The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

So here's for an update on how our plans for moving are going.... have you ever read Rabbie Burns poems? Well, do you remember the one that says, "The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, gang aft agley"? Well, certain things are going agley!!!!!
Paul and I had a nice little flat that we were going to be renting over in Scotland. We needed it straight away so my immigration papers could go through. So we found an inexpensive flat near downtown, close to a mall and the train station. The guy renting the house out to us was a neighbor of my in-laws so we trusted him that the place had nice neighbors who were concerned about the noise the previous tenants were making and that it was a suitable place for us with the family. So, a couple days ago my in-laws get the keys early to clean up the flat and get it ready for our arrival. Nobody had seen the flat before other than the nice photos we saw on the website. We did kinda find it a bit odd that he wasn't letting the family over there take a look at the place until he was ready to hand over the keys and have them clean it up, in fact it was rather frusterating.
My in-laws found that the front door to the stairwell was broken and wide open, the back yard had heaps of garbage in it (at least 4 couches, fridge freezers, bottles, bags of garbage, etc. and this was all in front of toppled over wheely bins that we were meant to put garbage into and put out to the curb), inside the stairwell there was a closet with a broken door and garbage inside, in front of the door to our flat there was a mound of dirt, on the same landing they found a resident homeless man sleeping(he came inside to take shelter from the rain because he lives in the garbage heap out back). The door to the flat had been previously broken into and they could tell because there was a chunk in the door ripped out where the lock was before. From the inside you could see out through a large crack in the door. The carpets inside were light grey in the pictures we got but now they're brown. There's black mould growing in the living room. Later on we found out that the building is owned by a bunch of different people and they don't upkeep anything in the place. A couple of the flats are used to put people who say they are homeless into and in one of the places there are lots of different people coming and going all the time (drug house anyone?). In fact the people who were complaining about the noise were from the flats in the next building over(their garden looks beutiful).... and all this is just the beginning!!!!
Needless to say, we won't be living there.... in fact I'll make sure I don't even step foot on the street the flat is on, which is dissapointing because I had such high expectations of the place from what was said to us about it and the pictures.
Not to worry though, we already have other prospects for places.... but I think we'll just camp out in Paul's brother's living room so we can find a place that's suitable and see the whole place and not just pictures on the internet.

Allow me to recap some events

Let me start with some recent events, then I'll use my time machine to move us back through the year and recall some pretty cool stuff!

On March 6 2010 Paul and I took a trip to Vancouver to watch the Canucks. But this story all started at Paul's staff Christmas party (I wasn't there) when he somehow convinced one of his bosses to give him free Canucks tickets...
Anyway we arrived in Vancouver early so we did some walking around. First we wandered off to the BC Sports Hall of Fame and Museum and spent about two hours there to take everything in, I really enjoyed it. There's a games room with a rock climbing wall, air hockey table, etc which we spent a good chunk of time in. There's also rooms that take you through all different era's of sports history.
So then we found ourselves on the skytrain and outside one of the stations I found this really neat looking war memorial.

Paul thought it looked sinister and kept walking, so we ended up in Gastown and we saw the steam powered clock and went to the Old Spaghetti Factory! I love that place!!!!
After our very late lunch we wandered on down to GM place to see what was going on.

I found this huge cement marble as well as a few others outside. Apparently the "giant" that built GM Place "dropped" them around the building. So I decided to be funny and get a picture taken of my trying to move them.... I didn't think they actually could move so you can just imagine my surprise when it did start moving. That's the reason why my face is blurry in the picture.
Paul remembered watching Canucks Insider on TV and decided we should try and see where people go to see the players arrive. We walked around to the back and just as we get there Luongo shows up followed by Kesler, Burrows, O'Brian and Samuelson in their fancy cars.... then Rypien shows up in his jeep (I just got all their names from Paul... like I'd know what each one of them looked like, ha).

So we got into the building early because we were let in to the pub that sits near the rafters. I drank a really expensive beer and Paul got a coke that tasted like chlorine. Finally we got to our seats, Luongo got recognized for his gold metal win, Oh Canada was sang so loud that we could feel the words rumble beneath our feet... we watched the game, the Canucks won, we hopped back on the skytrain to our hotel and that was the end of the day!


January 2010

Rabbie Burns night! At time to eat haggis, swallow whisky, play in the pipe band and enjoy some celtic entertainment.

Paul guarded the haggis with a sword during the piping in of the haggis, he also made the toast to the lasses and I made the reply, my favorite line from the speech was.... "For the flower of Scotland that never wilts, down with trousers, up with kilts" haha.... So I played the tenor drum in the pipe band that night for the first time in front of an audience (it was actually only my third or fourth time actually playing the instrument so I was a little nervous). It went well through. Paul played his chanter to "Scot's Wa Hae" with another man who is learning to play the bagpipes as well.

December 2009



If learning the bagpipes wasn't enough, Paul decides to tackle the art of kiltmaking. 40 grueling hours of pleating 8 yards of fabric to a size that will fit around a man's waist, but it was all worth it and finished before Christmas for a Christmas present. Good job Paul!

August 2009

IRONMAN!!!!!! If you didn't think we were crazy before, you sure do now!



