28 Dec 2010

Inspiration often comes from nowhere...

I braved the post-Christmas sales yesterday. Quel horreur!  The general pushy, rude, consumerist behaviour going on all around me was really quite shocking. I was shoved out of the way/to the ground (!) by several women steamrollering their way along the racks, desperate to grab everything and anything before anyone else.  People were getting hysterical. I wasn't sure whether to laugh or not. It was quite pathetic really. The "I don't want it or need it but I don't want you to have it" attitude really makes me despair of modern society at times. People seem so selfish. As I was sat having a coffee to escape the hordes, at the table next to me the woman was detailing her £200 worth of purchases to a friend. I couldn't quite fathom why she had bought more than half of the "bargains" with which she seemed so delighted.

Anyway, before I go on a rant about the moral downfall of western civilisation, let's get back to the point. As I was walking round several shops a few things struck me:

1. This place looks worse than the most chaotic jumble sale in history. Even if I wanted to elbow people out of the way, I wouldn't know where to start to find what I want in this mess.
2. This is all the left-overs, rubbish that no-one wanted before Christmas, that everyone is now ready to commit GBH to get their hands on.
3. None of these clothes are particularly nice, or well-made for that matter.
4. There's probably a sweat-shop of children somewhere in the world that will never see even a fraction of the profits from the clothes they toiled over.

With this in mind, and as I got a beautiful, shiny PINK sewing machine for my birthday (my very own sewing machine!) I have decided to attempt making my own clothes. I made myself a (very simple) cotton shopping bag last week to carry all my books around in. So simple to do, yet buying one similar would cost £10+ in the shops! All I needed was some scrap material and thread! Next on the list - a skirt. Shall post photos and keep you updated with my latest projects soon!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all! xxx

18 Oct 2010

There isn't very much to do in such a small town, is there?

The title of this blog is a question I am often asked on open days by prospective students, or, more usually, their parents. Yes, with a population of approximately 17,000, you can be forgiven for thinking that not a lot really goes on in our quaint little seaside home. So why then has it taken me a good six weeks to get around to posting another entry on my blog? When university staff and students make up more than a third of the town's overall population, and with everyone keen and eager to get involved and make the most of their time at university, you really are spoiled for choice for things to do in St Andrews! The university has over 100 societies and sports clubs to get involved in, all putting on events, socials, plays, trips and much more every week. Even if you were never to attend a lecture, I doubt anyone would find time to do all of the extra-curricular activities on offer here. And that's without even delving into the myriad of exciting things St Andrews as a town has to offer, outwith the university. So, we may be a small town in Fife, we may not have nightclubs, large shopping centres or a railway station of our own, but that doesn't mean that St Andrews is boring! (And anyone who insinuates such on an open day is likely to suffer my tirade to the contrary!)

So, what have I been doing of late? The answer to that is simple. I've been in the library. Studying. A degree at St Andrews is split into 2 sections, Sub-Honours and Honours. The first 2 years at Sub-Honours are quite easy. The marks don't count towards your overall degree classification, you get a basic grounding in the subject area(s) you have chosen and you have plenty of time for societies, coffee breaks with friends and sleeping 'till noon. Then in third year you progress to Honours (unless like me you take a year off and go swanning around abroad) and the panic sets in. Everything suddenly counts and your workload triples, you spend hours in the library pouring over medieval texts and feverishly awaiting your turn with the short loan (3-hour loan) books and you spend your time in hall telling everyone on your corridor  to be quiet because you need to study/sleep. Woe betide any first or second year who complains about their workload to an Honours student, they are likely to be met with comments of "Oh, just you wait 'till 3rd/4th year!" or a swift clip round the ear depending on the stress levels of said Honours student!

It's not all doom and gloom though. I seem to be on top of my workload (for now at least!) and I am still finding time to go ice skating every week, work as a university ambassador, mentor school children in the local area and participate actively in a couple of societies, as well as seeing my friends, albeit slightly less than I would like! I am quite enjoying my modules this semester as well. On top of the core language components of my degree, I'm doing Medieval German Literature and German Science Fiction. I really enjoy both of these, although I sometimes wonder what use is my degree to the world, and if it is worth the thousands in fees, when I spend entire mornings reading and discussing robots and the fundamentals of time travel! Then again, unlike most people nowadays, I don't see my degree as a vital tool to career progression, it isn't a commodity to be bought either. Yes, I need a degree to go into teaching but if all I wanted to do was teach, I could have done a degree in teaching straight off and not spent 5 years faffing around with medieval princesses and dragons. As it is, I came to university not because it was expected, not because of the current social status attached to having a degree, but because I love to study. I love my subject, I want to find out more about it, about everything I can, and university was the obvious choice. Yes, It will help my career down the line, but that's just a happy accident.

