Blame Canada

Well, if I had to apologise last time for the lack of blog, then this time I have to prostrate myself and lick the ground to show my unworthiness. Where does the time go?? I guess I'm finally getting a life (yes!) so there's no time for anything but a weekly blog. So let's fix a date - every Tuesday I'll definitely write a new entry. That way you won't have to keep checking (that's if anyone does!).

I've also been feeling uninspired to write because of the incessant noise that rattles our walls from 8-5 every day. Apparently they're doing something in the basement - I presume it's oil prospecting or something from the noise it makes. It's so loud - get this - that I can't hear Joe speak if he's more than 2 metres away. Now I know what victims of trepanning went through. Trepanning is the ancient medieval practice of drilling a hole in someone's head to relieve a headache. Except this drilling is having the opposite effect.

At least we manage to get away at weekends. Last weekend was spent hanging out with Joe's family again (they're a fun bunch - although I know most English people, myself included, wouldn't dream of spending time with their extended family as much as the Italians do). This included looking after my baby nephew on Saturday night, which was quite novel because I've never even held a baby for more than three seconds. I had to change his nappy (my first time - reminiscent of that scene from '3 Men and a Baby' because I had no idea how the velcro straps worked), give him a bottle, sing him to sleep, everything. Meanwhile Joe was reading stories to our little nieces in the next room. Ahhh.

We had a chance to see the family again on Tuesday evening, because Joe's sister was performing in a show in Toronto (she's a professional dancer - how cool is that?). It was an Iranian show, and the dancing bits were interspersed with mind-numbingly tedious moments of 'comedy' which were completely in Farsi. It reminded me of my days in Turkey, where TV shows involve an old ugly Turkish guy arsing around and gurning at the camera. This was pretty much the same thing.

Anyway, nothing else hugely eventful to report, except that we're trying to move apartments to escape the drilling. The apartment we're moving to is unfurnished, and we have no furniture, so that should be fun (!!!). Ah, it's all a big adventure.

A final note on Canadian TV, which I've had a bit of an overdose of (it's nice to enjoy the apartment after the drilling's stopped and it doesn't feel like we're living in downtown Baghdad). If you don't have cable (which we don't) there are basically two choices: pointless public discussion shows ('coming up next on CBC - why does your toast always land face down?') or Law & Order/CSI. CSI is pretty funny in its McGyver-like stretching of reality: 'Sir, I've analysed the victim's eyelashes. One of them doesn't belong to him, so I analysed it and cross-referenced it with the Miami Eyelash Database. I think we've found our killer.' As if!

Well, that's it for now. It's our year anniversary on Sunday (yay!) so I'll actually have something to write about on Tuesday. Until then, I might write some more general stuff on Canadian culture to keep the keenies amused. And talking of keenies - come on you guys, where's all your comments? : )