Day 116 - Oakville - 29th November 2004 Very good day today. Most probably because of this diet that we are on (see the Mastercleanse if you don't mind the gory details) I am feeling on top of the world. Life is working. Do you ever get that feeling? You don't? Well you should check out this diet. We are on day 8 of it so far. Went to school and did juggling with my (notice "my") children again today, as I do every day. However, the children had an Advent whole school assembley today. So juggling was delayed for a while. Then one of the parents of a child in my class turned up at 9:30 am with a goat. So that was quite entertaining. We got to juggling at about 10:00 am. The class were really on form (or the form were really class?) and several had made great progress over the weekend. One of them, who was struggling to get 3 balls up, informed me that over the weekend he had achieved 117 consecutive catches with 2 balls. This was a major breakthrough. He was enthusiastic again after nearly giving up with the whole thing. It was so encouraging. At the end of the class 5 kids were selected who were judged able to complete enough catches (32) to be able to do a juggling display. Julian was asked if he thought he could do it and he said yes. I hadn't actually seem him complete more than 7 or 8 before but we gave him the benefit of the doubt and he joined the group. And then to prove it he juggled the required number straight off! I never dreamt I would ever see Julian juggle. Not being the world's best catcher (in comparison to Sammy say) he was not immediately suited to the pastime. When we left to go on this trip I set up several achievements that I would like to have completed before go home. One of these was that Sammy would have learned to juggle. He could already do 2 balls when he left home but I felt it was something we could finish whilst we were away. Now it's Julian who can do it! You have to know reader, that this is truly amazing. I am so happy. It's like anything is possible for him now. I went to the supermarket on the way home from school and picked up some groceries. Even though we are not eating at the moment. I have not calculated how much money we have saved but I would estimate about £75 so far. It was a nightmare looking at all that food. It is the "Holiday Season" here. They have "Holiday Season" offers, "Holiday Season" foods, "Holiday Season" cards, "Holiday Season" wrapping paper. It is after all the "Holiday Season". We in the UK will need to get used to this as we are about five years behind North America in terms of being PC. Smoking is now virtually illegal anywhere. I know we have started to have this conversation in UK about Christmas not being called Christmas but over here it has been banned (or it seems like it). Julie has not been able to find Christmas Cards anywhere. The mention of Christmas it seems, is not permitted. The whole season has turned into a retailers excuse to push more product and a buyers excuse to buy more. Expect the same in a country near you soon. Alex our friend from the UK arrives tomorrow with her son Scott. She will be staying for 10 days after which Mum arrives then we leave for Dallas. So it's full steam ahead now, packing up, preparing the house, making bookings for cars and places to stay in the US, looking at places in Mexico and Cuba. What else can we do and where else can we go?

Day 114 - Oakville - 27th November 2004 It was a beautiful winter day here today. The sun was shining and although the temperature has been down to 1 deg overnight, it warmed up to about 5 deg during the day. But it is still dry, dry, dry. Even though we had a whole day of rain the day before yesterday. Everything is dry again. We went to a farm today with a friend from school. We bought some wool from them for Sammy's knitting and crocheting. Julie had some as well. Then we went to see the sheep that the actual wool had come from. The lady who owns the farm, a Frau Troutmandorf originally from Austria, also sends wool to the school that has not been spun and another lady comes to the school and spins it in the classroom. Then the kids use the wool to knit or crochet. Now they know the whole process from sheep to wooly hat. We are still on the diet/fast (see Mastercleanse if you don't mind the gory details). It's just amazing what your mind does with this not eating thing. the food Julie was preparing today for the boys was driving us mad. I think we were actually dribbling. This afternoon I spent a couple of hours in the garden, raking leaves and cutting some dead branches from one of the firs trees. It's a great pleasure to garden without coming across slugs and snails all the time. Sammy helped me with the sawing and throwing the leaves over the side of the garden into the inner skin of the sea wall. Sammy then went for another sleep over with Vito. I just know it's going to be painful leaving again.

I've got the camera back! Here is the evidence and the tree at the end of the garden. See no leaves. Winter. Look at the blog for October 26th to see the change.