As it's now lunch time and I am still in my pyjamas (ah, the life of an arts student. Yes, I have work, but it can be done from my bed!) I should probably extricate some clean clothes from the mess on my floor and go and find some sustenance for this afternoon's class. Singular.

8 Sept 2010

Thank God for evolution and opposable thumbs

Summer is drawing to a close and my return to St Andrews is getting closer (excitement!). My last few weeks at works have come to rather an abrupt end as I am now sporting the latest in medical fashion - my right arm is in plaster! (Actually, if you squint it almost looks like the new fashion for elbow-long, fingerless gloves. You have to really squint though).

So, how did I acquire this latest injury you ask? Well, having taken up figure skating in a big way in Canada thanks to the free rink near my apartment, I decided to continue my new hobby on my return. I've been having lessons in Blackburn for a couple of weeks now and I absolutely love it. Don't expect me to be landing double axels any time soon, but it's impressive what a difference proper tuition can make. Of course, pride comes before a fall, and fall I did. Had I not stuck my arm out to stop myself (silly thing to do) I wouldn't have injured myself at all. As it was, my wrist bent backwards, all my weight went through it, and SNAP!

So, after X-rays and MRI scans, I'm all plastered up for a while, and it's making life somewhat difficult. In the grand scheme of things, the small everyday tasks I am no longer able to perform are little more than an inconvenience, put into perspective with starvation, floods, mass destruction, etc. etc. However, you don't realise just how much you use your thumb/wrist/right hand in general until you no longer can. Like anything I suppose, you don't realise what you've got until you lose it.

However, minor setbacks like a broken wrist haven't put me off skating. On the contrary, I've been carrying on with my lessons regardless! Some people just never learn, clearly. This week I learned backwards crossovers (for anyone that's interested, they look a bit like this: Backwards Crossovers on Youtube). I can't do them forwards yet, but I can do the more difficult backwards ones. Go figure!

2 Aug 2010

I'm ready for my close up

Today there was a baby bunny in our garden. Just sitting there, minding it's own business, nibbling on the lawn. By the time I had delved into the darkest recesses of my bedroom to find my DSLR, the rabbit had disappeared but as it was such a nice morning, I thought I'd play with my camera in the garden for a while. And these are the results (Honeybees especially for Granddad!)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtidy/sets/72157624636486608/

Due to limitations of blogger.com, had to put all my pretty pictures in an album on flickr.
Flickr is a very good tool for sharing photos online, but looking at other people's photography doesn't half make me feel inadequate!

21 Jun 2010

Summer days, drifting away

Summer - a time for pub lunches, walks by the canal, strawberries and cream, Wimbledon. For everyone else that is, as yours truly has suddenly found herself, newly returned from overseas adventures, and gainfully employed as a waitress at the local pub. So while everyone else sups on their pints, tucks in to their fish and chips and enjoys our uncharacteristically warm British summertime, I am running around clearing the glasses, stacking the plates high and remembering that yes, the customer is always right. Even if the customer is clearly wrong, an utter moron, and downright rude to boot.

My return from Canada was somewhat blighted by health concerns (now all resolved) and travel chaos galore, with Eyjafjallajökull chewing up my travel plans and spewing them out along with mile-wide clouds of ash. After 2 weeks of delays and with the BA hold music still ringing in my ears, I finally touched down on British soil and started the negotiations with 3 huge suitcases and the UK rail network. I have a knack of bumping into some real characters on trains, and this journey was no exception. My train companion on this particular stretch of rail was a lovely 84 year old lady with one ambition in life: to have every blank stretch of wall in the world covered with pictures of handsome young men! She had a particular fondness for Clark Gable and she thoroughly brightened my day.  Thank you little old lady!

Since my return, I have been up and down the country on various errands and visits, but the best one of all had to be my 24 hours in St Andrews, as only a few people knew I was returning, and everyone's reactions at seeing me were priceless. My darling Sophs was rendered utterly speechless for a good few minutes, I thought she might actually faint, she looked as though she had seen a ghost. And for the next 24 hours she persisted in poking me at intervals to make sure I was actually real!

