25.10.08

Becoming a machine

Bianca left our midst a while ago now on her mission to become a RAF machine and oh how we mocked her. Well obviously someone "up there" was listening because I have been coerced into the Bath Half Marathon in March of next year by both Bliss and the other residents of the basement flat. The fact I have to pay £35 race entry to personally inflict pain on myself never mind the small fortune that has been subsequently thrown at bright pink lycra and pimped up running trainers ....... hummmm totally going to live to regret this ....... or so I thought!!! I've become a little obsessed and although we have a serious long way to go (exactly 20 weeks and 1 day to be precise) before long I'm quite sure that we'll be on the way to become the dictionary definition of MACHINES. And if not, then I'll have a jolly nice collection of lycra to show for my efforts.

Mia sorella

Chlo is currently on school holidays and residing in the Basement so my week has been spent walking our newly adopted RSPCA dog Summer and eating Marks and Spencer cookies.

I am totally unabashed to admit that we went to see High School Musical 3 and ever since I've been repressing the urge to burst into spontaneous dance routines on buses and suchlike. We went for dinner at Opa, the underground Greek restaurant and post dinner Chlo was force fed sambuca (Greek style) to hilarious consequences. I miss her already however my workload appreciates the fact that she is currently on a train back to York.

18.10.08

Montréality

I'm starting to sound a little Montreal obsessed. I sincerely apologise. This will be the last post that mentions it for a while, PROMISE. But one of my Quebecois friends from exchange made a brief 24 hours visit to the St James basement flat this week so I kinda have to mention the Q, the C or the M word.

Jenna and I met Bich in a Canadian superstore when I was yelling the death exclusion clauses on slides (or if we are being American; sleds) to Jen who was two isles over trying on ice skates. Apparently we were funny and our accents more so and we hit it off.

Food was a main theme; in fact it kinda tends to be a major theme for me at the moment. I think I was mainly trying to see how many cups of tea I could force down her throat in 24 hours; turns out quite a few. And I must have converted her because she headed back with a box of 80 Yorkshire tea bags in hand which she purchased of her own accord :-) Apart from food we managed a trip to the Royal Bath's and engaged the usual Johnny Depp and Nicholas Cage spotting in The Circus and Royal Crescent. And before I could muster up a "tabernac" she was off on the train to explore London.

Jen and I have promise to make a trip to Copenhagen before Christmas where she is currently on exchange, so watch this space because my passport might be getting abused sooner than first thought...

On a completely random tangent, I really really need a hair cut.

Poutine

Its been exactly four months and 16 days since I left Montie, consequently its four months and 15 days since I ate my last poutine. Well people, you will be pleased to discover that the drought is over. One rainy and dull Sunday afternoon triggered the culinary adventure (via Sainsbury's) to recreate one of Quebec's finest inventions. If Jen and I can't be in Canada then Canada will have to come to us.

There was never really any hope that we were going to find cheese curds in England so we had to settle for mozzarella but compensatory Oreo's made up for the lack of squeaky cheese. Flour, milk, Tabasco, oil, chicken stock and seasoning are apparently your basic poutine sauce ingredients .... here goes nothing!

After 40 minutes of careful and loving stirring the poutine sauce finally looked a little less like baby vomit and more like we remembered. Poured over the chips and mozzarella with a few beers to wash it down you could been forgiven for mistaking my living room for the famous Banquise restaurant.

4.10.08

Life in the tub

The point of me starting this blog was to help me remember Canada and if I’m honest gloat about the coolness of it all but weirdly since returning home at the start of the summer I’ve really missed writing it. So at least until my fourth year work load makes me want to cry and abandon academia forever I’m going to quite happily continue to twitter away.

Summer was great; I spent a few months working in Italy with some old friends (whilst also acquiring some great new ones) and the rest was belated family time spent either on Gozo or in the UK where my house went through a huge upheaval/rebuild and is almost finally finished after what seems like years or builders and plasterwork.

Having been back in Bath for a few weeks now the reality of the next 30 something weeks is now beginning to hit home. Work might actually have to take place this year, SHITTER! At least for the first time at Bath I’m enjoying my courses; massively geeking it up with “Thinking About Sustainability” whereby we’re challenged to think whether “we” have to choose between economics and the environment and there is a huge about of credit crunch chatter in my other politics and economics modules which is so interesting but kinda overwhelming.

Being back is great however Jenna and I probably spend far too much time talking about Canada and are even going to attempt to make poutine tomorrow evening in ode of all the good times in Montie. My house is really quirky and so close to town but living with Ollie, KT and Harry is soon going to have its drawbacks as we constantly seem to be consuming tea, cake and wine.

I've got friends from Italy, Canada and then my sister coming to stay over the next few weeks which is going to mean lots of parties and tourism; it's not quite my exchange again but its going to be just as fun. Until next time...

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