. I need to get off my ass and do something about my (non-new-year’s but) resolution (all the same) to put in at least an hour a day into my development as a nurse. I need to get the cars sorted. I need to assemble the MZ. I need to finish decorating this house so we can escape this damn country and get (me) somewhere I can get paid a reasonable amount for my skills without pimping myself out to any trust that’ll pay me – no job security there. And to a place where Kathryn can truly start the process of getting the job she wants.

    I want to only work one job, not 3. I want to be able to see Kathryn. I don’t want to stand staring at my off duty and looking at the request I do two sets of nights in a month and think ‘well, shit, I could do with the money’ and end up saying yes.

    The wonderful nature of the people around me has kept me going thus far, and I shall miss my friends greatly when I leave this little island, but this little island has no respect for public servants. And working 3 jobs means I have no time or energy to express my creativity. I want to be off urbexing, I want to create the animation that runs through my head whenever I listen to Rock ‘n’ Roll or Trains (in fact, quite a few of the tracks on Today Is.. inspire me and I’m wondering if I could animate the entire album).

    A lot of this is down to me. I sit down of a morning and browse the internet until I’m bored and then sit and watch Blackadder, or BSG, or House, or Hustle instead of doing things that would actually make me feel a creative and interesting person. I am disappointed in my lack of activity. I’m disappointed that I’ve not written the book that lurks in my head. Even if it’s crap, I should have written it.

    I sound down on myself, and sad. I’m not, I’m feeling positive. I have the power to change these things. I have the power to give myself the time to do these things. Not necessarily creative time right now (with 2 cars sick and needing input of time and energy, and a bike that needs assembling, and a house in need of decorating). But I’ve remembered that I can do this. I used to come home after an early and work. I used to make progress on the house. That will start to happen again.

    I’m going to finish the kitchen over the next couple of weeks. The walls and the ceiling need washing down (Kathryn’s started). The cars are going to get sorted too. So; so we all know what the plan is:

    Late days: Paperwork and Development on Nursing.
    Earlys: Work on house or cars
    Days off: Spending time with Kathryn, doing creative stuff or seeing friends or family

    Uh, and cleaning the bathroom :)

    Which I’m off to do now.

    Time to decruft :)

  • There’s greasing to be done

    So, ‘becca’s covered a full 3000 miles since her rebuild and it’s service time. While the newly rebuilt A+ engine has somewhat longer service intervals than the A-series, the suspension, gearbox and back-axle are all original mog and need servicing every 3000 miles. It’s a clear blue sky out there and I’m going to shower and head to the store to get some oil and oil-fiter and bits and bobs (I’m not going to do the valve clearances, but I will ring Southam Metro Centre to see if they can fit me in any day before Xmas to get the 500 mile check over done; because they said just carry on driving and come back when you’ve got enough time free).

    I’m planning to take the fan-heater outside with me (the one with switches) so I can warm my toes and my hands as I need to – because despite the sun being ‘out’ it’s still frosty outside. I’m also planning a quick trip to the bank to deposit Kathryn’s half of the mortgage and such – and then I will get the stuff ordered for the DAF. I’m already going to have to move ‘er today, which is less than ideal, but I need the driveway space. My lax approach to asking about the garage on the corner means today’s service has to be conducted on the driveway. In the cold. Lying on a sheet of cardboard.

    I also need to sort out some means of getting music outside or I will, and I say this quite honestly, go nuts. I hate working on the car in silence, and I’ve done it often enough. I’ll probably run the cable round from the back of the house and dump the laptop on the wall. But I must admit to being slow about getting outside because it’s fucking freezing. It was cold *in* the house (this morning, it’s not now :) ). Outside it’s going to be even colder.

    Work continues to be incredibly short staffed, virtually every day they’ve offered me extra shifts – I’ve covered 2 this week and been offered another 2 – and we’ve been working with more agency staff in the department than I’ve ever seen before. We have had some truly excellent Thornbury nurses, which is not entirely surprising, but it’s good when you see how agency should be. People with plenty of A&E experience coming in, which makes it far easier to deal with than when you have lots of non-A&E staff.

