Christmas and New Year 2006 (and 2007)
Well, you're all in for it now. Jane has returned and with her the camera and with that... pictures of our Christmas break! Now I know you are all on the ragged edge of your seat, so I'll only delay by saying that Jane's flight was pretty standard despite the craptacular weather of that day (the very very windy 17th). She ate the 'usual' plane food, watched the 'usual' movies and did the 'usual' fourty minutes circling heathrow. Then the trouble started. She got to the train station ok, but the 'quick train' to Northampton turned out to be a very slow train to Milton Keynes. Ironically the slow train that left London 10 minutes before the 'quick' train actually made it to Northampton, be it an hour late. So from Euston station to Northampton (she took a cab from Milton Keynes), which should have taken 45 min took 4.5 hrs. Needless to say, she was well worn out when she arrived.
Our Christmas break started on the 15th of Dec. Obviously, our first thought was to get some Timmies, but we stopped at a Second Cup instead. I should mention that arriving in Canada from a long stay in the UK is a little strange: Everthing seems a model of efficiency and everyone is so incredibly nice and happy looking. Plus there is a distinct lack of the trash-clown look that british women seem to like so much. Like jetlag, this special appreciation for Canadian culture wears off in a few days. If it feels like that after coming back from the UK, I can only imagine what it would be like after living for a few months in France or eastern europe.
Most of our time back home can be summerized in two words: Visits and Overeating. Often together. I won't bore you with the details, but we managed to get almost everyone in (with a few unfortunate exceptions). We did have alot of catching up to do. Since we had been gone, both of Jane's siblings (Paul and Anne) had bought houses and our nephew Diego had progressed from manically watching aimlessly to manically walking amongst and playing with his many toys. He likes puzzles, anything with buttons, and especially the pool table at his grandparents (he hasn't mastered the game yet, but at 1.5 years of age, he's much better than me). We also got to see Doug and Kristina's new place, though we were bad guests on account of my falling asleep and Jane slowly loosing the ability to breathe (they have two cats and Jane and cats just don't go). Anne's house is cozy (a real estate agent would call it 'intimate' or something) but I think very well suited to her. The walls, after all, are painted the colour of coffee.
One strange side effect of arriving on the 15th was the feeling that christmas was taking forever to come. When it did, though, it came with a wimper. I'm not sure why actually, but when it was all over I had the feeling that, if I hadn't been paying close attention, I would have missed it. And I wasn't the only one, Jane's dad said the same thing. Maybe there was just much less ceremony than usual, who knows. In any case, I submit for your amusement a few pictures of us in and around X-mas day:
The major thing we had to do while we were back was to do our 'design' appointment for our house. At the moment, our house looks this:
That stake on the right? The one that says 192? Thats ours baby! Yeah!... Notice the 'square' made by the four stakes in the middle? The is the footprint that (about) half a million dollars buys in Toronto these days. The design appointment is where you choose tiles, counters, rugs, wiring, lights, structural changes etc. When Paul and Angie did it, it took 40 min. When we did it, it took almost 8 hours. And that's not because there was lots more stuff to pick either, its mostly because a) Jane and I are picky and took maybe a little longer than was strictly necessary to choose some stuff and b) Jane and I are meddlesome and we changed a few things about the design and asked alot of annoying questions. One question was 'why is the house price (which includes GST) still the same after the GST was taken down 1%?'. This question has not been answered to my satisfaction and I'm going to be asking our lawyer about it.
The last major event before going home was the anual New Years party with the old Trent University crewe. This year was extra interesting because we got to meet two new 'significant others'! Shawn has been dating Geneva for round 7 months. She has a mint condition original nintendo. In other words, we like her. And Mira has just started seeing Nick. We like him too (in spite of the fact that, to my knowledge, he does not have a mint condition original nintendo). The party got started with a round... a very big round, in fact... of wings. We went to a chain called 'Wild Wings' which specializes in, well, wings. In fact, there's hardly anything else on the menu. Just wings with every kind of sauce imaginable. We ordered an 8-flavor, 200 wing batch. And some of those flavors were excellent. After that, we went back to Paul and Debbie's (yet another new house to see) and did what came naturally after major gluttony, which was to sit on our asses and drink. The latter was facilitated by an alcohol pump (gravity fed, made to look like a maniature old gas pump) in which were made liters of some very good 'shooter' drinks. In any case, it was an excellent party!
And then it was back to the UK for one last 4.5 month stint! See you all wehn we're back for good!
