Day 83 - Oakville - Wednesday 27th October 2004 I just can't believe we have been away so long. It seems impossible that we have been away so long (who in their right mind would ever do this?) and at the same time impossible that we have been away for such a short time (given that we have established ourselves so easily). Today we took the kids to school and stayed to experience their first sharing assembly. This is where the whole school (there are 120 of them in 8 or 9 classes) assemble and show each other what they have been doing for the first 8 weeks of the school year. This includes recorder recitals, eurythmy (don't know what this is? check out Eurythmy), singing and other treats. Julie and I both had tears in our eyes as we watched Julian (yes Julian, not Sammy) dancing and moving around the stage with exceptional grace, confidence and fluidity (is that a word?) complete with his eurythmy cape and ballet shoes. You just had to see it to believe it. Then his class sang a song in German - wow. We can't really believe this school. I was standing outside Julian's classroom the other morning and there was a 7 year old kid crying, outside one of the other classes. He was having separation problems from his Mum and really didn't want to go into his class. Another 7 year old boy came out and put his arm around him and said "You must be really sad. I get sad sometimes too. You know what I do is to think of something that makes me happy. I put that thought into my mind and it stops me being sad. I think about ice hockey. Why don't you try to do that?" I couldn't believe my ears. This school (Halton Waldorf School) simply creates kids like this. He didn't want his class to start when one of his "family" was being sad outside. There are between 8 and 12 kids per class and they stay with the same teacher from grade 1 to grade 8. Can you imagine what sort of relationship that build. Every time they enter a classroom, they shake hands with the teacher. Then they shake hands with the teacher again when they leave. If another teacher is going to take them for games (for instance) then they all get to shake that teachers hand at the beginning of the session and the end. This simple practice, which is carried out in an orderly and respectful manner, creates a great relationship between teacher and pupil and kids get used to shaking hands! Tonight we went to our Home Church (House Group). It's just like we've been here for ages. We take the kids with us and it starts at 7:00pm and finishes at 8:30 / 9:00pm. Not too too late for us or the kids. Very civilised. Half term starts today, so the boys are off school now until next Thursday. We are having a friend of Julian's over for the day tomorrow. We will be skating on Saturday and going over to a friend of Sammy's for a Halloween supper before the boys all go out trick or treating. Halloween over here is very much a kids thing and has no "evil" conotations. Our church here (as or church in UK does) is having a party for the kids with a non-Halloween theme but most of the church goers here having nothing against it. I will take some photos of houses that have been decorated for the night. It's quite incredible to see the effort that goes into this night. All the kids are really pumped up about it. The outfits they dress up in are amazing. The stores are full of them. We are really looking forward to Jenny (Downard) and Lucy (Curtis-Prior) coming over next week to see us. It will be great to catch up and to share with someone from home rather than type stuff out on a blog all the time. You know what I mean. Actually, we have had some fine conversations with friends at home on the telephone. It really is quite cheap these days. It seems that the distance between us can actually bring us close together. Strange that, isn't it. But there is a quality in our phone conversations that you don't experience at home when you just call someone up to find out what Julian should be doing for his homework. The trivial stuff is discarded by the distance and more meaningful conversations are the result. We are working on planning what to do next (have I said this before some days ago?). Well we're still working on it. After our friends have visited, my Mum is likely to come over again and this will probably take us to Christmas. The original idea was to be in Texas (with my brother) by mid November. But this has been put back to let the boys finish their school term. We have also depleted our funds by 3 months of school fees. Now that was not in the budget my dear. What happened?

The lake in the fall. Leaves on the ground, fog on the surface and the sun desperately trying to peek through. (9:30am on Tuesday 26th October) 

School Photos

Sammy and Julian are having a great time at the Halton Waldorf School.

Day 76 - Guelph, Ontario - Wednesday 20th October, 2004 Julie and I had volunteered to join the class farm trip. After all we do have the odd spare moment. We took 5 kids in our car; Sammy and his buddy Vito and 3 girls (much to Sammy's disgust). It was up over the Niagara Escarpment and very misty up there. 

On Friday we went to the Drive-In. The great thing is that you listen to the soundtrack over the car radio and if (like me) you don't know what's going on in the movie you can ask someone in the car without disturbing the rest of the theatre. 

Beautiful fall colours on the trees at the end of our road. They don't get any better than this. 

Day 76 - Oakville - October 20th, 2004

 

Just got back from Home Church (House Group).  The boys come with us for this.  It starts at 7:00 pm and finished promptly at 8:30 pm.  So the boys get to bed around 9:00 pm.

 

We showed the house today for renting.  It's a bit early, as we are wanting to stay here into December but if we get the right offer we will go and camp out in a hotel / suites type of place.  I don't think the guy was at all interested.  We have got to know now.  I have another tomorrow.  Here are the rental details:

 

House rental

 

Bit of a long winded look up but it works.  I took the internal photos, in case you were impressed.

