Autumn

Wow I last posted about my (late) summer holiday, and now the leaves are falling, the nights are drawing in and Christmas decorations are already in shops. I find this quite sad, how is 2009 going so quickly, am I really in my late 20's, and have I really been married for two years?

It's back to normality in the Veggie(ish) household. Not much is happening now, but we are expecting things to be more exciting in the near future.

The main things in our life right now:

• VH is looking for a job.
  
• I'm trying to not lose mine!
  
• We're waiting for VH to hopefully get his permanent visa so he is not sent back to cold Canada.
  
• We both have colds!
• I have major car problems, but at least it still moves.
• The good TV season has started: especially Strictly Come Dancing, the X Factor and Desperate Housewives.
  
• We're looking forward to visiting our niece in a couple of weeks, and have other exciting weekend plans.
• I'm enjoying reading other blogs, as I'm not contributing to my own very much, which is very lazy I know, letting other people do the work while I just have fun reading it.
  

Animals of Vancouver

Apologies for my blogging and commenting absence for the past few weeks, I have been (and still am) on holiday in Canada. I'm currently in Montréal, which feels a bit like home now, but I have just returned from a week away in Vancouver. I have previously blogged about the animals in Brittany, so I thought I'd blog about some of the animals we saw in Vancouver.

One of the main things I wanted to do in Vancouver was go whale-watching. We went with a company called Prince of Whales. However, although they did find us some killer whales (see pic below) I was quite disappointed as they spent a while trying to find the whales, and as soon as they did and we started getting good pictures, they decided to move the boat on. In fact, when we got really close, my camera battery died so I missed the opportunity. We saw three transient killer whales, but no large pod of resident orcas, and nothing else (such as bald eagles or porpoises like they said we would). Most of the boat trip was spent travelling through thick fog. However, at least we got to see a couple of wild whales. It was very exciting when they came out of the water.

We also saw beluga whales at the Vancouver Acquarium in Stanley Park. Not as exciting obviously as seeing whales in the wild, but fun nevertheless. The mother recently had a calf (2 months old) and her mother had also recently had a calf (14 months old) to the same father! So beluga society is quite strange. The beluga calfs are really cute; they are grey until they grow into beautiful white adult belugas.
Also, although we didn't see any bald eagles, we did see some at an eagle show, and there are also 170 painted eagles around the Vancouver area to celebrate the Vancouver Winter Olympics, which will be held in Feb 2010. The statues will be auctioned off after the Olympics for charity.

We also went up a mountain to the north of Vancouver called 'Grouse Mountain' in a cable car, where there were some orphan grizzly bears in a large enclosure. They were gentle giants, and we could get really close to them.
We also saw some wild deer on the mountain (mother and fawn).

Finally, yesterday we happened to see a seagull eating a large starfish! He swallowed it down whole.

Schadenfreude

It is nearly two years since I got married. I cannot believe how quickly time flies.

I had the most fantastic wedding day, yet the immediate time after I got married was very difficult. We didn't go on honeymoon (and still haven't actually). My parents moved away. Neither VH nor I had a job. VH didn't have a visa, so we had to go through the stress of the visa application. We were lodging with a couple, which wasn't fun. I had to temp for two months in order for VH to get his visa, and my colleguges there were really nasty.

Then, VH got a job! I left my temping job and the place we were temporarily lodging in :-) but we had to make a fast quick to the town VH's new company was based in. As we didn't have a home we had to live in B&B's. It was very expensive living in B&Bs and having to eat out every night, and we were draining money. They were not even nice B&B's, it was like living in someone else's house, paying, yet not feeling at home, as we couldn't use the washing machine/kitchen etc. We were, technically, homeless.

At last, we were able to move into our flat where we still live. We put loads of money into moving into the flat, and agreed to a six-month minimum contract. Six weeks later, just after Christmas 2008 VH lost his job, for no reason. The company seemed to hire employees and 'let them go' at will. So neither of us had a job, yet were trapped in this expensive contract. This was around the time I started blogging...

Anyway, the reason I have become so reflective about this is because I have been waiting for something bad to happen to this evil company. This week, the happy day came, most likely due to a lot of disgruntled ex-employees including third world country workers. An investigation by the BBC revealed the company's dirty secret. The company is making a loss, and employees are currenly being paid in shares now rather than cash. Hopefully it is not much longer before the company spins out of control, crashes, and burns.... schadenfreude.

It just takes one

It just takes one bad moment to spoil a day....
Missing the train
Getting caught in the rain
Spilling a drink on new clothes
Being tailgated
Somebody being rude.