In between the wanderings, I spend my time doing shifts at the pub, chatting to the customers and having a surprising amount of fun for minimum wage and long hours. But in this economic climate, a job is a job. I'm lucky to have one at all, let alone one I enjoy. As with every summer, the plan is work, work, work to pay the university, only occasionally broken with things like next week's canal boat holiday around the Cheshire Ring. A whole week with nothing to do but drink tea and read books - heaven!

14 Mar 2010

Spring Break and other North American institutions

Spring Break: a North American holiday typically associated with students partying and drinking, often in warmer countries with more relaxed alcohol laws than the U.S.

So, what did I do for my Spring break? Well, I like to challenge stereotypes - I went skiing for a week at Mont Tremblant, QC with 5 friends. Warmer? No. Excessive partying? Too tired from skiing all day! Alcohol? Only a glass or two of red with the filet mignon, darling!

We started the week off on Saturday morning, when we hired a car and drove the 3 hours from Quebec to Montreal, stopping only for the worlds largest poutine on the highway. We arrived in Montreal to find that it was the "nuit blanche", a night when most of Montreal's museums and galleries remain open all night, they have live performances and fireworks -  a real festival atmosphere!

http://www.montrealenlumiere.com/volets/nuit_blanche/en_bref_en.aspx

So we had dinner in the most stereotypical Italian restaurant we could find (and were even serenaded by Italians with violins!) then headed out to enjoy the festival.

The next day, we hit the mean streets of Montreal in search of bargains. My bank balance still hasn't forgiven me. We also went to the cinema, and saw a generic girly film I've forgotten the name of already.  Then we packed up the car and headed north to Mont Tremblant. We, somewhat foolishly, decided to let Nick navigate, with the result that we arrived nearly 2 hours late so when we eventually arrived at our hotel, they told us they had no rooms left! They had rebooked us in a nearby hotel instead, so we drove round the corner to the new hotel, which was much nicer, thinking we had struck gold. Nick went in to check us in and 2 minutes later he reappeared with the news that this hotel had no space and we had been rebooked elsewhere. It was getting a bit ridiculous at this point, but when we arrived at the third hotel, it was all worth it. We had been given a suite at the best hotel in the resort (The Westin Resort and Spa) at no extra cost! The valet took our bags and parked our car, as we attempted to walk through the hotel without looking completely out of place (we failed!).

The weather was gorgeous all week, clear blue skies and sunshine, we were up most mornings and on the mountain for 8.30 to make the most of our days and after skiing we went either for the traditional après-ski in one of the pubs or to use the sauna and Jacuzzi  at the hotel. I picked up skiing fairly well, so much so I am considering buying skis and continuing it when I come home, although I did fall over a fair bit as well! The best moment was when I forgot to stand up and ski off the chair lift when we came to the top, with the hilarious consequence that I had to jump from the chair before it took me back down the mountain again! If you have seen the film "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" it was an exact replica of the scene where she jumps from the chair lift! I think I amused a few Canadians anyway, and I didn't hurt myself too badly!

After an altogether fabulous week, we were all very sad to leave and head back home (albeit with another slight diversion as we got lost in Montreal for an hour or so).  However, one day back at school and I was in stitches again, wondering why I ever wanted to stay at Mont Tremblant. I love my job and all the kids too much! It's going to be a nightmare leaving them all at the end of May!

9 Feb 2010

Learning medical French vocabulary - the hard way!

Just a quick update, as I am currently in my bed, taking it easy after an exciting 13 hours in a Quebec hospital!

Only recently, I posted that I wasn't going to waste the hospital's time going in for a stomach ache, and that I would eventually get to see a doctor at the clinic, rude receptionist or not. Luckily my friends made me go to A&E on Sunday evening, as it turns out my simple stomach ache is not, as the first doctor suggested 3 weeks ago, constipation, but is in fact kidney stones! How exciting.

Going to the hospital for non-serious injuries and illnesses is much more acceptable here (culture of entitlement I guess). Most of the people in the waiting room on Sunday evening didn't seem all that sick to me. I suppose the human kebabs of my last post were probably brought in by ambulance and not made to sit in a waiting room.

I spent 7 hours in A&E on Sunday evening (I eventually left at 3.30 am) having various tests. I now have some very exciting bruises to show for a simple blood test - it took both arms and the back of my hand to get enough blood to fill a wee test tube or two. I suppose I'll be grateful for slow moving blood if I ever sever an artery! Every cloud has a silver lining, eh? I was also x-rayed, poked and prodded but to no avail. It wasn't my gall bladder, uterus, stomach, liver... almost every organ had been checked off the list when the doctor sent me home at 3.30 and told me to come back the next day for more tests.