Day 73 - Oakville (arrived at 9:30am) - Sunday 17th October

What happens when 55 men go away together for a church men's weekend?

I was collected by the pastor (vicar) at around 1:30pm. He had with him his father Alan and another member of our House Church (Home Group). I had only decided to go at 11:00am that morning. Typical man thing that - put off making the decision to go until the last moment. Or wait until your wife finally persuades you! I rang the organiser of the weekend at 11:05am. By 11:15am the pastor had volunteered to collect me and take me up to the resort where we were meeting.

I enjoyed a 3 and a half hour drive with this little party. This was quite an amusing affair as it turned out that the rest of our lads did the same journey in 2 hours flat. We got off Highway 400, drove away from it for 45 minutes and arrived back at the 400. We are still none the wiser about what happened but it did add to the fun factor and provided a great talking point for the rest of the weekend.

We went to a place called Collingwood which is just at the bottom of a set of hills which are covered in chair and ski lifts. I can remember skiing here 22 years ago. The resort has grown immensely since then. But unfortunately the hills have not grown any higher. For a skier you can get from the top to the bottom of the highest one in about 90 seconds. Join the line up for the lift and get to the top again 10 minutes later to do it all again. Not quite Switzerland/Austria/France but good for short periods of time.

At this resort there are numerous chalets type places. Usually a building containing 6 or 8 apartments which can each accommodate up to 8 people. These buildings are spread around in groups of 8 or 10 with a central reception, swimming pool and other facilities. The apartments are all self catering. The nearest restaurants were about 12 minutes away.

All the guys had arrived by 6:30 pm and we started with a period of worship followed by several talks and more worship. The church worship leader had brought a complete worship team with him, so we were well served. The weekend was billed as "Band of Brothers - Call to Arms". The talks were on "The Meaning of Masculinity", "Accountability", "Called to Lead My Family" and "Called to Change the World".

For those in the know, there were many references to the books "Wild at Heart" by John Eldridge which is all about how men bury their "wildness" as they grow up. How we need to have some battles and a maiden to rescue. All good stuff and quite in line with what the Boards are actually doing at the moment. I think quite a few people had also read the "Get out of the Boat" book. I forget who it is by.

We had some great testimonies, that you would never hear outside of this kind of environment. All the speakers were from the body of the church and were excellent. The pastor himself, who had had no involvement in the weekend except for making suggestions about the general theme at the time they were putting it together, was a participant like the rest of us. He also did the final talk on the spiritual leadership of your family. He asked his father to talk as well which was very touching.

His father Alan lives in or near Prince Albert, north of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan. This is a place way out there where the temperatures in the winter could be down to minus 40 degF. He was a welder and latterly specialised in repairing propellers from boats and outboards. This is where he had his family. Sometime in the fifties, he was watching a Billy Graham Convention on the TV and with his wife, prayed the prayer of committment (see a sample here: Prayer of Commitment). The rest is the history in which we were living. His son Jeff, went to study and became a pastor and more recently was moved to start the Sanctuary church in Oakville, where we went and this is how I am involved in this weekend. Although clearly not the wealthiest person, Alan told us how rich he really was. God had blessed him with a son who became a pastor and a daughter who is a missionary in South America. He had grand children and a healthy family. Everything. It was a great story.

On Saturday we went and played paintball. It was on a 70 acre site nearby. Very well organised. We split into 2 teams of about 22 each. We played out several scenarios at different locations on the site. It was really good. They had landscaped it all into little towns, forts, battlefields and so on (see Battlefields). On the first encounter I was hit in the first 10 seconds without letting off a single shot. I had no idea how far these things can shoot. At least 50 to 60 feet with considerable accuracy. In the second scenario I kept my head down and helped lead the full frontal assault on the fort. In fact our team won all the skirmishes. We got through about 200 paintballs each. What you might call a blast especially with such a big group.

The long and short of it all was that it was a great weekend and the Holy Spirit moved us all to a new place. I was so glad to have been pushed. I also met some great people, one of whom I will say more about shortly.

The snow in Collingwood. 2 hours north of us. 

OK it's now winter. Summer departed this weekend. As you know in the last few weeks we have been enjoying 25 deg C type weather - much hotter than London. Now see if you can beat this! 

Day 70 - Oakville - October 14th Hmmmmmmmmmm. I took Sammy and a friend from school, Vito, fishing when they came home today. Still nothing to bring home. However, we did have a massive "hit". Vito had just taken the rod from me after I had set it up. We were in about 80 feet of water and he had around 30 feet of line out. With the diving devices attached to the lines, they could have had the lure down around 20 feet. The diving device we use is called a Pink Lady (see picture of Pink Lady). One end is attached directly to the line and on the other you attach a 3 or 4 foot leader (length of line) onto which you attach a lure (see picture of our lures). As the boat goes along, the Pink Lady sits at 45 degrees in the water and acts like a wing, guiding the line down. This creates quite a bit of tension on the line and thats why the rods are bent over as we hold them. We use line with a 15 pound breaking strain. The fish we can land around here (we used to land around here!) are typically 25 pounds and up to 40 pounds. My biggest being 42 pounds. All of a sudden the rod bucked and the line started zinging out. Almost certainly a Rainbow Trout as they hit a lure and take off away from the boat. A salmon on the other hand, will grab the lure and swim towards you. And then ............... the line snapped. Pooh. I guess the tension on the spool was a little too tight. Anyway we lost the whole kit and kaboodle (well the Pink Lady and the lure). But what the heck at least it was some excitement.

