Vespa-licious!

So we bought a vespa! We are true Londonites now... we bought a used 50cc Vespa ET2 (pretty cheap). It's black with a tan seat and is way too much fun! We've just been out for a ride on it, and it zips along quite nicely with two people on it. It will be a great way to pick up groceries or go to a movie or that sort of thing when we don't want to walk too far. It came with a helmet which fits Noise, and I bought a helmet for myself so we're all set.

Here are some photos for you to check out our new transpo. The ugly windshield on the front comes off so it will look like all the other Vespas. Note Buggy in the first picture behind the gate at our front door. The cloth on the ground is a leg cover which will keep things dry and warm when needed. One of the best features is the top box which provides a back rest for the passenger, and storage for the second helmet if you go into a store. (The other helmet goes under the seat.) All in all it should certainly suit our needs (a large part of which is entertainment, we freely admit).

We pulled off onto a side street so that I could try it out, and after a few rounds of going slow enough to keep my feet on the ground I gave that up and off I went! I need more practice before I'd be comfortable to go in traffic but in terms of handling the scooter it is easy. It's the other cars that I need to worry about and the roundabouts...! I think for awhile I will stick to the back streets, but Noise is perfectly comfortable in traffic, so he can drive us places when we need. London streets here we come!

In other news, our shipped belongings arrived today, so we have been reunited with all our worldly possessions (at least, the ones that aren't in storage in Kingston...) Now I have to go do some unpacking!

Lessons from London

So, as was eluded to a while ago by PetDoc, I may from time to time add a bit of my own thoughts to this wonderful blog. This being my first time, please be patient with me as I figure out exactly how to use this (although, I suspect if you are reading this then you won't actually experience any of my troubles posting it - it will just be there. If you are not reading this, well then nevermind).

If you were to go back and read the latest blog by PetDoc entitled "Another busy weekend!" (and I encourage you to do so) you will note that a lot of this weekend was spent going places or doing things that weren't necessarily on our agenda in the first place. While this is one of the best parts of London - that you can find something to do around every corner and down every tiny lane - it also is not very good for one's blood pressure. I'll admit it right from the start that many mistakes were made and that I am responsible for some (perhaps most, depending on who you ask). So, through this little addition to PetDoc's blog, I would like to tell you some of the lessons we learned this weekend.

First and foremost, you can never, ever, not for one second think that you have conquered this great city. As soon as you think you know where you are going and how to get there, then *BAM* the gods of London throw the proverbial curveball at you and all of sudden you are late, lost and looking for help. So the first lesson is - we've only been here for a few weeks and we are not experts. That's right, not very long at all. We may know the names of the tube lines, and with the aid of the maps when you enter the station, the maps on each train and the map in our pocket, we know the general direction the trains are heading (in theory). But you better have detailed directions of where it is you want to go and never assume "yay I know where that is." After some time of travelling the same route to and from work, day in and day out, you start to get this complacent feeling that you know this place. Like I said above, this is when you get hit the worst. Watch out!

This lesson was very quickly learned en route to the theatre on Saturday night. As PetDoc correctly described, we did have a mad dash around London looking for the damn Apollo Victoria theatre. It was an easy mistake - the A to Z listed only an Apollo Theatre and that seemed right, I had thought I saw it some where around the Leicester Square/Picadilly Circus area (see, I admit my mistake) and it just made general sense. But no. There is in fact another theatre called the Apollo Victoria. And it's no where near the Apollo. But if we had taken the 10 seconds to read the ticket and the address of the theatre before getting on the tube, we would have found the right theatre online and the correct directions. We didn't know where we were going, we were guessing. BAM!

The next lesson we learned this weekend resulted from our trip to Greenwich (or as you read from PetDoc, our trip NOT to Greenwich). The Transport for London (TfL), who is the body responsible for the tubes, trains and buses around London (similar to the TTC if you are from/know the Toronto area) does a great job to communicate the status of the tube and any delays as well as any station closures on their website and at each station. It's actually an industry leading service because if you think about it, what they really are doing is telling the public about their faults. So that being said, there is no shortage of information. So clearly the lession here is - check the status of the tube.

You probably already guessed how we learned this lesson - our trip not to Greenwich. It's not that I am terribly disappointed about not getting to Greenwich. I can go next weekend if I want (don't read: "ha ha, I live in London and you don't"; read: "I can go next weekend if I want"). But it's kind of frustrating when you think you are going someplace and then you are not. We probably could have gone to Greenwich afterall, because when there are delays/closures the TfL is really good at setting up alternative bus routes. But it was just too confusing and there wasn't that much time before we had to be home for Buggy. So we improvised and ended up seeing something else. However, again, if we had of taken the 10 seconds to look up the route to Greenwich on the TfL website, we would have quickly realized about the closures.

The last lesson I have for now (emphasis on "for now") is based on a few experiences I have had to date including this weekend. As you go about your daily life where ever you live you come across things and places that you put in your memory bank filed under "good to know for the future" - for example within the first few days here I knew there was a gas station near the Fulham Broadway. Or you purposely look places up and go there, like the grocery store or the Starbucks down the street. All of these form the knowledge of your surroundings. However, for some perverse reason I like to defy what I know and search out the new. While this sometimes works out for me, it often bites me in the...well...ass.

For the most part, variety is the spice of life. But whenever you are dealing with a complete new surrounding and faced with a particular challenge, it is often the best approach to go with what you know. Therefore this lesson is - go with what you know*. (* - that's not to say never look for something new. Life would be too boring if you didn't. But if you have to return a rented car in 20 minutes and you still have to get gas, go to the gas station near Fulham Broadway. Don't hope that there will be something closer to the rental office and head off in the opposite direction of the gas station you know about. And then when you can't find a gas station and you stop and ask someone, you will invariably be sent to the one you should have gone to in the first place!). This lesson actually goes back to something my father taught me a long time ago - KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid.

A more recent example from this weekend of "going with what you know" definately has to be about getting off the slow moving tube to run around Oxford Street looking for a cab. We now knew exactly where we were going and how to get there - by tube - and there probably was enough time to weather the delays on the tube and get there on time. But it seemed like a good idea to me (again, I admit my mistake) to jump off the tube and try to catch a cab. Well that's it, isn't it - try. Instead of going with the route we knew about, we were now running (literally, I ran a few times) around the streets like idiots chasing after the elusive cab for hire. And no matter how long I live in London, when I come up from the tube and emerge into the daylight again, I will have to look around and get my bearings (this is the subject of another blog entry some day I am sure). So I had no idea where I was, where I was going or where to find a cab. I was defying what I knew and assuming that my expertise would figure it out (please go back and read lesson one).