Day 112 - Oakville - 25th November We got the camera back today. It cost me nearly £100 to have it fixed. You really feel like dumping it and buying a new one. I have been without the camera for about 4 weeks now, as it unfortunately got pulled to the ground. It was sitting on a box when one of the boys pulled the hose out of the garage and in the process pulled the camera. These things do not bounce. I will post a picture of the tree at the end of the garden just to show it working again and show you what it looks like in the winter. We are doing well with our Mastercleanse detox diet (see Mastercleanse but only go there if you don't mind the gorry details). We both don't feel as bad as we thought we might. We have just finished the 4th day of no food! The biggest problem is the habit of eating. Hunger in itself is something that comes and goes quite quickly. Juggling at school has reached a plateau. I do not seem to be able to progress those who are unable to grasp it and the ones that have got it need a new challenge. This I guess is the skill of teaching. Keeping all the kids on line and engaged. Still it is such a blast seeing kids do something that you taught them. One of the girls (it's always girls isn't it?) is going to be better than me in the next few days. She can already do 100 throws without dropping them and is now learning tricks like under the legs and catching behind the back. It's just not fair. Julie has been preparing for the bake sale (another one) again and it's on tomorrow. They are concentrating on home baked bread this time and will be cooking up a load at school to sell. There are lots of arrangements being made for the next few weeks. There are tons of pre-Christmas and pre-end of term parties, events and functions going on. Some of which we are attending and others which we are helping at. Usual state of affairs but with a background of us leaving here on December 21st. Julie went to the osteopath again today and she walked out a new woman (again). I think she has ironed out all of the injury inflicted when she fell on the ice. This time the lady found a displaced rib and pushed it back into place (??!!). She said it was very painful but now feels heaps better. Funny thing about that ice skating incident. A friend I used to work with (Rosemary from Hugo Russell for those who know) was skating last weekend with a boyfriend. He fell over and broke his arm. Also another friend from home (Carole from church) was skating in London and saw a man fall over. He had to be taken away by stretcher as he was out cold. Take care folks; skating is a dangerous past time.

Heres's an excerpt from our Detox Blog. It's day 8:

Day 8 - Mastercleanse - 29th November Julie woke up this morning and immediately made us the laxative teas and lemonades! I thought it was over quite honestly. Although I would have been prepared to go on alone, it would have been difficult without her support. I knew we were going to be OK for the day when she told me not to forget to buy more lemons on the way home. We have now squeezed our way through 100 lemons. They recommend using the organic ones (well they would wouldn't they?) which cost £1 each over here, so perphaps the savings we made by not eating have already been used up? I woke up feeling on top of the world. Mentally bright, alert and sharp (that doesn't really sound like me in the morning does it?). Not felt like this since I can't remember. It's the sort of healthy buzzy feeling that I guess people who are really fit get after they've just completed a really good work out. I used to feel like this after I had done a couple of hours of karate and was in the pub afterwards having a pint and a fag. You know like you feel like you could do anything now. The day is ready to begin and I can handle anything you want to shove in my direction. The breakfast table discussions were very animated and full of deep insights and meaningful messages. Wow. About noon I had another run to the bathroom. Only the very smallest of movements now and not very pretty. As before (see yesterday). Yes, yes, yes, more, more cleaning, more, more detoxing. I want to be CLEAN. Actually I just want it to be over. But we survived again. Julie suffering more today than before. I think she is getting wearier. I am managing to sustain my energy levels but she is not. I do take serruptitious licks off the top of the maple syrup bottle when she is not looking but this is only to stop it dribbling down the bottle you understand. It is so messy if it does that. I think the extra syrup is helping me (?). My weight is down to 11 and half stone (about 163 pounds in local currency). This is the weight I was when I got married 13 years ago and what I had been for about 10 years previously. Since then I had put on a stone and was hovering around the 12 and half level. So I have lost just about 14 pounds in 8 days (actually it was day 7 when I last weighed myself). Some of the reasons for this may be that I have not had in that time: 24 slices of bacon (thin canadian stuff), 22 cups of coffee, 20 bottles of beer, 6 doughnuts, 12 bites of chocholate, 6 croissants (elevenses you know), guess about 2 packets of sweeties, 8 marshmallows and 14 slices of bread for my sandwiches at lunch time or any of the 24 square meals I might have had. I just went up to see what happened to Julie. She was putting Julian to bed and went up with him an hour ago. Julie was asleep and Julian was cuddled up to her reading a book. I woke her up but she said she was feeling pretty awful and needed to go to bed. This was at 9:00pm. I really think she won't make it through tomorrow. I will probably end tomorrow night too as we have weekend dining engagements that I would like to enjoy. Roll on, roll on please.