So, after 2 hours nap, I presented myself to the receptionist again at 8 am the next morning. At which point I was presented with a cup and pointed towards the water fountain.  My instructions? The literal translation was "drink until your eyes turn yellow" which I translated as drink until you think your bladder is about to burst. So, following orders, and much to everyone in the waiting room's amusement, I proceeded to drink about 3 litres of water in an exceedingly short space of time. Then I was whisked off to another waiting room upstairs to have an ultrasound. But not until I had sat there for at least half an hour, my legs crossed, grimacing and squirming uncontrollably from all the water. The ultrasound revealed I have an inflamed right kidney, probably caused by kidney stones.

So, I was prescribed lots of tasty tablets to aid the removal of said stone and I have to go back in 2 weeks to see if it has gone. If not? Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  I feel much better now I know what the problem is and I have some medicine which seems to be doing the trick.

I've had the day off school today, catching up on sleep and having some much needed rest and relaxation before going back to school tomorrow (I am nothing if not dedicated to my kids - they will improve, come hell or high water!) Although when I say relaxing, I have actually been planning lessons all day - the poor little things are going to get some culture in the form of Shakespeare. Even the film version of Romeo and Juliet has got to be better than nothing!

5 Feb 2010

God bless the NHS... and may he help all those who find themselves ill in North America!

Warning: This post contains a rant which some readers may find offensive. Or funny.


The NHS is chronically under-funded, overstretched and full of senior managers who wouldn't know their arse from their elbow but boy, do I miss it over here! I'm sure you've all heard about Obama's healthcare reforms and his struggle to push through policy which would seemingly bring nothing but benefits to the country's poorest. And, somewhat predictably perhaps, the very people the reforms are set out to help are violently opposed to any such (communist/hippy/left-wing/socialist etc. etc.) plans. Now, general consensus from abroad is that the American health care system is a nightmare, with vast swathes of the population unable to afford even the most basic of medical care, or falling into financial ruin whilst struggling to pay for extortionate medical bills. But my main point for today's blog is this: how does the system north of the border in Canada compare?


Well, I have been lucky enough to have been a victim of the Canadian health care system. Or I should say, the Quebec health care system, as it is not standard across all the provinces. After having had a stomach ache for 5 days, I went to the walk-in clinic. It sounds so simple on paper, doesn't it? Walk in, see doctor, leave. No. On my first visit, I spent 3 hours at the clinic. I went in, presented myself to the receptionist, was given a ticket with a number (like at the deli counter) and told to sit in the waiting room. When my number was called, I had to go back to the desk, fill in forms with my entire life history, answer lots of questions about why I wasn't Canadian, then was sent back to the waiting room.


After an hours wait, my name was finally called (twice, because the poor woman hadn't a clue how to pronounce it and I didn't realise she was calling me at first) and I went in to see... a triage nurse. I spent 10 minutes explaining to the nurse what was wrong, what medication I was on (half of which isn't legal in North America apparently) before being sent back out to the waiting room. Another half hour later, and I was called to see the doctor. The doctor didn't even look at the file the nurse had written, and asked me exactly the same questions all over again (begs the question why they bother with the nurse really), prodded my stomach, then prescribed me some tablets and sent me on my merry way. 


Then it was off to the Pharmacy to get my tablets. A simple task, I thought. Not so. I arrived at the Pharmacy, handed over my prescription and my state health insurance card and then the questioning began.


Was I registered with them or somewhere else? (You have to register with a Pharmacy? Really?)
I explained I was from England and hadn't registered anywhere.


How did I get a health insurance card if I was foreign?
(How is that any of their business. As long as I have one, what does it matter?)


Do you usually pay for your prescriptions?
Not a clue, love. In England, yes, they're £7.40 a time.


Eventually the Spanish Inquisition stopped, I paid my $5 and was on my way again. They even printed the label for me in English, despite the fact that at no point had I spoken anything other than French with the woman. Sigh.


This morning when I woke up, the stomach pain was back, and to top it off I had an asthma attack, which took more than the prescribed 2 puffs of my inhaler to calm down. So I rang school, apologised and said I wouldn't be in, and that I had to go to the doctors.


What happened next was so completely ridiculous, I still can't quite believe it. I'm hoping I lost something in translation somewhere along the line!


In the clinic.