So there you have it, three lessons: don't think you are an expert, look up where you have to go and go with what you know. Without any further pontification, these are really simple rules to live by, at least for the first little while until things are a bit more comfortable and there's a bit more experience to draw upon. It's not like these are life saving tips. Just lessons we have learned.

(As a footnote, aside from the trip not to Greenwich, I will point out that despite all my mistakes thus far, nothing *bad* has happened...knock on wood. Just for the record, the car was returned on time with a full tank of gas and as reported by PetDoc we did make the show with lots of time to spare. So perhaps I am doing the right things...).

....let me see if I can post this now...

Another busy weekend!

I have so much to write about but lately I'm finding it hard to find the time! It was easy when I didn't have a job, but now not so much!

Anyway, I've got some photos up from this weekend so I wanted to give a brief description of what all we've been up to.

On Friday we were very fortunate to be able to use my colleague G's grounds passes to Wimbledon. We went in and wandered the grounds for a few hours. We had dinner there, and sat on Henman Hill to watch the action. We also wandered around to the smaller courts and caught some live action as well. It was very interesting to experience it from the "inside"! Unfortunately the weather was not great, it was gray and chilly, which took away from the experience a bit, although was true Wimbledon, I guess. On the way out we decided to avoid the crowds at Southfields tube station and walk over to Wimbledon Park to be the first ones on. Unfortunately it was not as straightforward as it looked on the map, and we ended up finding ourselves trapped on the golf course. Let's just say that only a small amount of fence-climbing was required, and leave it at that. Then to top it all off there was no one at Southfields... Sigh. Anyway, we did take a few photos, and they are online here.

Saturday we actually spent the morning looking at Vespas, but didn't find one to buy. We are looking around for something inexpensive yet reliable, so we can putt around our neighbourhood and to the grocery store and so on. It's amazing how many Vespas there are in London! Then we had big plans to go to Greenwich, but unfortunately our plans did not go as far as determining whether or not the DLR was operating this weekend (ie it was NOT). So we got as far as Canary Wharf, which we had also been wanting to see. Canary Wharf is a fairly new development of offices and shopping down on the Isle of Dogs. It is home to One Canada Square, which is the tallest building in London. Noise is a big fan of cities and tall buildings and so on, so he was quite keen to check this area out, and he was not disappointed. Photos here as well! Since getting to Greenwich was going to be difficult, we made a quick change of plans and instead headed over to Brick Lane, which is a famous street in London lined with Indian restaurants and shops. We shared a curry as our afternoon snack, as we figure you can't live in London and not go for a curry! Yum!

En route to Leicester Square we had to go through King's Cross, which we hadn't done yet, so we detoured out to do the requisite photo op at Platform 9 3/4, where they have basically put up a sign on the wall between platforms 9 and 10 and bolted half of a luggage cart to the wall to make the day of all the Harry Potter fans out there. Noise opted to make his photo look like he ran into the wall, whereas in my photo I simply look drunk.

We went by Leicester Square and picked up tickets to see Wicked, which I had been quite keen to see. I didn't know a lot about it, only that it was the back story about the witches of Oz, so we had great fun watching the story unfold. Of course the seats were in the nosebleeds, which I always hate because you don't get quite as absorbed in the story when you're that far away, but it's hard to get tickets, so we'll just count ourselves lucky that we saw it at all! Especially after we were almost late because we started out heading to the wrong theatre! It's playing at the Apollo Victoria and we looked on the map and found the Apollo. It wasn't until we had left home and were heading to the Apollo that I realized there was an address on the tickets and that it was down by Victoria Station, not at Piccadilly Circus where we were headed! So we changed directions but there were severe delays on the Piccadilly line and we finally got off the tube and ran down Oxford Street looking for a cab to get the rest of the way. We got there with a few minutes to spare, but of course they never start on time anyway, so we were a-ok!

Today we took a day trip out to Cambridge, and had a lovely day. Photos can be found here. We took the train from King's Cross, it was a 45 minute ride and so efficient! We spent the day wandering around Cambridge, checking out the famous colleges and the scenery. We went for a punt ride up the River Cam (the quintessential Cambridge experience) which was a great time! We also went into the King's College chapel, which is the second largest chapel of its kind in Europe (second only to the Sistine Chapel). The weather was lovely, I actually got a bit of a sunburn on my nose! My first British sunburn (I think they are quite rare...) We really enjoyed the day in Cambridge. Noise has a dream of doing his MBA at Cambridge, and we decided we could enjoy a year there!

Anyway, I'm out of time to write for today, but I wanted to give a quick synopsis of the last 3 days and post the photos for everyone to enjoy! I'll try to update again soon!

To say or not to say....?

Noise and I had an interesting discussion last night about the language differences here. What we were wondering was how far to go in trying to conform. Should we be making a conscious effort to use common words and phrases here, or just talk normally? My problem is that I feel like if I purposely say "cheers" instead of "thank you", it feels awkward and forced to me and I feel like that comes across. Also I almost feel like it's insulting somehow to use all their phrases. I'm not sure how, but that's how I feel. How would we feel in Canada if someone came from the UK? We probably wouldn't even notice if they said "thank you", but they would maybe feel the same awkwardness that I feel to say "cheers".

At work there are some phrases or words that I feel the need to conform to. For example, in Canada the procedure "neuter" applies to a male, although technically the term can be either gender. Here they use the term "castrate" for males, and I figure with a bit of practice I can do that too to avoid confusion. My coworkers know that I am practising. ;)

My theory is that aside from the work terms that I need to use to avoid confusion, I don't plan to purposely use Brit terms, but I expect that the longer we are here I will start picking up those words and phrases naturally. But should I be making the effort?

Tomorrow is my day off! I have no major plans except to sleep in a bit. We are in the midst of trying to make some plans for the weekend. We're hoping to plan another day trip for either Saturday or Sunday - possible destinations include Brighton, Cambridge, or Windsor, although there are a million places we could go. I think I have a line on some Wimbledon ground passes for Friday afternoon/evening, but we'll see if that pans out. The weather has been quite nice this week, no rain yet to disrupt the tennis. And we're starting to think about trying to get away somewhere for more than a day! Where to choose first? We are overwhelmed by the options!