Day 109 - Oakville - November 22nd 2004

Julie is much better. We got to see the Osteopath and it made a huge difference. We are going again this week.

On Friday night we went to a school fund raising function at the local art centre. It was a great evening and lots of money was raised for the school.

On Saturday I took Sammy skating again. Julian and Julie stayed at home so that Julian could progress his school project.

In the evening we went to see Vito (Sammy's friend). It was his great grandfathers 93rd birthday. He has some great stories to tell. He was a Professor of Philosophy at Yale University in the US. During the war years in Canada, he was employed in the psychological assessment of army personnel. Ensuring they were posted to job comensurate with their apptitudes. Wonderful stories. There are not many of them left.

Today we started our Mastercleanse Detox programme. I will not go into this in too much detail but should you wish for further information, I have started a 2nd blog with news on this. If you do not want to know about our bowel movements, do not visit this site! It is located here Mastercleanse.
This is where you can also get further information about the programme. You might even want to do it yourslelf, depending of course on our own results.

Day 104 - Oakville - Wednesday 17th November

Julie is still suffering. She lay down this morning and fell asleep for a while. We are trying to get an Osteopath to see her, except they all seem booked up until December.

I have come to the conclusion that I like being here because I know that it is temporary. In fact I like temporariness in anything. The prospect of "for ever" is far too daunting and final for me. I would certainly have a different view if this was "it" and we were staying. I want to be the outsider making the comparisons and having all the options open. What does that say about me? This of course does not apply to my relationships!

I'm falling in love with my juggling kids at the school. They are so great. I want to keep them all. Just as well I'm not a teacher. The teachers at this school keep the same kids for their duration at the school. They effectively move up another year with their kids. Imagine how it must feel when you say goodbye to your kids after teaching them for 8 years? The kids will have spent more time with their teacher during that time than they have with their parents.

Last night Vito came over to be with Sammy and we went bowling. It was 5 pin bowling. With my first 2 balls I got 2 strikes (all pins down). Then just about nothing for the next 20. I am very like that.

Tomorrow we have Jacob coming over for a sleep over. Yes it is a school night but we want to make the mosts of our time here.

Julie has decided that we are both going on a lemonade (not the fizzy stuff) diet for 10 days. No food at all. Worse still; no beer. I think she is joking but she has asked me to order the special maple syrop and cayenne pepper that you put in the solution. Funny how the credit card transaction just won't go through. (See: lemonade cleanse)

This is our leaf sucker upper man. You just pile up all the leaves in the street and along he comes. You do actually get something for your property taxes here. 

Day 103 - Oakville - 16th November 2004

What's happening?

We are consolidating our travel arrangements for moving on. We have booked to fly to Texas on December 21st. This is 4 days after the boys break up from school. It's going to be a big wrench, I can tell. Haven't we only just arrived?

It hasn't snowed again although we have had some sub zero temperatures. There has been lots of sunshine and it's dry, dry, dry. We have been raking the leaves for the last few days. And what a joy it is. The ground is dry and the leaves are as crispy as cornflakes (?). There is no mud on your shoes. The leaves are almost magnetically attracted to the rake and in no time at all you have a four foot high pile. We have been raking the back garden ones straight into the lake and the front garden ones are piled up in the street for the "leaf sucker upper" to come and suck up.

We've been skating a few more times but I have to report a rather bad accident. Julie fell and cracked her head very badly on the ice. I didn't see it happen but quite a few people heard it. Not nice at all. She was in severe pain for some time and we drove her to a "walk in" medical centre where a doctor pronounced her without serious injury. All the same, they suggested I wake her up during the night to ensure no delayed effects. The next morning she was in quite a bad way. No only did she crack her head but she must also have jarred her back as she had a very stiff neck. Two days later her headache is still present.

She still wants to go skating next week.

Day 98 - Oakville - 11th November 2004 Rememberance Day We had another full day today. I went with the boys to school (Julie came along too) and did my 15 minutes of juggling with Julian's class. I then drove Julie to her MOLO group (Mothers of Little Ones) where she did crafts with the kids until 11:30am. Whilst she was there, I did some shopping for groceries, came back home and checked my e-mail. I then went to collect Julie and we drove up to Toronto which is 30 minutes by car. We met up with Lucy who had been staying with us and had some lunch in my favourite TO restaurant - East Side Marios. We then drove Lucy to the airport and met up with Jenny, said goodbye to both of them and went to school to collect the boys. Both boys had play dates with mates. Sammy was collected by Oscar's mum and went to his house and Julian's mate Giliam came home with us. Nicer boys you could not meet. I went and collected Sammy at 6:30pm and Julian's mate was collected by his dad. That was the whole day done. We drove 150 miles today.