Yes, Ironman Canada! Swim 2.4mi/3.8km, Bike 112mi/180km, Run 26.2mi/42.2km!
We trained for a year, procrastinated a little, and reached our goal, here's how it went......
We woke up early, I had some toast with nutella and gatoraide... Paul had about the same. We arrived downtown and dropped off my special needs bag for the bike course (flat coke, all the sugar with none of the fizz).

Then I walked over to a volunteer and got my numbers marked on me.
Paul and I went into transition together and realized that we forgot our water bottles to put on our bikes. It's not like it was a big deal because there's an aid station at the top of Mclean creek road, however I was a little worried about it so the guys at the bike barn gave me a bottle of water, Thanks Bike Barn!!!!
So, I watched the professionals start their swim from transition area where I made sure my bags of equipment and clothes were still there and I wasn't missing anything for the bike and the run.

We started out onto the beach with the thousands of other people. Paul and I weren't nervous for the swim start at all, I think I'd compare us to giddy school girls... we were just that excited! Counting down to the swim start was hilarious, I jumped up and down, gave Paul a hug, got into position and we were off! I expected to get punched and kicked in the face because that's what happened in previous, smaller swim starts but that never happened. It was like I was swimming in my own little bubble. The first turn was out near the highway and the marker was a sail boat, it felt oddly tropical with the divers sitting on the sand below. Coming back to the beach was my least favorite part because I could smell boat engines the whole way.
When I got onto my bike I felt good, I had a little problem with an exploding power gel that got goo all over me. I went so fast, I felt like I was on fire..... in fact I even smelled smoke! Later I realized the smoke was from a distant forest fire. I'd say my only problem was the peanut butter powerbars gave me heart burn. My favorite part of the bike was going up to Yellow Lake and passing people who were walking their bikes up it.... I got a lot of cheers from spectators in that spot.
In transition to the run I found this nice volunteer putting sunscreen on people so she rubbed some on my legs (boy did that feel goood) I set out on the run and I saw sister Madonna twice during the whole thing.... she was 79 years old that year!!!!!!!!! I knew she could make it and that meant that I could too. Coming back into town along east side road was something I don't even know if I can put into words. It was dark, I could see the city lights clouded with smoke, the crickets were chirping, there were distant figures up ahead chatting. Then I made it right into town and the noise started to build... along with my emotions, I felt like I was going to cry.... actually I was crying but that was from the pain! Along Lakeshore I saw my family and friends cheering and giving support. Then I made for the finish line at as fast a pace as I could manage, giving high fives to as many people as I could, I grabbed the banner and raised it over my head for my triumphant finish (and for the cameras) then collapsed into the arms of volunteers.



Afterwards was just a blur of faces and a metal around my neck. Someone asked me what size I was... I got a little confused at that point, why would they want to know what size I was? It was for my finisher shirt. So I got my finisher package and one of the volunteers (called "catchers") held on to it for me while trying to keep me upright. I was carried into the park and I got a very painful looking finisher photo done of me. There was a table with food laid out on it, so i got a couple of snacks before being carried through to the massage tent. On the way I saw my family again and Paul! The kids were asleep in strollers and Paul looked ten times better than I did because he couldn't run the entire run due to a series of mishaps that ended him up with 14 huge blisters on his feet!
I got my massage, but I was so tired and disoriented that I started slurring my words like I was drunk.... they took this for dehydration and sent me to the med tent. I sat in a chair and they took my blood (I warned them that I pass out when blood gets taken from me if I'm not laying down, but did they listen? No, they thought I was out of it) So I passed out and the next thing I know I'm getting carried over to a bed. I got poked and prodded at with an IV needle but they couldn't put it in, all it caused was extreme pain to myself and a very distraught young paramedic that was letting me hold his hand through the whole ordeal... I may have injured his hand when the IV needle bounced out of my vein... In the end up they realized I didn't need an IV, I just needed some chicken broth and a good night sleep. The kids were brought home, then Paul and I went to McDonalds because what I really needed was a big fat juicy Big Mac!!!! I felt much better after that.

Eyjafjallajokull no longer a threat to our travel plans?

Years of debate, planning and preparation has gone into our much anticipated move to Scotland. We set dates and put them off, but now as the day approaches for our settled date, a gigantic dust cloud looms over our plans. Yes I am talking about the dreaded Eyjafjallajokull (that volcano in Iceland nobody seems to be able to pronounce, in fact the name looks like something my kids typed up on the computer just to be funny). Air travel has recently started back up again, but will that still be the case two weeks from now?

Our worries a few weeks ago were about what to do with all our belongings, we have settled our overweight baggage woes by sending a bunch of our stuff on the slow boat (we're still wondering if our packages will make it there)...... but now we're worried about something we never thought of before, a volcano!

By the way, the picture above was taken by someone my father-in-law knows in Iceland, pretty isn't it?

So anyway, my husband was tracking the volcano's progress on his blackberry almost every hour, on three or four different newspaper websites from both Canada and Scotland. Recently he gave up his beloved blackberry (it wasn't really a voluntary giving up, it wouldn't work on a Scottish plan anyway) and he's now suddenly lost when it comes to information while we're on the go (like on an excursion to the grocery store). Who knows what will happen to air travel while we browse the fresh produce department. Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little but I too get a little worried about our sudden lack of information on the go (even though I'm really slow at even trying to get to work one of those things anyway).

I guess all there is to do is wait and see if there are any new volcanic activities that may potentially block our way.