Music in the park

The Singer has been complaining that my blog entries make her insanely jealous. So today I thought maybe I should do something today that wouldn't upset her. So we bopped on down to Leicester Square to check out West End Live. One weekend in June they put on a big outdoor concert and festival to celebrate theatre in London. They do performances from all the shows currently in production, as well as other acts. It was great! It ended up being a beautiful day, albeit very windy, so we hung out in the sun and watched some great performances. We wandered over to Piccadilly Circus and Regent Street for a bit and got some lunch, then went back to Leicester Square in time to see the Sound of Music performance. It wasn't the whole cast, just the Mother Abbess and Maria doing The Sound of Music, My Favourite Things, and Climb Every Mountain. Oddly enough, it wasn't the Maria that we saw onstage, so I guess they opted to use the understudy for this particular performance! We saw them hanging around backstage before they went onstage as well.

All in all it was a pretty cool activity for the day and we were really glad we decided to go. We definitely want to make the most of these opportunities while we're here. How fun!

P.S. All the photos from West End Live are posted here.

This and that...

Sorry I haven't been writing much this week - now that I have a job again it's a bit harder to find the time! The rest of the week at work was pretty good - I am starting to settle in a bit and get into the swing of things. I'm starting to feel a bit more like I'm part of the team, which is nice because that is my favourite part of working in a clinic. I did something interesting on Friday which is I think somewhat British - I went on two house calls! That's not to say that Canadian vets don't do house calls, but it's not something that I've ever done, and I think it's more common here. The clinic uses a pet ambulance and driver to take a vet and a nurse to the house call, and then if necessary the pet can be transported back to the clinic. As it turned out the two calls I made were quite simple and not difficult, and in return I got a lovely driving tour of Wimbledon!

Friday after work I met Noise at Fulham Broadway on my way home and we had a dinner and movie date. This was our first outing to a movie here, and although there were some minor differences, for the most part it was like being at home. One thing I noticed was how quiet the whole theatre was, out in the hallways there were no people! Like a ghost town! I don't know if that is typical or if certain days are much busier or not. We saw the new Indiana Jones movie and really enjoyed it!

Yesterday was a busy day, which is why I didn't update my blog then! In the morning we went down to the Borough Market. The market has been there in some form since around 43AD, and has been on its exact site for 250 years. It is tucked in under the railroad tracks at the south side of London Bridge. There are 4 areas of market, all filled with stalls, plus shops and restaurants on the surrounding streets. All the vendors are selling foods, and we sampled cheeses, breads, oils, sauces, jams, sausages, and so on. Lots of fresh fruit and veg, and we brought home our produce for the week. We each had a bakery treat (croissant for me, raisin scone for Noise), and on our way out bought a tray of brownies to take to a get-together in the evening. There were also quite a few stalls selling hot food but we didn't buy anything. The market is open at 9am on Saturdays, and we got there at about 10 and it wasn't too busy. By 11:00-11:30 it got quite crowded. One fun feature is that in order to get there we ended up getting off the tube at Monument and walking across London Bridge to reach the market (the tube line which goes straight there was closed). It was only a short walk and now we have another experience to tuck under our belts. Of course, the whole way across Noise insisted on singing "London Bridge is falling down..." but what else would you expect?

At the south end of the bridge is Southwark Cathedral, built in the 1200s. We didn't go in, but I found it interesting to see this ancient church tucked in between the modern bridge, the railroad tracks, and the market. So typical of London, the way the old and the new constantly rub shoulders.

When we left the market we had a bit of time so we decided to walk back across the bridge and along by St. Paul's before heading home. We walked along the south side and took some photos and then got the tube at Blackfriars. Noise uses Blackfriars as his main tube station to and from work, and it's quite a nice walk for him from the tube to his office, as when he crosses Fleet Street he has a lovely view of St. Paul's everyday.

Of course we went armed with our camera, and photos of both the market and St. Paul's can be seen here.

In the afternoon we headed off to Wimbledon to attend a BBQ at my friend P's house. This was a really nice opportunity to meet some new people and also to hang around with some Canadians! What a treat to talk to people about places I know, and to have that common bond. I was chatting with someone else from Ottawa about last year's snow, and it was so great that she knew exactly what I meant. I don't think the people here can fully understand what I mean when I say 4 metres of snow! P's husband K is South African, and we got to sample some SA foods as well, which were delicious!

Today is the first day since we arrived (almost 3 weeks ago!) that we didn't have plans made at least by the day before. We're getting tired, I think! Today we're going to try to take it easy, so we might just head out to do a bit of shopping or maybe go to a park. The weather is not great this weekend, yesterday it was quite cool and it rained in the morning, and today it is very blustery, although sunny. Apparently the coast is getting hit with gales and high winds, so I guess we're getting some of that. The weather is so strange here, we've decided that the general rule of thumb is to never go anywhere without both your raincoat and your sunglasses. And wear layers because the temperature likes to shift dramatically!

I'd best be off to find something to do today! Until later!

Working Girl

So I started my new job on Monday, and so far things are going well. It was a bit weird on Monday, I felt like no one really wanted to show me around and I was left to my own devices most of the day, and had to ask people to show me where things were and how to use the computer, and so on. Then I had yesterday off (I'll come back to that!) and worked again today. Today I felt a bit more settled and as I actually had things to do to keep me occupied it made it a bit smoother. I think things will work out nicely at this clinic, although of course it's still a bit early to know for sure. They seem to be practising good quality medicine there, something which is important to me, and there also seems to be the freedom for me to do things as I wish, rather than needing to conform to some sort of policy. The trick is for me to stand up for what I want without seeming bitchy about it. :) Today I had some surgeries to do and the nurse I was working with very quickly figured out how I like to do things and got into my groove, which really helped. Anyway, I won't get into the details because it would bore all the non-vet readers, but the bottom line is that today was a good day! The major problem with today was that I was working a 12-hour shift, and my feet are currently throbbing! I am counting down the days until our shipment of belongings arrives from Canada with my work Crocs!!! If I had known I would start work so quickly they would have been in my suitcase. ;)

The commute for me to work takes about 45 minutes door-to-door, with about a 8-10 minute walk at each end, which I understand is quite a reasonable commute for London. Of course later in the day (like at 8:30 tonight) the tube doesn't run as often, so I had to wait about 10 minutes at Wimbledon tube station tonight for the train to leave, which slows it down a bit. Because Wimbledon is the end of the line it's not a big deal if I doze on the train on the way to work. The other nice thing is that I'm going out of the city so I'm going against the rush hour, so I can get a seat on the train. Of course next week the tennis starts so I expect that will change. ;) We're hoping to get in to see some tennis, it's one of those things that it would be silly to not do while we're here. They re-sell the grounds passes after 5pm for only £10 or so, so I expect we will do that. I learned today that a certain top-level tennis player (ie 9-time Wimbledon champion or some such thing) is a client at my new clinic, when she is in town for the championships she brings her dogs there, and she often brings them free tickets, so cross your fingers there! Apparently they draw names out of a hat for who gets them.

