'Le week-end ' is French. 'La Fin de Semaine' is Quebecois/Quebec-French (and not Spanish, which I initially thought...)
We woke up to sunshine on Saturday morning - quite literally, as the paper blind covering the glass door from our bedroom onto the balcony fell down at 7am, flooding the room with light. For once, Albie was no-where near the trouble...
The blue sky enticed us out of bed with the prospect of a sunshine-filled walk. Over breakfast we pondered where we should go. We are still not too sure which national parks have good walking routes, or areas that would make a scenic wander...all this comes with recommendations from people, and time. The internet can be good, but at other times for looking up things such as this, it can be very confusing and not shed any light on where to go.
In the end we settled for a walk up Mount Royal: a walk we like doing and which had the bonus that we didn't have to drive anywhere.
The blue sky enticed us out of bed with the prospect of a sunshine-filled walk. Over breakfast we pondered where we should go. We are still not too sure which national parks have good walking routes, or areas that would make a scenic wander...all this comes with recommendations from people, and time. The internet can be good, but at other times for looking up things such as this, it can be very confusing and not shed any light on where to go.
In the end we settled for a walk up Mount Royal: a walk we like doing and which had the bonus that we didn't have to drive anywhere.
Checking the weather it was 1 whole degree again! I still erred on the side of caution and wore my ski trousers though, reasoning it was better being wrapped up and able to take layers off, rather than being underdressed, as there is nothing you can do to remedy that and I am not very good at being cold.
The last time we had done the route was the week following Christmas, and just after there had been that huge snowstorm. It felt like a totally different walk; being able to march along on the pavement rather than having to trudge on the road because the pavement was under three feet of snow and not doing one step forward and then sliding half a step back!
The last time we had done the route was the week following Christmas, and just after there had been that huge snowstorm. It felt like a totally different walk; being able to march along on the pavement rather than having to trudge on the road because the pavement was under three feet of snow and not doing one step forward and then sliding half a step back!
I soon regretted my choice of clothes; all that brisk walking, together with the warm sunshine and six (yes, six!!!) degree temperature meant I was roasting underneath my super-thick layers. At least I was able to open my coat and take my scarf and gloves off to let some steam out of my sauna. We did pass a guy on the street in a t-shirt, which did seem a tad extreme. It did feel hot, but it was still single figures after all...
On the home stretch, we just 'happened' to walk past the Fairmount bagel shop, so popped in to buy some sesame bagels for lunch. We also bought a chocolate bagel which we demolished as soon as we left the shop. When we got home, the sesame ones were still warm, which was a novelty as whenever we have bought them in the past it has been so cold outside that the oven-fresh bagels soon lost their warmth.
On the home stretch, we just 'happened' to walk past the Fairmount bagel shop, so popped in to buy some sesame bagels for lunch. We also bought a chocolate bagel which we demolished as soon as we left the shop. When we got home, the sesame ones were still warm, which was a novelty as whenever we have bought them in the past it has been so cold outside that the oven-fresh bagels soon lost their warmth.
My laptop died last week. After much coaxing, T managed to bring it back to life, but it was very poorly and so we had to go and buy a new one on Saturday afternoon.
My old laptop has served me very well over the past three and a half years. It has helped me through moving house four times (three of those to different countries), assisted me in organising our wedding from abroad, as well as writing a complete book on it. It has seen me through living in a hotel room for two months, been my radio, TV, and phone, as well as the internet and emails for keeping up to date with the outside world. Countless flights and hotels have been booked on it, and thousand-mile road trips plotted out on it. It has worked with me in the roasting Andalucian summer and the freezing Montreal winter.
I felt very guilty replacing my old faithful with a slimmer, younger more sprightly model, but seeing as though it wasn't too keen on starting up, or if it did come into life, it then kept crashing and freezing, our partnership could no longer continue.
On a lighter - literally, in the evenings - note; the clocks moved forward an hour on Saturday night which means we are now only four hours behind the UK and five hours behind the rest of western Europe...for the next few weeks at least. The radio prepared us for this change, thankfully, so when we got up Sunday morning and our mobiles, laptops and radio were saying one time, and the cooker clock, Skype phone and watch were saying another, we were not surprised, although the forewarning did nothing to help our body clocks.
Albie thought the time change was great as it meant he got his breakfast an hour earlier!
The other weekend event that could have easily been overlooked was that Sunday was Mothering Sunday in the UK. It is not Mother's Day out here until May 12th, so if we were waiting for Mother's Day cards on the shelves and adverts about the day to appear out here we could have been in a lot of trouble!! But we have learnt by now to look for it in March: Mother's Day is the same date as Canada in Germany, and in Spain it is on May 5th. The first year away from the UK did catch us out somewhat, but from that worried rush of internet buying onwards, we have remembered to remember it...
On Sunday evening we watched our first hockey game. We didn't go to see it in person, as tickets for this are incredibly hard to come by; instead we met a group of T's colleagues in an Irish bar (one thing you can guarantee no matter which city you find yourselves in is that there will be at least one Irish bar). The idea was they would teach us the rules of the game, but after T and I had turned up forty minutes after the game started (we thought it was starting at 7pm, but due to the hour change it started at 6pm) and then with all the non-hockey chatting, I am not that much wiser about the rules of the game that is so important to many a Canadian. It has been an usual year regarding the hockey out here, as the league only started in January rather than its usual October commence date (due to a disagreement over a labour agreement or something...) Hence only just getting introduced to it now.
Also in Montreal this weekend there was a new discovery: Albie came face to face with the DVD-player for the first time:
...and is not too sure of it.
So he does what any cat would do when he or she is frightened...
So he does what any cat would do when he or she is frightened...