Day 2 The Badgers in London

We are feeling very at home here. Yesterday we arrived at Heathrow an hour early, so had to wait a bit for Cyril (our cabbie) but we had a coffee and relaxed so no big deal. The flight was fine I did not have anyone right next to me and did not feel squished. Our place is great, very cosy. After relaxing for awhile we walked over to Sainsbury's and picked up some groceries. We had supper in, and an early night however I woke up at three and could not get back to sleep. I finally got out of bed at 5:30, made some coffee and read. G&T went to church and I stayed home and went back to bed. We made plans to meet at the cafe at the V&A sound 12:30. I went over there but it was crazy busy and I could not find them. I looked around the museum for awhile,saw the Ball gown exhibit and had just come out of the bookstore when what did my wandering eyes see but G&T. T and I looked at the fashion exhibit, then over to the gift shop and home again. Right now they are napping, but I don't want to in case it stops me from sleeping tonight.

The news.

So, I got the notification that work has approved me for 75% of my salary for the next year while I work on my project. I need to do a few things to prove that I did some work and apply my findings to some staff professional development...all very doable. Amazing! AMAZING. I feel like I won a lottery.  Only 3 more months and then I'm free!

We had a lunch this week for a volunteer award the prison group nominated ourselves for. We didn't win the cash prizes, but maybe a line on some CD donations from a radio station that's moving sites, and a free lunch: chicken with very tasty gravy. The organizations that won do big things like school lunch programs and sexual assault counselling, so they really were much bigger than we were. But I felt a bit bummed, still. I don't believe in that "we're all winners" stuff.

I'm now coordinating the memos for the prison, volunteer clearances, and making sure the right names are on the right lists to come in. I think I messed up already and now have to let one new volunteer know that she may not be able to come in this weekend. Ugh. At least I can cover for her, though.

My exams for PhD are the same time as Lisa and Judith's trip to Orlando, so no go. Wahhhh. But maybe a hot-weather vacation next year, sometime. The other night Mirko suggested that I write an email to the national library of Peru and see if they'll let me volunteer there for a few days, or weeks. Then he said I could stay with his parents. He has this all planned out. He dictated the email, I typed it, and he corrected it. Crazier things have happened.

We won't be subdividing the condo for another year. Time seemed to be running out and we were not sure if there would be an issue with no on-site parking, so we just extended the mortgage for one year at a good rate. All the same to me, really. It's fairly complex -- it might involve a private lender covering us for a short period of time while all the subdivision paperwork gets in order and approved by various bodies.

All is well here.
Mom and I had a excellent visit with everyone in Alberta. I think we saw almost everyone we wanted to while there, and Laura comes this weekend, so we can visit her too.
I thought Stan's service suited him well and he would have been happy with it.
I started my class this week-actually I guess it was last week, but the prof was in Prague presenting at a conference, so we did not really do anything last week. It is on nursing knowledge. the class I went to last week, I got crabby at, really, do we have to keep complaining about the same things? yeah, yeah, we know nurses work hard and deserve better. Next please.
Sadly, though prof seems nice, she also seems boring. time will tell. I like professors who are enthusiastic.
If you are going to teach the material, shouldn't you be interested in it? Or be able to develop interest in it?
Work is moving along nicely-I think our staffing group is really quite great, and though we have been short, the staff have been good about making things work well.
The weather continues to be splendid! Highs in the upper 20's, cool at night. Maybe  we will go for bike ride tomorrow?
The tenants downstairs at Jones are moving out, but Richard has found a tenant to replace the, who he likes. Richard has been doing a lot of work at Jones-thank you Richard!

One Week

One week till we leave on our trip. I am getting my usual cold feet. Good thing it's all booked and paid for, or I would just spend three weeks lounging around here. The company Geoff has been working for is closing their business at the end of October. Geoff has been working occasionally but not a lot lately. We had such a good visit with everyone last weekend. Really glad Mom and Lisa decided to come here. If they hadn't we would have gone up to the city but this way they got to see Tim and meet Courtney and Kane. And we don't get to see Jim very often. It was a great day. Tim is still working away so we had Courtney and Kane over for supper this week and it was good to visit with them. She has been doing a lot of decorating at their place, it's looking even better than before. Kane is coming over tomorrow for the day and a sleepover and we are loking forward to that. It really is great being a baba. Got a busy weekend ahead getting the yard cleaned up before we go. It's entirely possible there will be snow on the ground when we get back.

Another Busy Week

Last weekend I visited Rocky which as always was a lot of fun.  I took the bus to Red Deer and G&T picked me up.  We had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant downtown, I had the vermicelli noodles which are my favorite.  After lunch we met Courtney at Winners and transferred the car seat to the Escape and had the pleasure of Kane's company at G&T's for a sleepover.  What a busy boy.  And he seems to like me, so I was pleased.  On Sunday Courtney came over to pick up her boy, and we had a nice visit.  Sunday night Kane came over for another sleepover.  It sure brings back memories of the nieces and nephews.  Geoff drove me to the bus on Monday afternoon to come home.  I got the call from cousin Bob around 8:30 to let me know that Stan has passed.  Not really a surprise but still I felt kind of shocked that it had happened so quickly.  Fred came into town on Tuesday to give Bob a hand with things (Bob is the executor) and he stayed with me which was a real treat, having Uncle Fred to myself.  On Wednesday we went to the funeral home to make the arrangements, Stan had left some instructions on what he would like for a service etc, so that was good.  Bob had to work so he got to the funeral home just in time to sign the papers on the financial stuff.  Allison came over for supper and the three of us (Fred, Al and me) had a visit, talked about Stan.  Thursday morning I went off to work, Fred was going to meet with the officiant at the service and over to the bank with Bob, then head home.

Today is the first S&B for the 2012/2013 season, and I am looking forward to catching up with everyone.  Donna will not be there as she is a vacation to Russia. 

1401

When I went to post, blogger told me that there were 1400 posts on the blog, so I guess this is number 1401!  That's quite a lot of family news.

I've been going full speed since I got back from holidays.  The holidays themselves were great - between folk fest, the backyard, Kane, the chuckwagon races, and just being at home, things were pretty awesome.  I got back to Victoria on Saturday, preached and presided at church on Sunday, left Monday to go camping with the youth group.

We went to a group site run by the Girl Guides near Elk Lake, and this year we joined with the Cathedral.  It was a good thing we did, as they had about 12 kids, and we had 3.  The kids were mostly around the same age, or at least two or three the same age, so that was good.  We spent a lot of time teaching them how to cook on fires.  For most of them, the first thing to do was teach them how to light a fire.  For some of them, we also had to teach them how to cook in general.  We did one supper and one breakfast over the fire - the bacon and egg breakfast took about 4 hours from start to finish, so I joined up with the fastest working group.  It was a lot of fun though, and I think the kids all had fun as well.

Our new interim priest in charge has started at the church.  His name is Dennis, and he's nice.  He's only working two or three days a week (including Sundays), so I'll still have a lot to do.  No danger of getting bored!

Today was the parish fun day - sort of a carnival.  We had a inflatable obstacle course, which was a big draw, but we also had kite making, gold panning, a scavenger hunt in the church, a wood working table, various games and cemetery tours.  There were nearly 300 people that came through, so it was very successful.  The weather was perfect, which helps.