Yesterday was my day off, and I had a very nice day. After Buggy and I went on our training run in the morning I got ready and headed into the city to meet Noise for lunch. Then I came back out to Hammersmith and spent two hours wandering the shops. I am completely in love now with Primark, as I spent £19 there and got 3 shirts, 1 pair of pants (trousers!) and a pair of shoes! I had such fun. Obviously the stuff is not great quality, but for work clothes I don't want to spend a lot of money as they just end up ruined. Then I met up with a friend from home, P, who I had been trying to contact since we knew we were coming and finally was able to call her on Monday night. We met at Starbucks and had a nice chat, and we're going to their place on Saturday for a barbeque. How nice to see a familiar face!

This weekend we're planning to go to the Borough Market, which is down around London Bridge and is an ancient marketplace. Apparently there has been trading on that site since around 65 AD or something, and the market as it is today has been there for 250 years. They tell me that it's mainly food stalls, and just amazing. So we'll check that out.

And some exciting news! We have internet! Our BT broadband router was delivered today and we're all set up. What luxury to have a reliable connection! Now we just need to figure out how to get the phone set up with the router, because as part of our plan we are supposed to have pretty good rates to Canada (something like 1.25 pence per minute).

I've decided to start compiling a list of things that we miss about Canada (for example, cottage cheese) and also things that we like and appreciate here (for example, prices include the tax). Once I have some entries on my lists I'll post them here for your perusal!

Must run now, morning comes early!

Weekend update

It’s been a few days since I posted, mainly because the internet connection has been hit-and-miss. This week we should hopefully get our connection hooked up which will be luxury!
We did a bit of sightseeing this weekend. Saturday we went down to the South Bank to Tower Bridge and City Hall to visit the Telectroscope (see post from June 12). When we arrived there was not much of a queue, and Noise enquired how far in advance we should join the queue if we wanted to have our turn at 2:00. She suggested that we come back just before and they would “get us in”. So we wandered off back down the bank and to a pub for lunch, where we had our first English fish and chips dinner! Delicious! Then we came back to the Telectroscope, where there was now an hour-long wait. But true to their word, they “fast-tracked” us through the line and put us with the people who had booked online (which I understood you could only do for special occasions, ie marriage proposals, but the other people there were also meeting friends...) So at 2:00 on the dot we got our turn to look through the crazy machine, and sure enough there were our NYC Guys on the other end! They rang us on our mobile and Noise and S chatted as well. They said that at 9:00 in New York, there wasn’t any line so they had just been hanging out waiting for us. Anyway, I admit I had some doubts about how it would work, but Noise fixed it up as usual and it was all pretty cool!

From there we wandered down to Tower Bridge and into a little area just beyond it with shops and restaurants. Then we crossed Tower Bridge and caught the tube over to Oxford Street to do some shopping! I start my new job tomorrow and have nothing to wear! To start with, I only have a suitcase worth of clothes, and while I brought clothes to wear to interviews, I didn’t really anticipate starting a job before my other clothes arrived. Also, for the past 2 years I have worn scrubs at work, and now will be wearing “smart casual” attire with a provided tunic overtop. So we hit up the Oxford St shops (not recommended on a Saturday afternoon) and I did buy one new pair of pants. That combined with what I do have will likely get me through the first week, but I’m going to need more! Also while we were on Oxford St, some crazy parade of hundreds of naked cyclists went by, not something we’ve ever seen in Canada before!

Photos of the telectroscope, and Tower Bridge can be viewed here. (And one photo of the cyclists!!)

Today we ventured outside of London again, this time by train. The train system in England is so efficient, why drive? We took the train from Waterloo station out to Salisbury in Wiltshire. I was very impressed because from the train I could see the clock on the platform and when it hit 09:15:00 we started moving! It was a smooth and pleasant trip to Salisbury, and when we arrived there we grabbed the Stonehenge Tour bus which seems to be the best way to get out to Stonehenge. They provide commentary along the way, and it’s a hop-on, hop-off tour, so you can get off at various sites if you wish. We got off at Stonehenge and spent about 1 ½ hours there, wandering around, taking lots of photos, and listening to the audio commentary. I was quite excited to return to Stonehenge as it was one of the sights in England that I remember the best, and it was as I remember it! We had brought a picnic lunch so we ate it there on the grass looking at the stones before catching the bus back to Salisbury. We hopped-off at the Market Square and wandered around Salisbury and up to the Cathedral. We saw some interesting sights; the St.Thomas Church, dedicated to Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, many old medieval buildings, and of course the beautiful Salisbury Cathedral. We both very much liked Salisbury, we found it to be a lovely area, less busy than London of course, but nicely urban without having lost the old medieval feel. And in a pet shop there I found the leash I have been looking all over for!

The train home was on time (we actually arrived 10 minutes early into London) and much more crowded than on the way out. People heading back to London on Sunday afternoon for the work week, I guess. And so ended our first day trip!

As I mentioned, tomorrow I am starting work, so of course I am a bit nervous tonight. But also I am excited to get started! I have to get up early, though, after several weeks of doing as I please!

Noise has mentioned that he would maybe like to start adding the occasional post to the blog, so I am going to add him as a user – so in the near future you may start getting commentary from him as well! Watch this space! His big news this weekend is that he has joined the Virgin Active gym a few blocks away from our house, so he will soon be back to his active ways. I have decided not to join, although I would like to because they have a pool! But the monthly fee is so expensive and I know I wouldn't use it enough to justify it. The fee is about 6X what I was paying in Ottawa!

I will sign off now, but not before saying Happy Father’s Day to PetDad! Also to Grandpa and to Noise’s Dad as well. I won’t get all mushy here, I’ll just say I miss you! I’m looking forward to the PetParents visiting in August... counting down the days!

Photos!

I have been struggling with internet access the last few days, but today I am at the Starbucks down the street using our BT wifi account. Yay for internet!

I have posted some new photos for your perusal. I am trying out photobucket, an idea I stole from The Singer, as there doesn't appear to be a limit to the number of photos you can upload.

