Birthday parties... trips to Canada... found an apartment

This blog entry is a bit of a cheat, since I'm writing from Canada, and didn't really have time to do justice to the events of the last few weeks. I've been so busy that I've found it increasingly difficult to blog, and my notebook/journal (aka Blog 0.1) is lying fallow also. Let's try to catch you up a bit...

Duncan had his fifth birthday party on the 11th, which was a lot of fun. His guests and he spent a long afternoon in and out of the pool, and he really enjoyed himself; the weather was beautiful and we made the most of it. He received some lovely gifts, including a plastic petanque set for use in the garden, and they all started playing with it right away.

We had another eventful few days last weekend, which started with the school fete, which was a whole-day theatrical affair, complete with a large-scale rendition of "YMCA" (the grade 5s), a rendition of what we know in Canada as the "Chicken Dance", but have now learned is actually about a duck, and has French words (Duncan's class), and an homage to the Lucky Luke bandes dessinee (comics), complete with the villanous Daltons (Malcolm's class; he played a Dalton). Malcolm also was in another number, "Quand le musique est bonne", but I'll have to return to this topic when I get back home to Brussels, and I can post some pictures. Suffice it to say that we were all very impressed with the committment by all the students, boys and girls, to singing and dancing and performing, and are very proud of our two young singer/actors.

Sunday of that same weekend involved an early start, as we attended the St. John's international school "family day" with our friends Jonathan and Kristin and kids. We enjoyed the many international food tents, bouncy castles for the little ones, book sale and kids' fun fair style games, while socializing with Maggie's colleagues and students and their families.

We came home earlier than most, to put the finishing touches on Malcolm's party, which started later that same afternoon. He had all of his invitees in attendance, and although the weather was cooler, we had heated the pool sufficiently that they didn't waste much time in jumping in. The menu was collaboratively assembled pizzas, which Malcolm and his guests ate a surprising amount of, followed by a Sacher Torte (intense chocolate cake). A good time was had by all, and Malcolm really enjoyed hosting a party of his own; now that those kids all know where we live, it will be easier to arrange play dates from now on.

Monday was a day of preparation, and little rest as, Tuesday the 20th I left the house at 6:15 am to catch my flight to Toronto. This time I flew Jet Airways, and was really impressed. Excellent food (and lots of it), polite service, new spacious airplanes, inexpensive and direct; I can't imagine why I would use any other airline from now on to come back to Toronto.

I'll write some more about my Toronto/London/Kingston adventures in the next blog, but wanted to make mention of the fact that we have found an apartment fairly close to our existing home in Brussels, and will be moving into the new place upon our return this August. It's not terribly large but will accomodate us, the kids and guests; we don't have tons of furniture or items to store anyway, so it will do just fine. The cost is much less than our existing place, and it's well located, very close to shopping and several transit lines; we're looking forward to the move.

Until next podcast!