Chilling out and relaxing in the cold

Sunday was Mothers Day in Canada. My Mother's Day gift was me being there. Quite a thoughtful gift I thought. The day started with a nice fry up with the family all sat round enjoying bacon, potatoes and nice bread. My brother did most of the cooking but I helped a bit. We spent the day outside in the sunshine whilst my nephew played in his new paddling pool and I helped Robyn do a spot of gardening. It stayed sunny and then suddenly you could hear something that sounded like rain on a taupalin. Then the heavens opened and it poured down. Absolutely poured down. Robyn hid in Owens Wendy house. This wasn't just rain, this was uber rain. The BBQ was on as we were going to do the joint on it, so that was steaming. A break in the rain allowed for us to get the roast out and then my brother periodically checked on it whilst standing under an umbrella. It was a delicious roast. I highly recommend BBQ roast. Very moist and tender.

Monday and Tuesday the weather has started off as cold wet and windy. We headed to Oakville on Monday which is on Lake Ontario. But it was so misty we could hardly see anything. Also the lighthouse was crawling with bugs. Owen suggested we make thunder cake which was in one of his books. It was lush. Yummy chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. We also played with my brothers new walkie talkies and on one of the frequencies was someone else - sounded like they were talking about a stool!!! Tuesday we have headed to Fergus and again too cold so been sat chilling. 

Craft with love

Friday morning was spent with Robyn. We went out and bought Booster Juciers (smoothies) before heading to the nail bar to have our nails done. I have a very nice set of green shimmery shellac nails. Quick manicure and got to watch a chick flick at the same time. I felt very Canadian drinking my smoothie having my nails done. After that we ran a couple of errands before heading back to the house. Robyn had a busy day ahead making up mother day boxes and bouquets. She was making soy candles and they looked good. My parents and I headed out to Rockwood park. It's referred to as the Beach and it does have a little beach which you can hire a canoe on and go paddling in the lake. We decided to follow the trail round the lake and we saw some interesting trees, a gorgeous waterfall and some beautiful foliage. I took loads of pictures which I'm going to sort out when I get back to England. I loved the waterfall at the dam. It was a hot day again and we did stop at the dam and had a little rest. We saw some geese having a littl punch-up at each other and there was a gorgeous shot that I missed. The two geese took off at the same time and the splash of water caught the sunlight and it looked amazing. But wasn't ready for with the camera. There was one route called Pothole Trail and some of the potholes were 1100 years old. No one complaining about the potholes there then ( think pothole means something different in Canada) . We are hoping to head back before I head home. The evening we had a nice salad and then mum and I headed to Stone Rd Mall and spent an hour there as I tried to find a summer dress due to the heat. Found one and bought a belt or two. What amazed me is it was 9pm and I was so warm I was in a strappy top. I rarely feel that warm. 

Saturday has been a crafting day. Robyn's parents came over for the weekend. My parents and I had headed into down town Guelph for lunch and when we got back they had arrived. Robyn's mum Darcy has a pottery business and she brought some clay hearts and paints and we sat and painted hearts and added diamonte and beads and ribbon. It was great fun. My nephew loved it. I have taken pics of the fruits of our labour and there is a lovely mixture of stuff. Everyone was so creative. The evening we have just been chatting, catching up and mum and I have been looking at train and bus times to visit Toronto. Tomorrow I'll look at where else I want to visit and how to get there. Bus schedules aren't the easier to read. And the train doesn't run all the time - makes our public system schedules look amazing! 

Hot days and flowers

Well I've now been here a whole week. Time has flown past but I feel I have packed in so much with my family and I still have two weeks left - woo hoo. The weather has been amazing. Gorgeous sunshine, maybe a tad hot but I'm not going to complain. Thunderstorms are predicted but I think that will just blow the cobwebs away. The weather will soon get back to sunny. So what have I been up to these last few days. Well still family orientated, been chilling and letting my legs recover. 