Photos from our sightseeing day around London are here.
Photos of the surrounding area and neighbourhood around our flat can be found here.
Please let me know if these links are working of if you have any trouble with them. I am going to attempt to create a link to the right which would allow you to open the main page and choose which album to view, but we'll see how that goes... To choose the album look at the left-hand side of the page which lists the albums (currently London Sights, and Hammersmith and Fulham).

I think I will be making a trip to Wimbledon tomorrow to finalize my contract, which I received in the mail today. But if I am going to start work on Monday, I wouldn't be able to mail it back or else I would arrive before it did! They do appear to be expecting me to start on Monday, so I think things are set there. As much as I have enjoyed a few weeks off, I am also a bit anxious to get back to work, partly simply because it is boring alone in the flat all day! I have Buggy to keep me company but it is his habit to sleep all day (one I do not want to discourage) so mostly I have been making little outings to the grocery store, etc, and reading. I am currently reading Edward Rutherford's London as recommended by the Singer, and definitely enjoying it.

This weekend we have some plans... we are planning to check out the telectroscope, which involves an enormous tunnel under the Atlantic, with windows at each end in London and NYC, so if you stand at one end you can see the people looking through the other end. We have friends in NYC and so we have arranged to try to see each other! I'm not sure how well it will work, as you apparently have to queue to look through it so it may be difficult to arrange the timing, but we'll try! How exciting if it actually works out!

Also I think we're going to try to get a bit of shopping done - I held off buying any "work" clothes at home before we left because I didn't know what I would need. For the last couple of years I have worn scrubs at work, but here I think I will be wearing regular pants (ie khakis, etc) and shirts with a clinic-supplied tunic on top. So I think I need some pants! I will probably hit up one of the cheaper stores to get a few pairs to start with. My friend M in Ottawa lived in Glasgow for the past 5 years and she has supplied me with the names of the cheap shops to look for. ;)

I also will need to get myself a monthly travelcard this weekend. Since we arrived I have had a 7-day travelcard (on my second one now) for zones 1-2, but I think once I start work I will do better with a zone 2-3 travelcard. We live in zone 2, and I will be working in zone 3. If I get a 2-3 travelcard it is £50 cheaper than if I also had zone 1 included, and I won't need zone 1 regularly, so we figure it is cheaper to go that way and use pay-as-you-go on my Oyster card for when I do want to travel in zone 1. I won't go into zone 1 enough to make up the £50 difference! The Oyster card is ingenious, I think it's an amazing system.

Tonight I think we are going to venture outside of the limited area in which we have been existing, and head up to north London to visit the Ikea there. Wish us luck!

Venturing out!

Today I went grocery shopping by myself! It's definitely taking some adjusting to get used to the way things operate here. We miss some things and are enjoying others. As an example, the cottage cheese here (a favourite snack for both of us at home) is awful. It is like eating soupy cheese curds, and although I love cheese curds, trust me this is not a nice combination. Of course, most of the foods we are accustomed to are not available here, but we do have Frosted Flakes in the cupboard! And the cheese is delicious! Noise has decided he loves Weetabix, but I tried it this morning and ended up throwing it out. It's just a pile of mush! What we do love is the availability of prepared foods. For example today I picked up the items to have a stir-fry, and I bought roasted chicken breasts, prepared veggies (a bagged mix of snow peas, carrots, bean sprouts, etc), and some ready-to-eat noodles, so when it comes time to eat, it's just a matter of chopping up the chicken and stir-frying it all together! As most people know, they love the boxed sandwich over here, everywhere you go at lunchtime those are the options. We have been pleased to discover that Subway here is exactly the same as at home, and very reasonably priced! They have a"2 can dine" deal for £5.99, which gets you 2 6" subs, 2 drinks, and 2 cookies or crisps. A regular 6" sub on its own is around £2.50 to £3.00 which is pretty equivalent to the Canadian prices of $5.00 to $6.00.

Tonight Noise will be out at some sort of gathering for other "secondees", ie other people at his firm who are here on secondments, so I think I will have the pizza I picked up at Tescos today, just pop it in the oven and away we go!

Where I do get frustrated is in not knowing where to go looking for items that we need. Today I set off in search of a tea towel, as the only one here in the flat was a bit grubby. I tried several different stores and never did find one. I have to imagine that locals would know exactly where to go to find that, but I had to give up. I figured for sure Marks and Spencer would have one, but no luck!

I had hoped that tonight we might check out the local pub (it's only 2 doors down!) but since Noise will be out late I don't think we'll get out. Just down the street as well is another pub which is apparently listed as one of the top pubs in London or England or something. We have only peeked in as we walked by, but as soon as we go in to check it out I will report! It's very old-fashioned, very much what you expect of an Olde English Pub.

I popped out to the street today with the camera to take a few photos of the street, and also took some shots of the flat as it is now. I am in the process of uploading them to flickr, if my internet connection doesn't crap out on me. They can be enjoyed here! As a sample, I included a shot of the front door to our flat taken from the street level.

I'm starting to get used to the money. The notes (bills) aren't difficult of course, although they are all the same colour which makes it a bit more difficult to sort through in your wallet. Where I have trouble is with the coins! I love the pound coin, have always loved it. It's so thick! It's easy to pick out in your wallet, but the 5p coins are small and the 10p are large which is backwards to me (the 5p looks like a dime and the 10p looks like a nickel). Also they have 50p coins which look like quarters to me. Whatever, I will get used to it eventually I'm sure.

Now Buggy and I are off for a run! I hope we don't get lost! Later!

Keep to the right... I mean left!!

So we went on our first road trip the other day. We had quite a busy Saturday! First we went and signed the papers and lease and so on for the new flat, then went and met the landlord there. We went through the inventory of the flat, conditions of things, and so on. Also he showed us how to work certain things like the boiler that we haven't had to deal with before. We're quite excited about our flat, we lucked out by getting somewhere with a decent amount of space. The bedrooms are quite big by London standards, and there's a little private garden at the back which extends the living space quite a bit on nice days. It's what they call the "lower garden flat", which we could actually call the basement flat. The entrance is down a set of steps at the front, but the windows in the front are full-size, and by being in the basement we have sole use of the garden at the back. Both bedrooms are at the back and have full doors that open onto the garden. There's a lovely shed in the garden which will be fantastic for storing golf clubs, and so on. We think there's more storage space in the closets than we had at home in our walk-in closet! And the ensuite bathroom and shower are a big plus as well. We were lucky to get two bathrooms. The kitchen is a typical London flat kitchen, small but with lots of storage space and quite new and attractive. The only hitch is that we worked a deal to have a new washer/dryer installed instead of the washer only that was in place, and it was installed before we moved in. The hitch is that we tried it out yesterday and there's a leak in the plumbing under the counter where they attached the washer which is also connected to the kitchen sink, so we currently can't use either the washer or the kitchen sink! But we've been in touch with our landlord and the problem should hopefully be resolved today. One of the conditions of us moving in was that they would paint the bathroom which was looking pretty ratty (ok, the paint in most of the flat could use a touch up) and there is someone here today doing the painting.