    I’ve accidentally accepted a shift I shouldn’t have though. I’d meant to keep the day open for Agency, but forgot to put that on the Calendar. Ah well, at least I know I’ve got a shift.

    I need to send my agency my Plaster form and Suture form and Cannulation form too. Get that sorted this week, maybe.

    Sorry, this is emensely dull for you. Today’s journal post comes from the ‘Post it note of things to do’ genre. ;)

    Yeah, so anyhow, on other topics. Canada’s been lurking in my consciousness a lot recently. Contemplating logistics, and timings, and considering posting on the vancouver community (and possibly canadian lesbians) to get some input on ideas. Propsects for Kathryn’s job-interests, good hospitals, should we consider living in Richmond – or would it be like living in a giant Slough. Also wondered if there’s some kind of equivalent to housing auctions here – there – just because I’d like to look at Reno possibilities (not yet talked to Kathryn about that) – with the idea that we could live in place A, reno place B (or even get people in to do it) – and thus be able to land up in a house of our own (again) – ‘cos I like having a place which is ours. I like painting and decorating and the fact that we picked the decor, and we can change it when we want.

    I keep having this sort of pseudo-dream that I’m coming home from work and we’re living in Canada. It doesn’t get as far as ‘and I’m not working 3 jobs’, but I suspect that all the extra shifts I’ve been doing are factoring in to it.

    The unnerving thing is that to earn enough to pay off the credit card I’ll almost certainly earn over the threshold of starting to pay my student loan. Which I’ve been carefully avoiding for the last 6 years. In fact, I was hoping to make it, in some cunning way, to the point when they write the loan off (which iirc is around 50 years old). Unfortunately I’d like to earn enough to eat and go out – the two don’t necessarily coincide.

    One quick question though – I read this post in the Vancouver community – I can’t find anything about this new show (‘Paradox’) anywhere online – has anyone heard of it? Only it sounds quite cool – and I’m intrigued ‘n want to find out more about it…

    So – anyway – I need to go shower and get on with getting oily and dirty. Have fun with your days, y’all. Think of me, frozen to the floor outside.

  • A marginally more informative update

    Today I have:
    – Found out that Nurse Vancouver are at the Practice Nurse doojit in London. I shall go.
    – Sorted out the Nursing Agency problem which meant that I was no longer registered. I shall be registered again as of later today.
    – Read lots of the ATNC course.
    – Checked and found out how Kathryn gets more time here after we’re civilised. Another £395 quid! This gets us 2 years residence, which is more than we need, but means that Kathryn doesn’t get permanent residence (which only comes after 2 years). I’m not sure why she’d want it here, but hey, it’s useful to know these things.
    – Put out the recycling
    – Worked out from where the water that’s taken to appearing on the floor by the shower is coming from. It is, as I suspected the silicone sealant which has failed at that end of the shower, which is good in that I know where it’s coming from, but ups the need for me to fix that. I still don’t know why it won’t stick to the shower base.
    – Confirmed that UK Civil Partnerships are recognised by Canada.
    – Moved my motorbike so as to allow Kathryn to get her bike in the shed.
    – Uploaded an enormous number of photos to Flickr
    – Listened to the ‘new’ Radiohead album, and a few other new albums we acquired in the USA.
    – Put my somewhat more mangled suitcase away, thus saving me debating it’s future anymore.

    I’ve not rung builders yet.
    I’ve not decided whether to switch the Denon amp which does work (but with a knackered and awful CD changer and no phono input) for the amp in the lounge which needs it’s volume control slider switched.
    I’ve not done anything on the house.

    I don’t mind tho’, ‘cos frankly, we spend 18 hours travelling yesterday and I’ve swung my body clock through 8 hours, so I think I’m doing pretty well to not be feeling like death microwaved.

    :)

  • le sigh

    So, yesterday was a good day (apart from the transient death of a laptop. It seems the power connector’s gone now (in addition to the cable and the case, the screen’s occasionally flickering too. I think it might be time to take it apart); tiring but everything went remarkably well. Despite the 6 miles travelled in the last year, Rebecca aquitted herself beautifully; carrying me the 120 miles (with the brief stop at my mum’s to collect new wings) without any untoward experiences (apart from a petrol leak, which I was faintly aware of, but only actually checked up on once I’d got up there).