Sometimes, just one thing can spoil something you used to enjoy.

At Waitrose yesterday, we were overcharged on a couple of food products, which had been misleadingly priced. We tried to return them tonight, but the checkout girl said that we couldn't return them as they were from the chiller cabinet and it's against the law. I can understand that, but she was giving us very dirty looks. She called the manager who let us exchange them (& requested the items we returned to be binned) but she was also quite rude. They made us feel like dirt. I used to love shopping in Waitrose, but not any more. It is frustrating too, as we recently signed a petition to save their jobs, as this Waitrose is going to close down in December to be replaced by another supermarket.

I used to enjoy my job (!). However, my boss, who I used to get along with, ruined it for me by accusing me of saying something that I didn't say. There is not much worse than being unjustly accused of something you didn't do. I'd often like to write a lot more about my job as it's a big part of my life, especially today as it would be therapeutic, but unfortunately as I've mentioned before, I don't feel I can. Hopefully this will be forgotten soon, and I'll start to enjoy it again, but I'm not convinced.

To help recover from my bad week at work last week, I forced myself into having a good weekend. On Saturday I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince which I enjoyed (despite other people finding it a let-down). We then went out for some lovely Spanish tapas at La Tasca, which VH has already blogged about. Then, the icing on the cake was booking our trip to Vancouver yesterday. I'm looking forward to seeing the whales already.

The rabbit wears Prada

Following a request, please see my new glasses modelled beautifully by "Yellowy". I think that they look much cuter on him than on me! Yellowy is a gift from a friend at university, and became quite a celebrity during my university years.

Close-up of my new specs below:

As they have thicker plastic around the edges than I'm used to, I'm having to get used to losing my peripheral vision. A small sacrifice for wearing Prada. Actually I'm not designer label driven, but I liked these glasses and there wasn't much difference in price between these and non-label ones.

A quiet Sunday night

As I'm sitting here, Veggie Hubby is busy studying for the 'Life in the UK' test, a test which will hopefully enable him to become a British citizen, and stay here with me. I think it's a pretty pointless test, because even being British myself I am unable to answer all of the questions correctly. At the moment, he's learning about the House of Lords (exciting stuff!!).

We had a quiet weekend. I accompanied VH yesterday to a fete with the French children he teaches at weekends. He had them singing lots of French songs, and it was lovely to see. I baked a marble cake for the occasion, but again the marble effect didn't work very well. Today we've been singing (in French) together, a sweet song which we'll perhaps sing together at a certain wedding this summer. It's nearly time for our summer holiday :-) Although we still need to book part of it (trip to Vancouver).

I also got a new pair of glasses yesterday. After five years, my old ones were a bit broken, so I'm really happy to have a new pair. I find contact lenses too much hassle, so prefer to wear glasses, and it's great to have a pair that I now like.

Masks

I've been making masks at work today, for the work summer (masked) ball. I feel that my work is some kind of Women's Institute sometimes. (Not that we do crafts during working hours by the way, just during lunchtime)

I made a mask for me, and one for VH (can you guess which is which?). Unlike other people at work, who made plain masks for their other halves, I made something a bit more adventurous. A kind of pirate/bandit/musketeer mask. It will be the first time he meets my colleagues too. We might be lucky enough to get some real masks from an acquaintance of his tomorrow, in which case we won't need to wear these handmade ones.

2009 Update! (and trains rant)

Hello all,


Its June! I can't believe how the time flies, i don't think i have blogged once this year at all, so i thought i would check in before VeggieCarrie decides to remove me altogether! Well alot has been happening at my end keeping me busy, including hubbys job search, home search, packing up our old house, moving to a new location in the south, and AlmostDentist Hubby is now officially DentistHubby! AND Cutybaby is going to have a little brother or sister later this year! So i have been keeping very busy. Of course i have still the occasional cake craving so i have now switched from cupcakes over to square cakes, like this one.....