In the living room (called the reception room here) there is a lovely futon, which I think we may move into the second bedroom as our spare bed and buy a couch to put in the reception room. The spare room isn't big enough to keep a double bed in at all time as it would obstruct the door to the garden, but a futon would allow for use of the room on a daily basis, but then could become a bed for guests. We'll see how things go. I've set up the spare room as my "dressing room" and created a little vanity from a small table and mirror to use my hair dryer and so on, as the bathrooms here don't have outlets for anything other than shavers which use a different type of plug. And I used the closet in the spare room for my clothes, so it's my little space.

We rented a car on Saturday, so while we had the use of it we gathered up all our luggage from our temporary flat and carted it over to the new place. Noise did all the driving, and it was exciting! He very quickly got the hang of driving on the left and shifting gears with his left hand. As I knew he would, he quite enjoyed it! The trouble was that we needed to get out from Central London and it took hours! But finally we got down into the countryside in Surrey and were reunited with our Buggy! He seems none the worse for having flown to another continent and spending almost a week in a kennel. Although he did need a bath immediately as he was not smelling his freshest. ;) He has settled in to the new place quite easily and seems quite comfortable and relaxed. We've been for lots of walks over the last couple of days, which I'm sure also helps him to sleep the rest of the time. One of my worries was that he would relapse into his days of separation anxiety, but yesterday we went out a couple of times and left him alone and he didn't seem to be bothered. When we came back we could see him sleeping on the rug in the reception room. So I think he will be fine. Those of you who know Buggy will know that he is badly behaved when he sees another dog while on his leash, but with the use of his remote-control citronella collar he is doing very well, we have seen lots of other dogs, even at very close quarters (the sidewalks here, called pavements, are narrow!) and he has barely blinked. I've only had to spray him once.

Just to liven things up, we discovered after we had gotten him home, and Noise had taken the car to stock up on some groceries, and then returned the rental car by dropping the keys in the night slot, that we had left Buggy's papers in the car! We thought they must have gotten underneath the seat or tucked in beside it and then when Noise dropped off the car and looked around to make sure we hadn't left anything, he didn't see them. So the next morning we walked over to where the rental car was parked to look in the windows to see if they were in there (the office was closed until today) and there they were! While I was contemplating the best way to make sure we got them back as soon as the office opened, Noise had the bright idea to try the door and lo and behold, he hadn't locked it! So we grabbed his papers and all is well!

So much to write about... what else has happened? Since we moved in to the new flat we haven't had an internet connection, which is why I haven't been updating the blog. But I've got one for the moment so I am using my time wisely!

I guess my last news is that I got the job! I can't remember what I had written about the clinic, but it's a lovely clinic in Wimbledon, which will mean a 20-minute tube ride for me on a direct line, with an 8-10 minute walk at each end. The clinic has 4 vets, the owner/partner who is a specialized surgeon and runs a referral orthopedic practice, 2 younger associates (one who is my age and another who I think is a little bit older), and a 3rd associate whose place I will be taking. They seem to put value on practising a high quality of medicine, no cutting corners and so on. They had been talking about starting at the end of July but I indicated that I didn't want to wait that long to start work, so in fact I think they are going to have me start next week to cover some holidays. So it looks like I will be employed again soon! One thing I like about the English -they take their holidays seriously. I get 4 weeks holidays to start. The clinic is open on bank holidays, though, but not on Christmas, Boxing Day, or New Year's Day. So I will have to work some of the bank holidays. Anyway, we'll see how it works out, I am hopeful that this will be a good fit for me.

One of the reasons that I started this blog was to be able to share some of the interesting things about living in England, the small things as well. But right now I have so much big news to share that it doesn't leave time for the small things. But they will come!

Right now I must run as hopefully they are going to fix the leak under the sink. Until later!

PetDoc, MRCVS

I'm in! I went today and registered with the RCVS (Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons) and swore the oath and so on. So now I'm in and legally entitled to practice veterinary medicine in the UK. Yay for me! Now I can use the letters MRCVS (member of RCVS) after my name.

No other real news today. We are all set for a move-in tomorrow at the new flat, although I am still paranoid that something will happen and things will fall through. You have to jump through a lot of hoops here to rent a flat, can you imagine what it would be like to try and get a mortgage? Anyway, once we're all moved in I will post some photos of the flat. We also have a rental car booked to drive down to Surrey and pick up Buggy!

Today we traveled out to Wimbledon as Noise hadn't had a chance to check it out yet. We considered for a long time living in Wimbledon, but decided it would be too far for Noise to commute in to the city for work. So we walked around the Broadway and poked in a few shops, and then I popped in to the clinic where I had an interview earlier this week (to drop off a reference letter), and had a nice chat with the owner there. Things look somewhat promising there! Keep your fingers crossed. I also picked up a bag of food for Buggy so he won't go hungry once we get him back!

Interesting news this week, during the excavation for the 2012 Olympic site they found an unexploded WWII bomb in a river. Today in particular the tube was disrupted while they carried out a controlled explosion. We don't get much of that in Canada....

Tonight I think we're going to head out and find ourselves a nice spot in a pub for the evening. Should be fun!

Tourist day

I've been meaning to write on my blog today to catch everyone up, but of course here it is after midnight and I'm exhausted, so I may have to keep this a bit short!

To start, yesterday I went for a job interview at a lovely clinic in Wimbledon. It seemed like the kind of place I could be happy working at, and the people were very friendly. We'll see how things go there. I have another interview arranged for early next week as well.

While I was at my interview, Noise went exploring at Fulham Broadway, which he is now in love with. It is a busy high street area with lots of shops and restaurants down tiny little side streets. We went back there for dinner and had Spanish food as our first meal out in England!

This morning we finally got ourselves connected and bought a pay-as-you-go mobile phone. This is a stop-gap until we decide exactly what type of phone and what sort of plan we want to go with longer-term, but in the short-term in order to have a phone we bought just a cheapie. It doesn't look promising that I will be able to unlock my phone to use it on the networks here, so I will probably be buying a new phone, but we didn't want to rush into anything. So now I have a phone! Yay!