Stereotypically rude French receptionist: Can I help you?
Me: Yes, I'm here for the clinic.
Receptionist: We close at four o'clock, I'm sorry. You'll have to come back on Monday.
Me: But it's only twenty past one? (The clinic only opened at one o'clock.)
R: Well, we're closed now. Come back on Monday.
Me: Alright. Is it possible to make an appointment to see a doctor and not come to the walk-in clinic? 
R: You need to be registered with a doctor first.
Me: OK, well can I register with one now then?
R: Where are you from? 
Me: England (Thoroughly bemused by this point)
R: Well you need to be a resident to register with a doctor.
Me: I am a resident. I have an address, a job, bank account, social security number, health insurance and a work permit.
R: But you aren't Canadian. You could go to the hospital, to Accident and Emergency.
Me: Sigh. I'll come back on Monday. (Exit, stage right)


So that was that. I refuse to go to accident and emergency for a simple stomach ache, unless said ache was cause by having fallen on a metal spike and turning myself into a giant human kebab. This does however mean that I have wasted school's time, not to mention my own, only to have to repeat the whole process again on Monday, and have even more classes to make up the time with afterwards.


I miss being able to ring my GP and be told to come in at 10.30 the same day. I miss the out-of-hours doctors, the fact that you can take your prescription wherever you like and not face a Spanish inquisition about it and I especially like the fact that all of this is provided free of charge.


So, my earth shattering point for today: everyone should have access to quality, free medical care whenever and wherever  they need it. No exceptions. And for that reason, I am extremely grateful we have the NHS, despite its many shortcomings, and I will defend it to the last.


On to more general news and views.


My friends and I booked our skiing holiday for spring break. A weeks skiing and chalet at Mont Tremblant just outside Montreal. It should be fantastic, although I still have never skied in my life. But really, how hard can it be? Surely I have gravity on my side at least?


School days still tick over quite nicely. I finally had a good lesson with my Sec. 5 (Lower 6th) class on Monday, only for it to be ruined on Thursday by having to send one of them out for bad language. The boy's excuse? "But it's song lyrics, miss!" Well, I don't care if you are quoting the Pope, you know full well you aren't allowed to use language like that in school. With my next group one of them was complaining about being bored. To which my reply was "Maybe you are, but going to PASS is more boring" (PASS being the isolation detention during school) and he shut up and got on with the work.


As much as Sec. 5 drive me round the bend, my younger classes more than make up for it. I had a breakthrough with 3 of my worst kids in Sec. 3 this week, not only were they behaving but they were speaking more English than I thought they even knew! We'll see how long it lasts anyway! I even taught my Sec. 1 class some proper British slang, although one poor boy got a bit confused when someone told him to put a sock in it, he screwed up his paper and put it in his mouth, then looked expectantly at me. Never have I wanted to laugh so much in my life!


Just to finish off, I have another food to add to my list of bizzare things eaten: beaver tail.
Before any animal rights activists out there start jumping up and down, I should explain that it's not really beaver. There isn't a farm for rehabilitating beavers who have had their tails cut off to feed the hungry Quebec masses. It is actually just deep-fried pastry in the shape of a beaver tail, smothered in hot maple syrup and nuts. Yum yum.


A bientôt!



18 Jan 2010

A picture is worth a thousand words



Christmas card photos! (Eibhlin, Rachael, Jennie, Laura)




New house in the snow



Petit Champlain (in October), view of the horrendously steep climb to Haute Ville and Chateau Frontenac




Tom and I ice skating at Place d'Youville

17 Jan 2010

New year, new adventures...

... same old weather. It seems I can't escape snow in any country at the moment! For anyone that has been living in outer space for the last month or so, Europe is currently experiencing a phenomenon often referred to as "winter". This means that temperatures drop, often below zero, and that sometimes it might even snow. For anyone worried by said phenomenon, it is probably not the next ice age, climate change or punishment from God. So have a cup of tea and calm down.

Anyway, sarcasm aside, the cold spell didn't prevent me from returning home to the loving arms of my family for Christmas. In fact, I was extraordinarily lucky that on the day I was travelling, I managed to get on the only plane to Manchester that wasn't cancelled and made it home a mere 20 minutes late. Quite a feat when others were stranded for days on end, eating airport food, sleeping across plastic chairs of pain and using those chewable toothbrushes from the vending machines.

I had a very relaxing 2 weeks in my new house, lots of time spent with family, in front of the fire and watching the snow and of course - eating far too much. 'Tis the season after all! The new house is wonderfully warm and cosy and very quiet. It was good to see the family again, I hadn't realised just how much I had missed them. So I was quite sad when my 2 weeks were up and I had to pack up again and fly back to Canada.