Weds

Today was one of the day's my mum looks after my nephew Owen. So I thought I'd hang out with them. Owen started the day with making a Lego spaceship which my mum broke. As it was a stunning day again, we decided to take him to the park. We had a kite to fly (free gift from a restaurant) and there was just enough breeze to fly it. Owen hasn't quite grasped the concept of the kite. He ran around dragging the kite or the string behind him but made no effort to get it in the air. He was laughing loads so definitely enjoying it but then the string broke and we had to put it away. He also raced me and won. As my legs were still healing, it wasn't difficult to let him win. He is a fast little tike though so I think he'll be good at sports. He also went on the slide and sat on a swing (well lay on the swing first) before sitting and watching the world. The were a lot of childminders and I saw a couple of four seater buggies. They don't look very comfortable for the kids at the back. The childminders are all in jogging clothes and being fit looking. Once we finished people watching we headed back home where we played with Lego, play-doh and drew a long picture with crossing guard, cars, superheroes and trees. It was the length of the kitchen and just went on for ages. Was hilarious with my mum, Owen and me all kneeling on the kitchen floor drawing with crayons.

Once playtime was over we headed out on some errands. There is a cool farm called Thatchers farm where my family get their meat from. There are also farm animals to look at including a cockerel called Oscar which may or may not be dead. We are unsure. Owen slept and then woke up just as we reached the farm - perfect timing. We took a look at some wild turkeys, bunnies and some pigs after we bought the meat. I resisted the urge to point out to Owen that we were going to be eating the piggies friends. Once home from that, Owen was dropped off and we headed to my brother lock up to see if there was some mesh there. Owen decided he would rather stay at home with his mum than with us so it was a little adventure for my mother and me. I had fun scrabbling over tubs, and packets of plaster to see if the mesh was in there. Was like mountaineering only with less ropes. 

The evening comprised of ending out to a place called Manadrins which is an all you can eat buffet. It was a much better version of Zsa Zsa Bzaaer. Much much better. The food was amazing, staff were friendly and the desserts were to die for. I love lime sherbet ice cream with chocolate sauce. Plus I got asked for ID when I ordered my cocktail.so that made my day. 

Thurs

Today was a morning spent with my dad. We headed into Guelph (which is where my family lives) and visited the Guelph Civic Musuem. It had an exhibition on the Italian Canadians who lived in Guelph during the war and a wonderful art display about the poem In Flanders Fields which was written 100 years ago by John Mcrae. There were painting, textiles, stained glass. It was really awesome. There was also an interactive display abiut Guelph which my nephew will love when he visits. It was a lovely hot day again so we walked up to the basilisque (sp?). The museum is in the old Covent and the church is called Lady Immaculate. I took a few pictures. We headed back into Guelph and my add took one out for lunch in this lovely bistro. The food was excellent. That's one good thing about Canada, the food is amazing.  Only had soup and sandwich but the portions were epic. Also tried out some Cabadaian cider. Not bad. So I could move here, and I'd have decent cider. We had to sit indoors as it was so hot outside. I'm not complaining, as England doesn't get gorgeous hot days very often. This is the kind of heat we usually get in July/August so it's only going to get hotter here but then in winter it gets down to minus 30 so swings and roundabouts. It was great catching up with Dad, making sure everyone is well. 

I spent the evening with Robyn. She owns a flower business so she was doing a little workshop on Mother's Day flowers and she did it in conjunction with a cupcake business called Sweet Temptations. If you are ever in Guelph then check out Blooms and Flora. We started with the cupcakes and we were shown 5 different types of piping of icing. We only had 4 spaces in the cupcake boxes so we had to eat one - I had champagne icing yummy. Then Robyn showed us how to make a gorgeous display in a teacup. She is a good teacher and I made a lovely display for my mum. By the way Mother's Day is in May for Canadians. So it rounded off the day well.

Friday and Saturday will be in my next blog post

Quiet day, day of reflection

Today my legs felt a lot better. Still have to walk down the stairs sideways but it is definitely getting better which means I can finally start going further afield. 

We went into Guelph today and took a wander round Downtown. There are a lot of lawyers and accountants in Guelph. Streets of them. It was nice to have a look around and remember what I had already seen when I had been here before. It's been a mild sort of day, trying to rain and giving up. Sometimes wish it would make its mind up.

The afternoon I went for a lovely walk on the river with my mum. There is a railway line right next to it, no barriers and the line is still in use. We didn't see any trains but we did see some hardcore geese who were quite happy to stand on the line and didn't seem to care. There is a Trans Canada trail which I might give a go. We ended up heading to a DIY store to buy stuff for my bro (I think I should become a partner, buying materials lol) and at one point I decided that my mother had been replaced by an alien. I have never heard her beep at any one let alone beep at someone to get them moving at the lights. She has become a tad aggressive but that's not a bad thing.

