I never got that with the County Council

Oh, the joys of the private sector - 40 hour weeks, 20 days holiday, but...

Three weeks ago my company celebrated its 20th Anniversary by holding a party at a golf club in Edmonton river valley. It was great - free food, a free bar and even a free taxi to and from the party.

Last weekend, the ISL ladies went for a pamper day at a local spa, with the company paying £100 each towards treatments. We then went to the dinner theatre in the evening and watched '29', a spoof on '24'. In case you're wondering about sexism, the men got to go golfing in Jasper in June, but personally I'd much rather have the massage, manicure and facial.

I'm currently working on a 'Long Range Strategic Highways Plan' for Alberta, and part of my work involves looking at other transportation policy reports from around North America - Ontario, Michigan, Kansas, Washington, Florida, Saskatchewan. I was looking at California State's Transportation Master Plan and the first page was signed by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger. How surreal is that? No-one that interesting ever signed my reports at NCC.

Next week I've got to go to a meeting in Calgary so I'm flying down there. It's a three and a half hour drive but only takes 45 mins by plane. So I apologise for my huge carbon footprint but I don't think that I can cope with driving 7 hours in a day.

Where did September go?

Autumn is well and truly here with frosty mornings but warm afternoons. In another week or so the trees will be bare, so here are a few pics of the fall before all the leaves go:




St Albert river valley











Our road









Our house

I am hurting..

Well our fitness/wellness course is wellness Tuesdays and fitness Thursdays. Tuesdays are okay, we'll see how that goes, Thursday was tough, exercise with co-ordination not something I'm good at.

Jacqui being behind me had great fun watching me stomp around almost 100% out of synch with everyone else. I'll be hiding at the back next week :)

Things inside are aching today and I'm sure tomorrow will only encourage the pain.

Less Millers in Canadia!

Yesterday Jacqui and I started our fitness and wellness class at servus place leisure centre in St Albert. To say that we were nervous beforehand was a great understatement. I did my normal curl up in a ball and hide response to the whole thing, but in the end we both went and it's already made us rethink some of our lifestyle.

I may have bitten off too much though, in a fit of generosity I volunteered to get up and exercise with Jacqui in the mornings. This may turn out to be a very bad idea!

Anyway, wish us luck, we'll need all the support we can get:)

Belated Housewarming

We've sorted out a date for our housewarming as well, looking good, a chunk of Jacqui's work colleagues, some neighbours and our other friends. Wii tennis and table-footie all round. Now I just need to decide what to cook and waht to buy, I'm soo domesticated.

Mo` Culture

Well here we have a rum state of affairs we`re booked in to see two more classical concerts, one has the backdrop of some Charlie Chaplin movies and should be fun. The other`s like a Christmas concert, snowman etc etc, Both will be followed by beer and food, nice and groovy.

I am just fighting a valiant rearguard action to avoid a third concert including , Strauss and Respighi. I will probably lose that fight too :)

Very Happy thankyou

Well what a good week in sport. 2 footie wins, 1 cricket and 1 rugby, best English week ever probably. And now I've worked out radio over the net I can listen to it live as well, a very satisfactory state of affairs.

Saw the England Israel game in a 'Canadian' pub called the Elephant & Castle. Good game, very impressed, Heskey had a good one in my opinion. Watched while having breakfast obviously, a very bad impression of a fry up... It was good to hear old English abuse and swearing at the tv, ref, players and everything else, brought a tear the eye,

Watching the rugby now, not a great performance so far, but a win. Cricket was an exciting affair glad that Zimbadwe couldn`t keep the run rate up. Watching the England Russia game tomorrow, looking forward to that too.

FoolFace

Just recently I have discovered the wonder that is facebook, and you probably should too, yes you, even mexican John Harris beat me to it and he's a frikkin ecologist!

So sign up facebook.com and search for me or your real friends, either really, Jacqui's not on there yet, she's just about happy with blog, any more and she may explode.

Video Culture

Yesterday Jacqui, me and a couple of people we know over here went to see the last performance of the Symphony under the Stars in Edmonton. Not my first choice of outing but I was persuaded that it was in my best interests to attend. Jacqui really enjoyed it, the orchestra were really good, and they had big guns there as well, so I was moderately placated.

I filmed the last bit of the 1812 overture, the bit with the guns, it's attached below in glorious shaky cam. The one thing that the film can't show is the concussion that we felt when the guns went off, like a short sharp gust of wind and someone shaking your organs about......