Day 95 (still)

It snowed this afternoon. Large puffy, flaky swirly snow. The temperature has been around zero most of the day and for 15 minutes this afternoon we were in an artic blizzard. Truly spectacular. Nothing settled but they say more is on the way.

I would say it's a bit early for snow by usual standards but who needs autumn anyway?

Some Observations

1. The more time you have; the longer things take.
2. Jumping off the merry-go-round doesn't stop the world turning.
3. Getting up in the morning, even though you don't have to go to work, doesn't get any easier.
4. An inch on a map in N. America equates to about 10,000 million miles.
5. Petrol prices at one third of UK prices, are meaningless when you have to drive four times as far to get anywhere.
6. Public schools over here are for the public.
7. Watching 6 episodes of CSI in a single night (Miami, New York, Las Vegas) is OK for about 10 minutes.
8. Having free time is good for about 2 minutes, then you become bound up in what you should be doing.
9. Checking out of your current circumstances doesn't mean you don't have to cook 3 meals a day, go shopping, make the beds, clear up, keep the house clean, update your weblog, read your mail, check your finances, take and pick up the kids from school ................. who's got time to work!
10. Don't expect to have sub 10 year olds be awed by mile after mile of glorious red maple trees and don't expect them to want to go fishing more than once if you don't catch any fish.
11. Don't expect - just be prepared.
12. Children want more time with you even after you have more time with them. There are not enough hours in the day for the kids to have enough hours in the day with you.
13. Having time with your children is better than being in the office for about 20 minutes. Then you need time out. (you know what I mean!)
14. Going somewhere for no reason is no reason to go somewhere. (this makes perfect sense to me where I am).

Day 95 - Oakville - 8th November 2004 We are trying to finalise the next leg of the journey now that we have decided to see the school year out here in Canada. We have to reschedule 4 flights and decide whether or not we can still fit in Cuba since we have spent so much on school fees. Jenny and Lucy moved on today. Lucy went to see an old friend she has not seen for 10 years in a place called Strathroy about 150 miles from here. Jenny flew to Albany, New York to see a friend of hers there. We have had so much fun with them here we really didn't want them to go. They came to church on Sunday with us. We always sit at the front (as you know). The worship leader spoke to us afterwards and commented that he had been on the point of asking both of them to come forward and sing; he so enjoyed hearing them singing in the congregation. Well who wouldn't? Our trip to Niagara Falls was great. We went underneath and behind the falls to see the thunderous stream of water right in front of our faces. To see info on the falls go here: Niagara Falls website. On the opening page of this site there is a webcam link to see the falls live. We then spent several hours in the Rainforest Cafe. If you've never been in one of these, they are great fun and the food is OK (but full of MSG so be prepared for a bad night). For the 6 of us we got out for about £60 but I would expect the London price to be around £120. This would be too much to pay. Juggling classes today reached a new peak. I had my first pupil get the hang on it. What a joy! The look on her face when it all clicks into place was a delight. She did well to get it after only four 15 minute sessions. Mind you the teaching was good. I still have to get the other 12 kids online.

Camera broken so no photos!

Day 92 - Oakville - Friday 5th November

Whilst everyone in UK was blowing themselves up with fireworks, I took the boys skating again tonight.

This time it was a general public skate. There were loads of kids showing off, accidentally crashing into girls or tentatively holding one by the hand, perhaps even for the first time. Most of these kids here were on the ice 2 weeks after they could walk, so they were somewhat better than us. But we didn't let the side down. Julian was more cautious than Sammy, who won the prize for the most spectacular and the most, wipe outs. It's lots of fun and the boys are just so keen to go again, which we are doing on Sunday with a group of friends.