Day 66 - Oakville - Thanksgiving Dinner 2 - Sunday 10th October We left for church at 9:30am. It was the first time since we had arrived in Canada that we had set off for church when the weather had not been blisteringly hot. The service was marvellous again. Our pastor is doing a series on "Being Spiritual not Religious". Very simple but very powerful.  When we came out of church the sun had come back out and is was blistering again! We went home and had a lunch of some turkey and ham leftovers that last night's hostess had sent us home with. We watched Lady and the Tramp II on video and then went to our friends David and Heidi. They are parents of 2 girls at the Waldorf school and Heidi worked with Julie on the Bake Sale this last week. One of their daughters is in Sammy's class. They had invited us for Thanksgiving as well. So we went over there, which was about 15 minutes away. They took us to a local park on the lake and then back to their house for dinner. Another round of turkey and all the trimmings including brussel sprouts - yum. We are being spoiled. So for 2 days now Julie hasn't had to cook or shop. And tomorrow - another Thanksgiving dinner.

Sammy and Vito carrying the ice hockey kit. 

Sammy's mate Vito on the ice. We are lucky we do not have this in London. The kit alone costs £100s and the ice fees and training costs are not cheap.

Day 65 - Oakville - Thanksgiving dinner 1 - Saturday 9th October

Today was the first day of the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Traditionally families get together for a turkey dinner. It's also known as the "dumping weekend". College and university students come home for the first time since they started. By now they have realised that the world is their oyster and they "dump" their high school girlfriend/boyfriend. That's what we were told.

Apparently (there are quite a few versions of this that we have heard) the early settlers invited the local indians into their home for dinner!? Or the local indians saw how the new settlers were faring (badly) and came and offered them food. These days it is more of a harvest festival type of celebration. It has no religious associations.

Sammy, who you may have read about yesterday, was invited to play at his friend's house. This resulted in the boy (Vito) asking Sammy to come to watch him play ice hockey today. So we all went along and watched 3 aside junior ice hockey (photos above). This resulted in another invitation for Sammy to go and play again this afternoon (I think the boys are in love). Dropping Sammy off this afternoon resulted in a further invitation to join them for a Thanksgiving meal tonight. So we all went and joined Vito, his Mum and her partner, her Mum and her Mum's Dad. That is 4 generations. Bill (Vito's great grandad) is 92 and still as bright as a button. He was a Doctor of Philosophy who studied at the Sorbonne and at Yale. Very interesting man. He has some stories to tell.

We had a great dinner. Applie pie desert and great company. They also had their next door neighbours in, who had 2 young boys. So we had 5 boys running around. Actually they were quite well behaved.

What a great day. We loafed around in the morning, got a great lunch for less than £11 for all of us, went to a hockey match and had a great evening.

Day 64 - Oakville - 8th October 2004 It's Thanksgiving weekend here. It's at a different time to the Thanksgiving in the U.S. which I believe is in the first week of November. We've had a great week. Julie has been baking all week and sold out all her apple pies, choclate triangles and flapjacks at the school bake sale today. I think she had taken orders to deliver more next week. She also did her first church toddlers meeting with a craft which was a blinding success. It looks like she is settling in really well. Sammy went to a friend's house after school today and really loved it. The boy, Vito, wants to adopt Sammy (whom he calls Salami) and have him over for a sleepover. We are going to watch the boy play ice hockey tomorrow. The boy's mum gave us 2 pairs of hockey skates for Julian and Sammy to learn to skate. They can't wait. Sammy learnt his first tune on the recorder and Julian had a much better week at school even though he had a bit of a contre temps with one of his buddies. He has been learning all about the Great Lakes (which is great because we did the Great Lakes tour). He said he would like to stay here until his birthday so that he could invite all his new friends around! We've been for evening walks along the rocks around the lake. Starting at the end of our garden and climbing around to the harbour and talking to the fishermen as the sun sets. The weather has been astounding for Canada. Temperatures during the day up to 25 deg C. In the next few days it will drop by 10 to 15 deg and become far more seasonal. The trees are all a beautiful orange but we know the winter is just around the corner. The boats will all have to come out of the harbour in the next few weeks. They need to be winterised and stored. All the docks and jetties are removed as the rivers freeze over. We are moving into a period where we are looking at what we do next with our time. My Mum has said she would like to come back and visit again and we have friends due in November. But we can't stay here for ever. The rent we get on this house is my Mum's pension, so we have to get it rented again soon. We need to move on. Oh what a shame.