    It was a gorgeous day, and oddly, for someone who’s lived in the UK all their lives, the sunny-but-cold air reminded me very strongly of Canada. I guess, doing Rebecca is largely a step towards Canadification, and having thought about it getting Canada out of my head was hard. Poor old Rebecca though, her engine sounded so sick by the time we got there – running essentially on 3 cylinders except at higher revs…

    Anyhow, Jonathon of JLH is very friendly – and we chatted for a while and looked around at the Zetec engine’d minors, and the minors undergoing major structural rehabilitation, and chatted of rebuilds topping £50,000… And I looked at my poor tired Rebecca, her subsistence motoring existence having taken it’s toll; rusty wings, rusty doors, knackered engine and such, she won’t be getting one tenth of that; but she her reliability is something which has left me with no small measure of respect for the engineering behind her.

    Anyhow, at the end of the day we headed to Leamington Spa; unfortunately getting stuck behind a learner driver – my train ticket was for 1800, and as he suggested 2 sets of (red) traffic lights from the station, I sprinted from the car and made it to the station at 1803, fortunately, my train was delayed and came in at 1806, just as I scrabbled up the stairs to the platform. I probably had about a minute to spare – and y’know what, I felt sick as a dog as I sat on that train. I sat there reading Scott Pilgrim (vol 1, I needed to start again at the beginning); and drifted off to Canada in my head again.

    I was back, sitting on the GO heading back to Mississauga, new copies of Scott Pilgrim in hand, from a day in Toronto. As the train pulled into Oxford (where I changed) I was thoroughly in that headspace. Finally got back to home just after 8, stopping at the Kebab van for dinner…

    Today, theoretically hasn’t gone badly. I’ve paid the council tax bill (after some argument with the home hub and the hub phone). Internet Exploiter didn’t want to start today, and Firefox is still doing it’s “i think I’ll stop and rest for a bit” at random moments. The laptop is however working after some wiggling of cables and connectors, so I guess reparing that is something I can look forward to. I may well switch it for a standard power connector, since then I can ditch my mini-adaptor. I just really don’t want *more* jobs to do. The fan heater in the lounge also needs stripping down and repairing, and this time I’m peeved with I&A car services.

    They’re great, in-so-far as being a garage I actually trust. But they’re slow. Or at least, when I booked my car in before they had it for several days and didn’t do anything, none of the service was done. This time, they collected the car (although it was no longer booked in), have had it for 3 days, and now want it for another 3. 6 days is a hell of a long time to have a car.

    Colour me unimpressed.

    Come the spring it’ll be back to car servicing I fear. It’s cheaper and it’s quicker. I’m down a car for a few hours, rather than days. Le *sigh*.

    I guess I should get on with the house, but I’m just somehow feeling really fed up. Poot.

  • Making yourself feel homesick for Canada…

    So… it’s cold here. Not really Canadian cold, but cold. Bitter, is the way that Naomi described it. I travelled to work listening to AM’s Underground (aaah, those TTC Chimes); I’ve got home (it’s cold, really bloody cold), read Torontoist and now I’m watching Holmes on Homes. It’s still really good…

    I’ve also been watching The L Word Season 4. So yet again I’m waaaay ahead of everyone I know. Not that anyone at work watches the L word anyway. It’s such a good season, and I really really want someone to talk to about it. TREEEEYYYYY – Can I ring you?!

  • And so endeth 2006

    It seems everyone’s doing a ‘2006’ summary post; I’m debating jumping on that bandwagon. It’s something I’ve done every year (well, not a 2006 summary; but a ‘my year in a few words’ (or at least, less words) thing) since I started journaling; way back…when the web was new and shiny. Well, actually, the web wasn’t; nor was my website; it was more a case of using up the space of one of my vanity domains :-)

    So; at any rate, my New Year’s visit to my mum’s little holiday chalet was fantastic, kinda, although it got off to kind of a shakey start; fundamentally due to my lack of bothering to copy down all the directions; and my failure to realise that the place was much further down the road than I’d assumed. So, after half an hour of cruising up and down the streets, ringing my sister, swearing copiously (to be fair, it’d been a bitch of a drive – hugely wet and windy – and I was tired (tired enough to have slept for an entire hour on the front seats of my car in a service station)) I had almost hit the point of saying ‘stuff it’ and heading home. Fortunately at that point I decided to just drive down the road I was on until I ran out of houses; and then I carried on… and then eventually found the place.