We have been enjoying having Jenny and Lucy with us. It's so great to be able to share our story so far with friends (family really) who knew us in UK. They went up to Toronto today and tomorrow we are all going to Niagara Falls for the day. It's about 1 and half hours from here and there are plenty of things to do for everyone as well as seeing the falls of course. We even managed to take the girls out on a boat ride on Thursday. We had a spectacular fall day with only a light wind so we took off up the lake to take lunch in our favourite restaurant. It were grand. Especially as the boat is usually out of the water by mid October. We pushed it as we were hoping that we could do one last trip with the girls and we did it.

For the last week and for the next 4 to 6 weeks, I am going to school everyday and teaching Julian's class to juggle. The teacher was talking to the class about juggling and Julian (bless him) blurted out that I could juggle. The teacher grabbed me and asked me if I would take it on. So every morning now I join the class and do 10 to 15 minutes of juggling with them. We started with 1 ball from hand to hand. Then moved on to 2 balls and today (they learn so quickly at this age) we started with 3 ball; throwing them but not catching. I think that within 3 weeks half the class should be able to juggle 3 balls at least 10 times. We shall see. It's great fun. The kids are sooo eager to learn how to do it. They listen to every instruction and hang on my every word. Unbelievably, Julian is also playing along and can now successfully do 2 balls with ease.

Julie is preparing for her "Apple Pie Workshop". She did another poster for it tonight and runs the class at school next Tuesday. She is also helping in Sammy's class with the quilting lessons. His class is producing a quilt for Christmas. Each child produces a design and then creates a 12" square patch which are all sewed together to produce a bed size quilt. This is a very traditional Canadian thing and quilt shops, books, events, museums and courses are all over the place. Julie is also helping produce hand made and decorated photo albums for sale at the Mistletoe Market (Christmas Fair) to be held in the local art centre.

Julian has been for a sleep over with a friend. He went last night, a school night! He was very keen so we sent him to school with his jimmies and his bunny rabbit in his rucksack. Apparently he had a good time but is unable to tell us much about it. He is enjoying his needlework (cross stitch) at school and is creating a piece of his own design. He has made a couple of friends who he looks out for and seems to enjoy playing with during recess times. He did have quite a problem during these break periods to start with Whenever there is unstructured play periods, Julian seems to find it quite difficult to join with other kids games. When he does, he starts wanting to change the rules and this of course causes a bit of an upset. Anyway, he seems to have overcome this at the moment and seems to be playing with different boys rather than getting stuck with the same group all the time.

Sammy is forever crocheting. He has the bug big time and has just finished his first hat. This week they had a lady come in and spin the wool for them to use. Next week they are going to the farm to see the sheep who donated the wool. It's really great for them to see the whole process from sheep to hat. They do about 2 hours of crocheting a week in lesson and quite often keep going over their lunch periods too. He has a waiting list of boys who want him to go over to their place for a play.

Day 88 - Oakville - 1st November 2004 The day after Halloween. Yesterday was Sunday. That meant we went to church (another blinding sermon from our mate Jeff) first. We came home for a quick sandwich lunch and then went to the skating rink. Neither Julie or the boys had ever been on ice before (I am of course a pro). It really was a sight to behold. Unfortunately, the camera suffered a "fall" on Saturday and now doesn't work (we drove to Nikon today to get it repaired), so I can't immediately show you. But we did have a disposable camera, which is currently being put onto CD so that I will be able to post in the next few days. However, after about an hour we were all buzzing around the rink. Sammy says it's the best thing ever about Canada and wanted to go again today - despite getting several nasty blisters. He was looking like a hockey player within minutes. Julian had to work a bit harder but they have these frames that you hold onto (like mini-zimmer frames) and after 10 minutes on one of these you get the hang of it. You'll see the pics in due course. Then we went over to Vito's house (again) for dinner and the trick or treat outing. After a great meal about 10 of us took off to go around the posher parts of Oakville (Canada's richest town/city). We saw some amazing houses, all dressed up with huge spiders webs, fully dug graves, scary music and 100s of pumpkins, cut out with all sorts of amazing artistic designs. It's not really about the pagan festival that was it's origin. It's all about getting your kids dresses in the most hideous outfits and accumulating as much candy as you can carry. The kids carry pillowcases for the candy and we eventually gave up when the sacks became too heavy. This morning we counted the spoils of war. Both boys had accumulated over 200 pieces of candy (packets of crisps, snickers bars, kits cats, lollipops etc). Quite incredible and quite over the top. Still we have done it once and that will suffice. The boys are still on holiday from school and tomorrow Jenny and Lucy C-P arrive for a visit.