I had a wonderful day out in london yesterday, it was so hot and sunny. I met my brother and we went to Oxford Street and Hamleys. I had never been to Hamleys before and must say it was exciting, worth the visit even if its all overpriced! HOWEVER i have to blog about trains now....basically i cannot understand how the tube service is still up and running, instead of a smooth running system, it seems to be collapsing under the weight of people there. I mean literally I was expecting to have a lovely day whizzing from one end of london to another, the reality is that by 3.30pm the trains are heaving with people, the doors actually squeeze shut past peoples squashed faces, most people are standing, ITS HOT, theres no air conditioning at all, when you get off theres a huge gap between the train and the pavement and if you are small you sort of have to do a mini leap to get off! People are all walking so fast and trains are whizzing past, if you happened to trip/lose balance/get knocked you may quite likely fall into the way of the train. Then when you are off theres a huge trek through tunnels getting to next place, loads of stairs up and down, massive escalators!!!!!!!! Oh the escalators, if they are broken which they frequently are then you have to walk all the way up or down them, not for the faint hearted, in the heat i was actally feeling dizzy. What happened to all the health and safety regulations??? what happened to disabled access??? Why are there no lifts!!! It seems the tubes designed solely for the single healthy fit person. They are totally prejudiced against the elderly, disabled, pregnant,mums with buggies, people with luggage! Why?? The only good thing is that people are so helpful, i had men (and women) offer to help with my buggy. I dont know why something isnt done to improve the service, especially in light of the recent press given to MP's greedy spending. It seems appalling.

x

Evening at the races

I went from under water yesterday to above ground this evening, for an evening at the race course with my colleagues. Running horses in bad lighting are nearly as difficult to photograph as fish! I placed a few cheap bets for fun, but won nothing. Oh well! I love the names of some of the horses: my favourite name tonight was Fajita (who I didn't place a bet on, but didn't win).

Under the sea: the good, the bad and the ugly

VH and I had a lovely afternoon today at the London Sea Life Aquarium, which has recently been refurbished. There were all kinds of fish and amphibians, the good, the bad and the ugly (although it would have been nice if there had been some other animals in the aquarium, like penguins, otters or polar bears). The above photo shows one of their new exhibitions, with a giant skeleton of a blue whale. The good sea life we saw included the turtles, and 'Nemo' and 'Dory' fish (Clown fish, and Blue Tang fish). By the way, you will have to excuse the photography here; it is incredibly difficult to take photos of fast-moving fish behind glass and water, especially when you are not able to use flash photography.




The 'bad' fish we saw included piranhas (which actually didn't look that scary) and several varieties of sharks. We were able to walk over the top of the glass shark aquarium (taking 'the shark walk'), and look down on them which was quite exciting.
Fish are quite weird creatures, and we saw many strange and even 'ugly' types of fish, including stonefish (not pictured) and catfish.







As you exit the sealife centre, you enter into McDonalds where you are able to purchase fish-fingers if you wish. We didn't go there, but to a nicer restaurant on the Southbank (Giraffe) where both VH and I ate vegetarian.

Summer

Well it's officially the start of my week-long holidays. The week will just fly by, I know it, but it's good to be able to take nine days off work in a row, when I only need to use three days of my annual leave allowance to do so. I think I have chosen a good week to take off, as it's sunny. Today was the hottest day of the year so far. Our little flat gets so hot (being on the top floor) that we have to keep the heating off, and the windows open, yet it's still like an oven.

Perhaps it's the start of the hot summer that the weather forcasters are promising. Unlike the miserable 'summers' of 2007 and 2008, it is really looking like we will have a proper summer this year. Summer 2009 will be a time for summery walks, food and drinks. A time for summer balls, long sunny evenings, weddings, dresses, barbeques, picnics and holidays. Perfect. As you can probably tell, I love the summer, it's my favourite season of the year.

In the news

UK news....
1) It wasn't Jade's time, but it was Norway's fairytale win. I don't mind too much, at least the UK coming 5th in Eurovision shows that Europe doesn't hate us.
2) MPs spend our money buying chandeliers, heating swimming pools, flatscreen TVs, paying off mortgages they've already paid off. Surprise, surprise, MPs are dishonest, it makes me feel sick, as do their rules (designed by MPs, for MPs) that such extravagent spending of public money is justified.
3) Jordan and Peter split up :-( Yes, it was inevitable that it would someday happen, but somehow I believed that despite their arguments, they could survive. It saddens me, especially for their kids whom Peter adores. (OK, not really 'news' but it interests me).
4) Swine flu has arrived! I know someone who was scarily close to catching it. However, so far it seems quite mild outside Mexico, & I'm hoping it stays that way.
VC news...
1) I have four days of work left, including some days out of the office, and then a week off! No plans yet but hopefully will catch up with some friends, and have a barbecue.
2) I am trying to read lots recently, as I have loads of library books to get through, and then some of my own which I couldn't resist buying, including Twilight, Q&A (Slumdog Millionaire book), and the Booker Prize winner, White Tiger.