The rest of today was spent doing the touristy stuff - getting our bearings in the city. We took the hop-on-hop-off bus tour (Mom's idea) and toured all around. We started at Buckingham Palace (and not thinking, we arrived at 11:30 when the changing of the guard was happening). The last time I went to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace I passed out waiting in the enormous crowds. So today I had Noise take a picture of me in the spot that I passed out 13 years ago. I stayed on my feet this time! We also made a stop at Trafalgar Square and popped over to Leicester Square on the tube to check it out. The bus took us past all the major landmarks, and provided some great photo opportunities as well. Then we got off at Tower Bridge and took the river cruise down the Thames back to Westminster. On the boat we had our first Pimms! Delicious! I'll post some photos tomorrow hopefully!

To wrap up our day we went to see The Sound of Music at London Palladium at Oxford Circus. It was fantastic! I admit I teared up a few times, and even Noise admitted he was moved. The highlight of the show for me was Climb Every Mountain at the end of Act One - wow! After the show we walked around Picadilly Circus and over to Covent Garden before catching the tube home again.

Today was our wedding anniversary, so we thought it was suitable to celebrate with a day and night on the town! It was a beautiful day and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

In other news, things are looking very promising that we should be getting our first choice flat and able to move in on Saturday! If so we are hoping to rent a car and venture out into Surrey to pick up Buggy!!! We can't wait to see him and get him settled in with us here in London. If there are any delays and we don't get to move in this weekend it will be early next week instead. I guess we're close enough now to having it that I can post some details, but bear in mind that we feel things aren't definite until we actually have keys. But anyway, it's a lower-level flat in a (I think) Victorian conversion, with two bedrooms (yes, Mom, I got you a bedroom AND your own bathroom), a small kitchen, reception room with bay window, and a small private (paved) garden in the back. It is about a 10-minute walk from the Barons Court tube station, and a 20 minute walk to Fulham Broadway. And there's a local pub a few doors down and a Starbucks a few blocks away. ;) Keep your fingers crossed that everything goes according to plan!

Tomorrow I'm off to the RCVS to get registered to work in the UK! Those are all the plans for tomorrow at this point. We may go up the London Eye if the weather is good. We've discovered that the weather forecast here is completely unreliable. Today they were calling for rain and it was beautiful all day! So I think it's more of a play-it-by-ear thing. Check back!

Flat hunting!

Today we spent the day flat-hunting around various parts of the city. Although our options were somewhat limited due to the need for a place that welcomes Buggy, we still had lots to look at. There was a clear winner in our minds, but I don't want to get into any details yet in case we don't get it. Now we have to go through the whole reference/deposit/etc process and it's not for sure that we'll secure it. Once I know if we got it I will tell you all about it! We certainly have some options for a second choice if this one doesn't work out, but we are hoping to get our first choice. I'll keep you posted!

That's pretty much all we did today, since it took most of the day. It rained off and on again today, although the rest of the week is supposed to be nicer.

Tomorrow I have a job interview (gulp!) in the afternoon, so in the morning we are heading over to an Argos store (like Consumers Retail in Canada) to buy me a hairdryer so that I can attempt to look somewhat professional! They are also advertising a flat iron like the beloved one that I left behind in Canada for half price, so hopefully I will come away with one of those too!

Keep watching this space for more news!

Traveling news

I feel like this has been the longest day of my life, but in fact it has really been two days so I suppose that's reasonable. I have lots to share, so sit back because this is going to be a long one!!!

We started the journey off in Toronto Sunday morning, with a somewhat lazy morning as we couldn't do anything before noon anyway. Unfortunately I was decidedly uptight about all to come so I wasn't really enjoying the time off! At noon we loaded up all our luggage (we are pros at this now, and can move all our luggage at once without the need of a cart) and filled up the airport shuttle. There was another family taking the shuttle and they had 3 times as much luggage as us, which made us feel a bit better! We arrived at Terminal 3 at about 12:30 and killed some time before we could check in at 1:00. The first perk of traveling premium economy - our own line! We didn't catch what the grand total was for our luggage weight, but they didn't comment and didn't ask us to pay, so we figure we weren't too far over the limit - but I expect they would have complained if we had been subjected to the 20kg limit instead of 30kg! Free of all but our carry-on luggage, we opted to walk over to the cargo check-in area to meet Buggy. It was only about a 20-minute walk, and that was taking a somewhat roundabout way. We arrived there about 2:00, and Buggy was due to arrive at 2:30, so we just waited there.

The pet travel agent (I'll just call her L) who had taken over his care the night before delivered him to the cargo check-in at 2:30 as expected. We cannot say enough nice things about this lady, who got called in at the last minute on a Saturday evening to handle this delay. We had paid to rent a kennel but the cargo people didn't seem to know that, so she had even come prepared with an extra kennel just in case. However, that got sorted out and a lovely new plastic petmate air kennel was supplied for him. L bedded it down with shredded paper and his blanket that I brought for him, and filled up his water container with ice cubes to provide water for the entire length of the journey. We were able to take him for a walk before checking him in (on which he had an Austin Powers-sized pee, good thing!) and then after lots of hugs and kisses we got him loaded into the kennel. We were thoroughly impressed with the way things were handled by the Zoom representative at check-in (not the difficult one from the day before), and after everything was taken care of she even offered to drive us back to the terminal! We accepted and after she dropped us off when I offered my hand she moved in for a hug – the personal touch, I guess! In any case, we were left feeling like they definitely knew what they were doing, and he was in good hands.

Once back at the terminal we passed through security and went to find our gate. The flight had been delayed from Saturday 22:25 to Sunday 17:00. Of course once we found our gate we discovered that now they were saying 18:15. More delays. We eventually found out that the plane that was supposed to take us Saturday night had not come out of maintenance in time, so we had to be put onto a different plane, which had apparently arrived from Italy Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately it arrived late from Italy! When it finally pulled in at the gate all the passengers waiting applauded! In the meantime we went in search of a meal and a glass of wine. I had my appetite back once I knew Buggy was accepted for travel!

While we were waiting at the gate I was watching them load some cargo, then I saw that one of the carts was curtained, and just past the curtain I could see the edge of a large dog kennel! I knew he was the only animal on the flight so I walked over to where I could see them loading the kennel onto the plane – and so I saw my Buggy heading up the ramp into the cargo hold! I could see him quite clearly and knew it was him, and could see him looking around. It was more than I expected to be able to see him go on the plane with my own eyes! I admit I got a bit teary as I watched him go up the ramp. As we were boarding the plane the ground guys were there and we heard one of them say he was going to “go check on that dog”, so we asked them to confirm and the guy said “oh yeah, the big hound! He’s fine, he’s on.” How crazy is that – probably 300 people boarding that plane and they happened to mention him right in front of us.