Our Christmas break started on the 15th of Dec. Obviously, our first thought was to get some Timmies, but we stopped at a Second Cup instead. I should mention that arriving in Canada from a long stay in the UK is a little strange: Everthing seems a model of efficiency and everyone is so incredibly nice and happy looking. Plus there is a distinct lack of the trash-clown look that british women seem to like so much. Like jetlag, this special appreciation for Canadian culture wears off in a few days. If it feels like that after coming back from the UK, I can only imagine what it would be like after living for a few months in France or eastern europe.
Most of our time back home can be summerized in two words: Visits and Overeating. Often together. I won't bore you with the details, but we managed to get almost everyone in (with a few unfortunate exceptions). We did have alot of catching up to do. Since we had been gone, both of Jane's siblings (Paul and Anne) had bought houses and our nephew Diego had progressed from manically watching aimlessly to manically walking amongst and playing with his many toys. He likes puzzles, anything with buttons, and especially the pool table at his grandparents (he hasn't mastered the game yet, but at 1.5 years of age, he's much better than me). We also got to see Doug and Kristina's new place, though we were bad guests on account of my falling asleep and Jane slowly loosing the ability to breathe (they have two cats and Jane and cats just don't go). Anne's house is cozy (a real estate agent would call it 'intimate' or something) but I think very well suited to her. The walls, after all, are painted the colour of coffee.
One strange side effect of arriving on the 15th was the feeling that christmas was taking forever to come. When it did, though, it came with a wimper. I'm not sure why actually, but when it was all over I had the feeling that, if I hadn't been paying close attention, I would have missed it. And I wasn't the only one, Jane's dad said the same thing. Maybe there was just much less ceremony than usual, who knows. In any case, I submit for your amusement a few pictures of us in and around X-mas day:
The major thing we had to do while we were back was to do our 'design' appointment for our house. At the moment, our house looks this:
That stake on the right? The one that says 192? Thats ours baby! Yeah!... Notice the 'square' made by the four stakes in the middle? The is the footprint that (about) half a million dollars buys in Toronto these days. The design appointment is where you choose tiles, counters, rugs, wiring, lights, structural changes etc. When Paul and Angie did it, it took 40 min. When we did it, it took almost 8 hours. And that's not because there was lots more stuff to pick either, its mostly because a) Jane and I are picky and took maybe a little longer than was strictly necessary to choose some stuff and b) Jane and I are meddlesome and we changed a few things about the design and asked alot of annoying questions. One question was 'why is the house price (which includes GST) still the same after the GST was taken down 1%?'. This question has not been answered to my satisfaction and I'm going to be asking our lawyer about it.
The last major event before going home was the anual New Years party with the old Trent University crewe. This year was extra interesting because we got to meet two new 'significant others'! Shawn has been dating Geneva for round 7 months. She has a mint condition original nintendo. In other words, we like her. And Mira has just started seeing Nick. We like him too (in spite of the fact that, to my knowledge, he does not have a mint condition original nintendo). The party got started with a round... a very big round, in fact... of wings. We went to a chain called 'Wild Wings' which specializes in, well, wings. In fact, there's hardly anything else on the menu. Just wings with every kind of sauce imaginable. We ordered an 8-flavor, 200 wing batch. And some of those flavors were excellent. After that, we went back to Paul and Debbie's (yet another new house to see) and did what came naturally after major gluttony, which was to sit on our asses and drink. The latter was facilitated by an alcohol pump (gravity fed, made to look like a maniature old gas pump) in which were made liters of some very good 'shooter' drinks. In any case, it was an excellent party!And then it was back to the UK for one last 4.5 month stint! See you all wehn we're back for good!
posted by Derek at 8:23 AM
3 Comments:
Well, it may be a lonely stake in the ground, but it's your lonely stake in the ground. :-)
8hrs. is nothing my friend. It SHOULD take you a long time to pimp out your 1/2 mil. property, and you SHOULD be picky about it. You don't want to invest so much and live in an ugly, uninviting and unsellable house.
I would deffinitely look up that 1% tax thing. Do you know anyone else who bought property around the same time you did?
Cheerio, etc.
New years was awesome. The wings, the presents, the company. It's nice to see my friends again and share my joy with them. Im sure Geneva had an awesome time too.
Indeed I did! You all are a rockin bunch :) Shawn's got the photos I took so you should bug him if he hasn't shared the 20+ photos of everyone getting a fill-up from the gas pump...
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