Tonight I have been drinking cider whilst watching Rescue Bots with my nephew. My nephew was not drinking cider, he's a little bit young. I did put my first lot of photos up on Facebook but I did such a terrible job of it I think I'll wait till I'm home and I can use the laptop. At least then I can write captions on them. Just have to remember what all the scenery pictures are. Only plan for this week is to head to Toronto at the weekend to the comic convention and check out some of the things to do in Toronto. :)

Marathon agony but amazing feeling

Toronto North York doesn't have a lot going for it. It doesn't have much to see. Mel Lastman square was lovely to sit in and we did do that for a bit. There wer people eating their lunches and a little protest going on about Iran stopping torture. They had loudspeakers and they had a little chant going which got a tad boring after a while. We just sat and enjoyed the sun for a bit before heading back to the hotel for a pasta buffet. Bit of slop but it did the business.

Sunday morning was lovely and cool and mum helped me get everything together before waiting with me at the start line. 1608 people ran apparently, I started at the back and came 1088. It is one of the fastest marathons in the world so I got caught up in the moment and the first 15k I went far too fast. The heat started beating down and the sun came out and that started zapping me. After 21k everything started to nag me. I was using all the water stops and as they have the useless little cups I got a bit of a walk every so  often. I pride myself that I managed to do this without drinking any Gatorade. I did it all with Powerade and gels. I chatted with a few people whilst I ran. One person said he kept thinking I was Paula Radcliffe ( yeah Paula Radcliffe in a really bad day). Another guy assumed I knew everyone in England and asked if I knew Maria Hamilton. Another guy asked me which bit of England I came from and I said   Bristol to which he high fived me as he was from Forest of Dean. One funny thing. Was a squirrel jumped from a trip and misjudged it, so landed on the Tarmac with a thud which made us all jump and start looking out for flying squirrels. We had been running under a bridge so at one point I thought someone had thrown something at us. My name was on my bib number so everyone was shouting my name and cheering me on and even the announcer at the finish called my name out and congratulated me on my Union Jack skirt. I must admit the last few km I was thinking about stopping, calling it a day and never running again. Everything hurt, I kept thinking I was useless. But once I finished, I felt amazing. I get a few months grace and then I have to start training for the next one. Aiming for sub 4:45. When I do the 4th one in October I will have done 4 marathons in 18months so 2016 will be a break from them and I will focus on half marathons instead - much easier to train for.

The problem with training for marathons is the time and how much it takes out of me. 

Once the race was over I hobbled through the finish area before heading out to where I was going to meet my lift home. Aka my brother and sister in law. We eventually managed to meet up whe they had water and chocolate milk and after working out how to get the seats up I painfully got into the back and just chilled as parents were collected from the park nearby. Once home, it was decided to buy a BBQ and the evening progressed with my Dad and brother trying to put the BBQ together whilst my nephew tried to help. My mum and sister in law made burgers and potato salad and I helpfully sat in a chair and drank cider. When it was time to turn the gas on there was a slight disagreement about how to light it as there was an ignition switch but the instructions said use a match. Once it was finally lit we had to wait before burgers went on and  then Robyn (my sister in law) did the cooking. It was a lovely end to the day.

Monday (today) has been painful. I've been trying to stay active, gentle walking, that sort of thing but my thigh muscles are in agony and trying to stand up or sit down takes time and preparation. So today hasn't been a day of doing stuff. It's like being at home. With my parents I went food shopping, bought a new kettle ( who knew that black and decker did kitchen stuff!) went to the bank and picked up my nephew from day care. I'm hoping my legs will have recovered a little more so I can actually start doing holiday things. On the list is go back to Toronto, visit a vineyard, visit a conservation lake, maybe do a little day trip outside of Guelph, spend some time with my sister in law. But I'm sure I'll come up wi lots of other stuff to do. There is a train station so I can head over to other places by train. Roll on my legs stopping hurting.

Flying solo

I'm gutted. I wrote an awesome blog update yesterday and when I tried to publish it my iPad lost it. I can't remember all the awesome things I wrote in it so I'll have to just to write a smaller version.

