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.