    Chalet is a rather generous term. My mum describes it, on occasion, as her holiday cottage. A more accurate term would be ‘big shed’. It’s very basic, but warm, dry, and pleasant enough. But the view from the window is gorgeous. Uninterrupted fields leading down to the sea. My mum spent a lot of time talking about my dad; and we walked down to see some of the places he’d spent time at while they’d holiday’d there. My dad was very sick by the time that they started going to Devon; and I think for the first time I started to feel – as opposed to merely be aware of – the depth of my mum’s pain.

    It was very odd, very sad, but at the same time such a beautiful place. And I actually enjoyed the time I spent there.

    So, anyway, we did some walking, lots of sitting, lots of talking. And yes; I had an excellent new year. Today, I think I’ve managed to do most of the things that I want to do through the rest of the year; I’ve worked on my house, I’ve spent time with my mum, and I spent time (albeit not much) with my friends. I listened to new music; I listened to the radio; I read stuff on the web…

    So, really, it’s been a good day :-)

    I hope this is a good omen for me.

    2006 was a tough year; but in many ways I’ve had a good one; I finished my degree – I didn’t do as well as I hoped, or indeed expected, but I did get a decent pass – and frankly, the 3 years of my degree course have been the hardest and most challenging years of my life so far. I got a new job, I moved house (again (sorry James)), I experienced new things, I had my bike on the road, I’ve started to get back into music, I met some great new friends and I finally got to see Canada. Now I know what I want longer term from my life; I’ve got a direction… And I’m quite looking forward to 2k7.

  • News from the Kate-i-verse

    So, Xmas and Boxing day and so on. Yup.

    Xmas – I worked the morning, and then went to my sister’s in the afternoon. This is the first year I’ve not got Xmas dinner, probably in my entire life. It’s weird, I’ve actually *lost* weight over Xmas (which is good), but I still feel pissy that she (that is, my sister) invited me for Xmas dinner, and then proceeded to cook and eat it before I even left work for the day.

    Fortunately I had nutritious, healthy, traditional ‘left over Xmas Eve Pizza’ to eat; so I didn’t go too hungry. She did cook an awesome xmas pudding. Then boxing day, I spent that with Claire and Michelle, and their 2 kids, and their respective families. I had a great day, but I must admit it was a trifle odd to spend Boxing day essentially as a psuedo-family member. I had a great, relaxing evening, it kinda reminded me of Alaska – in the whole – being part of a family that’s not my own.

    I spent some time thinking about my own family that day, and that night. And my dad, and the destruction his loss and illness has wreaked upon my family. Where once we seemed such a nuclear family, now we’re all feuds and arguments and it seems so odd. It’s not like my childhood was idillic or anything. But compared to the disaster that is my family now? I guess I find it all a bit weird.

    My BT Broadband connection / Homehub continues to be fairly atrocious; if you put the wireless bit under any kind of load then you rapidly seem to loose all connectivity. It also appears to need to be beaten with the power-switch of doom on regular occasions. this, once must say is less than impressive.

    That thought was brought to you by ‘oh look, I’m disconnected again’.

    Anyhow, so, I met up with Amy, or more hunted her down in the store where she works. Impressed, I must admit, was not the first look that crossed her face. In fact, the meeting was ‘difficult’ at least, from my side. She doesn’t want to see me again. That, I have to admit, is another new experience for me. Not one that I’m keen to repeat. So, yeah. Her loss, and incidentally, from her revelations on that night I’m quite *pleased* that I’m not seeing her again.

    My car, that’s now got electronic ignition; she’s running a lot better now. She’s also serviced. She’s still not *right* though, I’m not quite sure why, I suspect I need to read that Timing lamp’s instructions again, and the instructions in the haynes manual. She’s definately running better. The handbrake however, remains a bit of a mystery. The cable seems to have stretched, and is, I suspect on it’s way out. But I’m not sure that the rear brakes are really doing that much… I think I may have to resort to the ‘someone with more experience’ looking at it.