However, I was given a stay of execution of sorts, when my trip back to Quebec went less than smoothly (that damned "winter" thing causing problems again). Tom and I were supposed to be travelling back to Quebec, via Paris, on a morning flight on Tuesday (5th). We set off at 5am, ample time  to get to the airport, check in and spend obscene amounts in the duty free shop. However, it was clearly not meant to be. It had snowed overnight and of course, the roads hadn't been ploughed, accidents ensued and it took four hours on the motorway to do the usual one hour journey to Manchester airport. In an ironic fashion, it was quite lucky that the airport was closed and all flights were cancelled, because had they not been, we would most certainly have missed ours due to snow delays on the road and had to pay through the nose for new tickets. As it was, we eventually arrived at the airport and were herded into a queue for another 4 hours to rebook our flights. As the next available flight was not for 2 days, we headed back home.

Thursday came and went, and by the end of the day we had made it as far as Paris. It seems Manchester airport only have one plane de-icer for the whole airport. Of course our plane was last in the queue, we missed our connection and ended up stranded in Paris. Luckily Airfrance put us up for the night in a hotel (dinner and breakfast included). After a night in the most bog-standard of hotels, we navigated the chaos that is Charles-de-Gaulle airport (no logical layout, no facilities, lots of overpriced handbag shops) and finally, 4 days later, made it onto a plane to Montreal. The flight itself was great - only on a French airline would you be presented with smoked salmon, camembert and as much good red wine as you can drink!

Since coming back to Quebec I have been extraordinarily busy, although I have only actually been into  school for 3 days in the last 2 weeks, I've had one class and even that was team teaching, so required very little effort on my part! So what have I been up to, you ask? Well, I have moved house, from the charming (but ultimately lifeless) village of Beaupré to Quebec city, buzzing capital metropolis! I am now sharing a quirky and thoroughly impractical little flat in Vieux Quebec with Nick, another underworked and over-partied language assistant. It's been an interesting first week in my new place, as on the second day our toilet blocked, overflowed and all the water came gushing through the kitchen ceiling! The landlord, a charming French man (is there such a thing?), has refused to do anything about this, so for the last week we have had to resort to using friends houses, petrol stations and restaurants! I will never take a working toilet for granted again! It's been such a pain to have to plan everything we do around where might have toilet facilities! But anyway, I don't want to go into too much detail about that, and I'm sure you don't want to hear it either! After lots of phone calls, angry emails and enough plunging to tire the muscles of a professional bodybuilder, we should (touch wood) have a plumber coming round this week to fix it.

As if that wasn't enough, the kitchen cooker is a beautiful specimen of 1950's technology and it has an annoying habit of smoking for no apparent reason, which sets off the fire alarms. This in itself is a nuisance, but even more so since the fire alarms are connected to the city fire brigade. So if one of us burns some toast, or the cooker smokes when we try and make a cup of tea (old fashioned kettle!) 20 burly firemen are liable to burst in and shower us all in foam and water at any moment!

As well as running around with buckets and desperately wafting smoke as the flat falls down around our ears, we have somehow found the time to have a bit of fun as well. Last Saturday I decided I want to run away and join the circus. We went to see a matinée performance of Alegria - Cirque du Soleil, which was mind-blowingly and utterly incredible. I was mesmerised from start to finish.

http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/alegria/show/about.aspx

If you ever get a chance to see Cirque du Soleil perform, I highly recommend you do. It's an experience not to be missed!

Now, if all else fails, I have my backup plan. I can join the circus, probably as a clown and tour the world. I'm not bendy or bouncy enough for the acrobatics or contortion! On second thoughts, why have that as a backup plan? That's much more fun than being a teacher!

One thing I've been doing a lot of recently is ice skating. Canada, obviously, is big on its winter sports and there is a free outdoor ice rink 5 minutes walk from my flat. I bought myself a cheap (but beautiful) pair of second-hand white figure skates and I've been skating almost every day since then! Now I'm never going to be the next Jane Torville, but I can at least hold my own on a rink with Canadian children, most of whom have been skating since before they could walk. At least I knew how to skate before I came here. Skiing, in which I am having my first lesson next week, is going to be a whole different kettle of fish. Nick, my flatmate extraordinaire and seasoned skier is taking Laura and I to the mountain next weekend for our first lesson. Watch this space for the broken bone count! Assuming I don't get caught in an avalanche and have to be rescued by mounties first!

A bientôt!