that canadian girl

Dig, dig…

Today, Andrew and I did more weights lifting than we have in a while. It’ll be great preparation for moving houses…

Andrew’s parents were having a “pond-digging party” so we went to help make a big hole in the back of their garden to create a koi carps pond. Koi carps are possibly the coolest fish around, they love to come up to the surface and watch or follow people around the edge. They even come up to suck your finger, and I’ve been known to befriend them enough for them to let me pet them and pick them up! (Anyways, they’re friendly enough but the picking up would still be a bad idea…)

I can’t claim to have spent as much time digging as the boys did, but I did a good little bit of work. We came across a bunch of HUGE concrete blocks that were dumped as rubble when the house was originally built and they were a hell of a challenge to dig out! Some were a good 4 feet long and went way beyond the edges of the pond we wanted to dig! Thankfully, no one took their eye out while digging them out with the dodgy loose pick axe…

Chomp, chomp…

Now, for the most interesting part of the day… Kathy knew everyone would be working hard so she prepared a truly tasty meal as incentive to keep working. We had an early snack of veggie crudités and crisps, olives, sunblush tomatoes and dips. Later on, when the boys started running out of steam towards 3-4pm so we had a lovely meal. Butterfly prawns in garlic, lemon and parsley butter, some lovely sundried tomatoes and herbs ciabbata bread followed by salmon in white wine and herbs with a dill sauce, some lovely rosemary potatoes and a tomato salad. I’ll have to get the recipes from Kathy and post them up on my food blog, the prawns in particular were gorgeous!

So all in all, a very fun day considering how much hard work was involved. Great company makes all the difference!

Vas-y mon ti hamster!

C’est l’histoire de Rosaire, le hamster de Montréal.

Ok, bon, je m’attend pas à ce que grand monde comprenne les références que fait Fred ici, mais je dédie cette histoire à Caramel, le premier teddy bear hamster, un vrai survivor, Guimauve, la grosse affaire paresseuse blanche, l’autre dont je me rappelle pas le nom mais je suis sure qu’on a eu 5 hamsters au total, puis Lucky et Speedy, les mini hamsters qui mordaient dont un s’est suicidé (par pendaison) un beau matin d’hiver. Maudites affaires inutiles qui faisaient du bruit en plein milieu de la nuit à côté de ma chambre… mais bon on les aimait bien.

Jo, Julie, Catou, c’était quoi le nom de l’autre hamster?

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Mon bô poisson

Merci Alex pour la chanson qui m’est restée pognée dans tête toute la journée mais que je pouvais pas chanter à mes collègues anglos parce qu’y comprennent pas un mot de canadien français, et peut-être 3 mots et demi de français Parisien…

Allez, tout le monde chante avec moi, sur l’air de ‘Mon beau sapin’! :

‘Mon bô poisson, roi des baleines, que j’aime ton oodeuuuur. Tu goute si bon, mais ta senteur, fait lever l’coeur, pasé six heure, Mon bô poisson, roi des odeures, que j’aime ta candeurrrre!’

Merci! Merci!

Tout le monde, on applaudit!!

Je sais bien que je suis une couple de jours en retard (c’est tu nouveau ça? Non, pantoute. Shut up!) mais j’ai écouté le podcast du premier avril de MC aujourd’hui et j’en avais les larmes aux yeux! La version d’Éric est pure class!

Pour ceux qui sont pas encore embarqués et qui ont jamais écouté de podcasts, prenez le temps d’écouter un de ceux de MC. Toujours intéressant et toujours des bonnes tounes pour aider la journée de travail à passer!!

Took me a few days to get them online, but here are the photos from Christmas Eve until the 27th spent with Andrew’s family. We were joined by my cousin Marjo and her boyfriend Wayne on the 26th. It was great to see them!

Enjoy

PS – Photos from my family’s Christmas in Canada to come soon!
PPS – I’m also about to create a new category on the right hand side called “Family” so that’ll link to all my entries relating to family events… Will make it easier when relatives want to see those posts and aren’t interested by my techno-rants!

C’est moi à presque deux ans, en août ‘83. J’arrive pas à me rappeler où on est dans la photo mais je devais être contente de nourrir les “Bambis”. Peut-être que Maman se rappelle d’où je suis dans la photo!

Ajout: Maman dit que c’était au Parc Safari, à Hemmingford, Québec

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This is me at the age of almost two, in August ‘83. Can’t remember where I am in this photo but I must have been happy to feed the Bambis. Maybe mom can help me remember where we were for that photo?

Update: Mom says it was at Parc Safari, in Hemmingford, Québec

The beginning of a long Christmas season of family get-togethers!

This was our pre-Christmas family get together with Andrew’s family, started with food, ended with food, oh and there was some food in the middle too… There was a bit of yelling at Sharon Osbourne, a bit of wine and port and cheese, a bit too much wine for the youngest guest (it’s okay, we’ve all gone through it too at some point!) and probably too much food for Roy! (Notice how we can see his belly when he’s sitting on the sofa! That’s how we all felt by the end of a fantastic meal!)

Incriminating photos even make Nan Phyl look like a dessert hog! See how she keeps the raspberry bomb to herself? Heehee!

Overall, a really nice day with the family!

Juste pour ma p’tite Julie chérie — Voici tes photos de Showbizz Avril 2004!

What can I say… i’ve been slacking off! Planning on spending an evening working on the new blog (alright fine you can see the preview here!!) and it’s still not been finished to go live. (Alright, I’ve changed my mind again about what I want my blog to be. Wait for the new and pretty (and easy to manage!) one! – 22nd September)

So, after a week and a half at work, I can say that it’s good to be back! Nothing much has changed, still mountains of manuscript and books sitting on everyone’s desk, still the same old cafeteria ladies mucking up your change at lunchtime, and still the same old office gossip… But a whole new point of view of how things are run in the business and a stack more responsibilities for me!

Friday was Lisa’s wedding — It was beautiful and the ambitious choice of location for both the wedding itself, and then the reception (nearly an hour away, requiring some driving on the M25 in Friday afternoon traffic! How risky!!) really paid off in the end! It was nice to see many of the Pepperrell relatives who I’d only met once or twice. The service at Lythe Hill Hotel was great during the wedding meal, the staff was very nice and they were doing a great job at keeping our wine glasses topped up! Lisa and Stuart both looked great!

Another big bit of news is that my sisters are back from Peru, still have the tourista (want details?) and certainly have a new outlook on life. Jo will be updating Mission Perou website soon, so I’ll link to her photos (not all — she took over 600!). I don’t even know where to start telling their story so I’ll let them do it when they post their travel diaries onto the site.