    I also need to find out when the MOT is, just so that I can work out how much to panic about the now missing new exhaust.

    Oh, and I’ve painted the woodwork in the lounge…

    One thing that has been odd in my little world, I’ve taken to listening to CBC Radio 1, which is what I listened to in Canada; I’m particularly fond of the Dead Dog Cafe, but generally quite enjoy listening to Canada’s equivalent of Radio 4. But it’s odd, because I read Torontoist, and you start to feel a real connection, or a greater connection to the place when you’re reading the news, and hearing the news, and it’s difficult to explain, particularly in my current really quite tired state of mind… but it’s odd.

    Yeah.

    So that’s been my last few days, what’s happened in your world?

  • Packed up…

    So, I’ve been whining at my friends about going home, I think it’s 2 parts wanting to stay in Canada and 1 part not wanting to go back to my ‘room’ in hospital accomodation with my house still as un-sorted as the day I left. We’re now at what, 6 weeks? And I’m still not getting anything from my fracking solicitors.

    How hard is it to e-mail? To ring? Apparently it’s impossible.

    *sighs*

    So I packed up this morning – I’m terrified that I’m over the weight limit for my case. In the end I’ve packed basically ‘as many books as I can’ into my hand-luggage. That plus my laptop will make my hand luggage pretty heavy, but what can I do?

    I picked up some Scooties yesterday (if that’s how you spell it Trey) – I’ve wanted some for ages, and finally got them… It all adds up though – paintings, clothes, books – my suitcase is *full*. Well, no, it could expand a teeny bit, but basically, it’s full. I worry about shite like this – and on the way over it was 16.7 kg; I’ve got 3.3kg to play with, but 560g of that is Gatorade, and then 3 paintings… and some clothes… and presents… and books. Oh god.

    Still, it doesn’t *feel* that much heavier.

    Anyway, I’m gonna have this cup of tea and then head out to see Mississauga. The taxi comes at 1630…

  • All good things come to an end

    So, 2 more days; well; one and 3/4ths and then I’m back in the UK. Although I’m looking forward to working, I miss the nursing aspect of my life, the whole ‘going back to the UK’ thing doesn’t fill me with joy. Friends, yes; I’ve missed them; but I’ve felt more at home here in 2 weeks than I have in London in a month. I know I’m gonna miss Toronto like crazy. Poot.

    Anyway, I spent today mostly chilling out; I did a lot of subwaying – took some photos until someone from the TTC caught me. Apparently they’re not keen on people taking photos of the TTC :-)

    Then I pootled round the east end of Toronto, a bit of Cabbagetown, a bit further out; before eventually heading to The Beguiling to get a copy of the Scott Pilgrim books, which were recommended to me buy the guy at This Ain’t The Rosedale Library. Anyhow, after a bit of wandering I made it there; and they had the books – including an autographed copy of the 3rd edition. So they’re now in my bag. I’m actually more concerned about my baggage allowance to get them back. I’m sure it’ll be okay. I’m good at feining “light” with my rucksack. One of the advantages of being butch ;-)

    Anyway, one of the other things to come out of today (apart from being told off by a TTC worker… did I mention that already?) is the thought process about getting rid of stuff before moving here. It has become apparent to me just how right Kate was, and how much more I can afford to ditch. A lot more. I still want to bring my car and bike/s over, but so many of my belongings can be ditched. So many.

    So, yeah, lots more to clear out.

    I hope that this house has gone through, my solicitors have not contacted me, not replied to e-mail, and my mum didn’t mention recieving anything from them. So I’m a bit concerned. I shall ring them as soon as I’m back in the UK  – and I’ll be mentioning to them that I’m a trifle unimpressed with their down website and their failure to respond to e-mail.

    Anyway, let’s get down to todays photos… Like I said, most of them are from the subway; despite spending probably an hour and a bit wandering around Cabbagetown, which is gorgeous, I just failed to be stuck by inspiration. Or inspiration that’s worth showing anyway. So… yeah. I didn’t really get as far into cabbagetown as I wanted before deciding to head off on my other quest, so… well, you’ve got to have something to come back for.