The flight finally left at about 7pm, and was an especially smooth flight, which I was grateful for for Buggy’s sake. I managed to doze a bit but no real sleep. Noise did sleep a bit. Not a lot to report about the flight itself, except to say that apart from the significant delay, I have no complaints about Zoom. And yes, the upgrade to premium economy was definitely worth it! The legroom was fabulous, and the luggage allowance was a must! Also our luggage was tagged as priority, which meant it was among the first off the plane when we arrived at Gatwick.

When we arrived we hung around and asked the flight attendant (Noise had made friends during the flight as he usually does) if we could confirm that Buggy was ok. So they went right away and opened up the hold he was in and the ground guy came back and reported “Absolutely fine!” We walked a little way through the terminal but stopped and watched them unload him into a little animal carriage, and we could see him looking around so we knew he was ok.

Passport control was smooth and easy, we collected our luggage and dragged it over to the trains. We saw the line for the tickets and decided to buy our tickets on board as it is no extra cost and you can pay with a credit card on board as well. So we got onto the train (this was the hardest part for me, I definitely hit a wall of fatigue there...) and rode the Gatwick Express in to London Victoria station. From there we got a cab to our temporary lodgings, only a £6 ride. The first thing for us to do was call our pet travel agent and check on Buggy and she reported that he had been cleared through customs and quarantine control and was on his way to the kennel! Yahoo! Ok, I admit I cried again. I have been so worried about him having a problem so what a relief to know he got through! She called back later to let us know that he was nicely settled in at the kennel, so I hope that he’ll just hang out there until we can get him here with us, and be happy enough. We miss him already!

Phew, ok that’s one day, I have a whole second day to talk about! Our temporary flat is not bad – typical London flat, pretty small but I guess all you really need. I’ll try to get some pictures tomorrow and post them. It’s definitely nothing exciting and I wouldn’t want to be staying here long-term, but it’s fine.

Our first job of the day was to get set up with travelcards. We bought Oyster cards, which in London is the best way to get around. The Oyster card can hold your travelcard, and also hold a balance for pay-as-you-go travel outside of the zones of your travelcard. We just got a 7-day travelcard to start with, but I expect once we are settled into a routine we will get monthly ones. We hung back for a minute and watched a few people go through with their cards and then followed their lead! And it’s easy! We handled the tube quite well today we thought, at least we didn’t get lost! We took the tube from South Kensington, the closest stop to our flat, to Holborn on the Piccadilly line, and changed there to the Central line to get off at Chancery Lane. This is one of the stops closest to Noise’s office, so we went and found the building where he will be spending much of his time! We also spent some frustrating time trying to sort of financial things. We went into the bank where our account is (the Holborn branch) where they were supposed to have our PINs to activate our debit cards. And they didn’t... anyway, after standing in several long lines and being frustrated we left the bank and walked a block and discovered the Holborn Circus branch, where in fact they did have our PINs! So our debit cards are activated, and the money that Noise’s company was supposed to put in the account for moving costs is there, so then we were happier. Unfortunately it turns out that it is extremely difficult to move money from our Canadian account to our UK account quickly unless we go into a TD branch, which is pretty difficult seeing as we are in London. We can take cash out from the TD account on the machines but not much at a time. The only frustrating part is that tomorrow we are going flat-hunting, and we had hoped to have moved money into the UK account to be able to give a deposit on a place. But we should be able at the least to give a cash deposit so hopefully that will do until we can move some money around.

We definitely hit a low point today trying to deal with all that after no sleep for 48 hours, but after having a power nap we are feeling more optimistic again. We hit the local Sainsbury’s for some basic groceries, cooked dinner in our flat, and walked around the neighbourhood several times (mostly in the rain of course).

Tomorrow we go flat-hunting, so hopefully we will have a better idea after that where we will be living and how soon! And how soon we can be reunited with Buggy! On Wednesday I have a job interview in the afternoon. Thursday we are hoping to do a bit of sight-seeing, maybe see some of the sights we had hoped to do today when we thought we would arrive yesterday. Thursday is our wedding anniversary, so if we can relax and enjoy London it would be a nice day for us.

We’ve made it to bedtime, so now we can go to bed and I’m sure sleep like logs through the night. Tomorrow will likely be another long day. Until then!

Change of plans

So we are not off after all... we were all set to leave today when we discovered that our flight has been delayed by almost a full day! Instead of 10:30 tonight we are now leaving at 5:00pm tomorrow. This wouldn't have been a huge deal except that there is a 24-hour window in which Buggy had to have his final tick and tapeworm treatment done before he checked in for the flight. So because now we're flying tomorrow that will mean his treatments will be expired. I had this nightmare last night but didn't expect to live it today. So after a flurry of phone calls we ended up checking him in to an approved boarding facility tonight, where he will be considered to be "contained" and therefore not exposed to ticks and tapeworms, and tomorrow he will be transported to the airport by a pet travel agent. So essentially he is out of our care now. The poor guy has to stay in one kennel tonight, drive to the airport tomorrow with a stranger, then take a 7 hour flight, then go to another kennel. I hope he can forgive us. It turns out that having a pet travel agent is worth every single cent, as the "emergency on-call" agent in England not only got all of this arranged for us, but also appears to be making the airline pay for it all. The Zoom representative had the gall to suggest that it was our fault because we had the treatments done yesterday - we fail to see how it is our fault that the flight was delayed by a day! We did the treatments when we were supposed to based on the scheduled flight time. But I digress...

So we are situated in a hotel near the airport for the night, and tomorrow we will (hopefully) go and get Buggy checked in and ourselves checked in and fly to England!

We traveled to Toronto in a little convoy, as I rode up with my parents and grandmother, and Noise rode with his parents and sister. We had to say a lot of goodbyes today, and I think saying goodbye to my parents was the most difficult thing I've ever done. It's a bit easier knowing that I will see them in August (they booked flights today) but I've never been more than a 4-hour drive away from them. I will miss them dreadfully. They are my rock, my support, but I guess being a bit further away doesn't really change that. I managed to stay more composed than I expected while we were saying goodbye but once they were gone I broke down and had myself a good cry. I'll miss you guys...

So I'll try this again - hopefully the next time I post on this blog it will be from London! Cross your fingers for us!