So I've arrived in Canada. The flight over was cool. Several people would not have agreed with me as they didn't have in flight entertainment (not good if you have a 7hr flight) . However I had in flight entertainment and I watched Kings Speech, Guardians of the Galaxy and the Great Escape. I always watch things I've seen before now as the film often gets interrupted by the flight attendants on their announcements (the ones on my flight needed a script cos the amount of times they forgot to say things and had to come back on to say stuff -plus it's all repeated in French as well) . Plus I had the added bonus of sun shining on my screen. It was boiling on the plane. Normally I'm all snuggled up. I couldn't snuggle up. I was stripped down to a t shirt (I was wearing trousers as well) and roasting. I should have worn sun cream. I have sun cream for tomorrow - special sports stuff that stays working even when you have a ton of sweat running down your face. And considering it's going to be sunny with no cloud and temps around 14 degrees, I'm gonna be sweating. I did have the nice thing of having my meal before the masses as I have a gluten free meal. Meant I got two stale rice cakes instead of a roll. These rice cakes were sealed in cling film that took me ten minutes to get into and then tasted stale. Still I was hungry. I accidentally ate the on gluten free pretzels. I think the flight attendant tried to tell me but I was I grossed in a movie, plus my eardrums had been destroyed by the passenger announcements which seems to come through at several volume levels higher than you were listening to. I had just turned the volume up as it was a particularly quiet bit. My ears are still ringing. But I made it through. I had a headache which I have decided was jet lag teemed with free red wine (ok I wasn't supposed to be drinking but it's free). Once I had eaten the sickness and the headache seemed to go. I sometimes forget I feel sick cos I'm hungry. My family came to meet me. My nephew has grown so big since I saw him last. everyone else looks the same. I still find it amusing to watch my brother as a family man. My nephew is like a mini me of him lol.

My room is very nice. I upgraded for $40 dollars which is about 24 quid so only 12 quid a night extra. Added bonus my parents paid for it as a birthday present. I point out I upgraded before my parents offered to pay. My bed is huge and in the bathroom, I have a nice shower with a massive showerhead with another smaller one right behind it. The bigger one is for show, it doesn't work. Or I couldn't make it work. I have a nice enough view but I am on 14th floor so it was always going to be more than the building opposite. I have lain my running kit out for tomorrow. Opting for my running vest and shorts with my usual Union Jack skirt to wear over the top of my shorts.  I also have my Jaegermiester (sp?) hat to wear, to keep the sun off my face. Still not a hundred percent I'm going to wear it yet. 

I went to bed at a reasonable time but still woke up at 2am this time (so 7am your time) I'm hungry but forcing myself to wait till I go down for breakfast. Which is free with an executive room. 

I'll be hoping to write this blog to remind me of what I have done. This is my first slots international flight, my first international marathon. And I want to remember it all

Yep I've returned

It's been almost two weeks. I'm sorry. I neglected you. So I'm writing now. Do you forgive me? I'll be more up to date, but obviously not writing boring crap like - I ate dinner.

Sooo I have been fighting off a cold. Haven't been able to run which I think has upset me more. I was so lurgified that I ended up having a day off work. I was proper ill. It seems to have calmed down a bit down. It has meant I've lost more weight due to a loss of appetite but I've sorted that with a pizza round my mates house. I'll have those 3lb back on in no time. And being busy of an evening is the other reason I have been lax in my blogging. I've been pretty much catching up with local friends ( or waiting for buses that never turned up). This next week will be a little bit more sedate unless I have forgotten to add stuff in my calendar in which case stuff is going to jump up from behind the sofa and I'll go 'oh yeah' I was supposed to do that. Running will be the main focus of my time as I have to start training for my first race if the year which is just over 5 weeks away, with the big race just over 15 weeks away.. Shit!

Races away do mean accomodation so brighton hotel now booked for Brighton half marathon. I have my hotel booked and my flights booked for Toronto (although passport is in wrong name). All that left for Toronto now is to book some fun stuff to do, oh and save some money so I can afford to do the stuff!  At least staying with family means I don't have too many accomodation costs. 

That then leads me to thinking about my other holiday time. Well there is two more mountains being walked up and I might be hopping on over to France for a camping and cycling holiday. Actually I'm thinking more camping, more wine and less cycling. Maybe I could have a holiday where there is less exercise - that would be a novelty. Oh and potantially a skiing holiday but that will depend on cost as well. Beauty of local government. Loads of holiday but no money to actually spend ha ha. 

Just have to make the most of my weekends... When I'm not running 18 miles ;)