In our new apartment

Well it's certainly been an eventful couple of days since we arrived on the morning of the 18th of August. We're substantially settled in, and are ready to easily accomodate two guests, and could handle four, at least as far as the emergency inflatable mattresses and spare sheets, duvets and pillows are concerned.

Of course that security of feeling is dearly bought, earned through two tough visits to IKEA Zaventem courtesy of our good friend Jonathan. Two days in a row he volunteered to take me up there to stock up on all sorts of things; it's easy to spend money at that place.


Malcolm and I spent much of the afternoon, and Maggie and I much of the evening, assembling some of what we bought. We now have a sofa which turns into quite a reasonable double bed, as well as a large butcher block table along one wall of the kitchen, useful for baking, parking the microwave, storing other kitchen gadgets, etc. The bedrooms are largely in order, and that's a good thing, as I'm going to run out of time to put stuff together shortly...

... because I'll be in lovely Cork, Ireland, for the month of September! Kevin Mallon, with whom I have worked twice previously in Toronto (Castor et Pollux (Opera in Concert) and L'enfant et les sortileges (Glenn Gould School/RCM)) wrote me a quick note via email to ask if I was still in Europe and available to sing a couple of smaller roles in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera this fall with Opera2005. Of course I was!


I'm still waiting for the full details but the director seems like a very nice fellow, and Kevin is a pleasure to work with, the cast is a good one, it'll be my first time in Ireland so it looks like a good time all around. It does mean being away for the first week of school, but there's nothing to be done about it: we came to Europe for me to sing, so we're going to have to accomodate the singing, after all.

I've yet to write a good précis of the summer, but Maggie took a stab at it. I hope to get a chance to get around to doing justice to all the stuff we did this summer, but it will have to wait, as we are wiped out and have to go to bed. The boys are still awake despite an evening walk we took, to explore the neighborhood a bit and try to tire them out; I am afraid that a little drill sergeant work tomorrow at 7am is in order to reset their biological clocks.

Until later...

Getting ready to leave

As you can see, the last post was July 20th, and we've been so busy we haven't really had the time to sit and reflect; at least, not at a computer.

We've had a wonderful holiday visiting with family and friends, and enjoying the beauty of Canada, although I think we brought along the Brussels weather by mistake (lots of rain). The wet days made us appreciate the beautiful summer days all the more. We bought a new digital camera and so have at least a thousand photographs to sort through; they'll help us to build a (hopefully) concise summary of the last seven weeks.

That will have to wait until after we're home and settled for a few days, as we're just having breakfast with my parents and sisters prior to our departure by car for Toronto; we're scheduled to leave in less than an hour. Our flight leaves early this evening, and we should be getting off the Jet Airways flight direct to Brussel (God willing) by 9:45 am tomorrow, Belgium time.

Wish us luck; we're either brave or crazy to be travelling with two children AND our cat, Kiki. I'm sure we'll have lots of stories to share in a few days...

A bientot,
Matthew (et Maggie et les boys)

Been a long time, been a long time...

Here's a picture from last week, when my uncle Gus flew down to Belleville to see to some business with my Grandmother, and he decided to take Maggie and the boys up for a little test flight. They had a great time, too bad it's a four-seater or I'd have gone too, but I was busy helping my father build a gate for a neighbor and so had my own fun messing about with western red cedar, deck screws and power tools.

Speaking of tools, we're still on repair duty in our Toronto house, getting things in order for the next tenants... we met with them yesterday, and they indicated that they'd be moving in a little later than originally planned, so we thought we'd take advantage of the extra time to fix up some things while we were here.

There's lot's to keep us busy: we have to replace 1) the downstairs toilet 2) the clothes dryer 3) the vacuum cleaner and also get a repair tech to look at our gas oven, which was giving us trouble. In between these chores, inventorying and repacking our stored goods, and gardening, we fortunately have some extra chances to catch up with friends and extended family. Sadly we had to sacrifice a few extra days at Maggie's parents' cottage, but we really had no alternative given the tasks here in Toronto. Hopefully we'll get up there again soon for a visit to complement the few days we spent earlier in our travels. As you can see from the photo below, apart from wanting to visit his grandparents, Duncan is eager to catch more fish.


The summer has been flying by. We arrived on the 24th or 25th of June, and the first couple of weeks were taken up for me in preparing for a concert on July 11th that I sang with Bruce Kelly and Brian Jackson, in Glenburnie United Church near Kingston. After ten years study with Bruce, this was the first time that I shared a recital with him, and the first time I had performed in recital with Brian as a pianist. It was very satisfying, and in between we had a chance to spend time at the McLean family cottage and catch up with Don, and Steve and Krista and three of her children. There was much laughter and eating and drinking going on, and the weather was gorgeous. The three sounds heard most often on the deck were the loons, the wind in the pines and the periodic chiming of the mantel clock. Amazing and relaxing.

We enjoyed many happy reunions with friends and family here in Toronto, including introductions to new babies (there seem to be lots of them popping out all over the place these days) and a street party organized by our neighbors. We also spent a good chunk of time in Belleville, swimming and socializing with family, and will return there next weekend for a golf and pool weekend with the extended family. Meanwhile this week will hold more singing sessions with Bruce in between the household repairs, and getting our things together for early August when we head off to Algonquin park for four nights.

So forgive us if we aren't blogging as much as other times; we're too busy and out of our normal routine to do it much!

Hope your summer is going well...