Five (5) Things : Sunday 10th February

1. 'Bring Your Cat To Work' day
2. Blackcurrants rare in Canada although at least they exist here, unlike hedgehogs. Reminded of someone saying no trees in England, only hedgehogs.
3. Keep falling asleep like gigantic dormouse. No more water running from nose, just aching bones. Arthritic dormouse maybe.
4. Blogging on iPad hard but forced to be brief so blessed relief for all readers. (Do not put comments saying O we like it when you do the blog on the iPad.)
5. Treat for middle aged people: electric blanket on 8.

Five (5) Things: Saturday 9th February

1. Go the butcher to get some pig. And some quail's eggs, and some chicken liver, and some lentils. Come home with something I do not remember buying. It is a hot sausage wrapped in foil. Strange. It has been cut in two and had mustard put in it. It tastes like a hot sponge soaked in Bisto, which is odd because normally they make nice sausage. Put it in the bin, wonder if someone Montreal is missing a sausage. Wonder if there's a market for a Grindr type app.
2. Listen to the Archers, which appears to be homage à Brief Encounter. Confused. Spend quite a long time trying to imagine the BBC script meeting in which this (compete with smut in the eye, lady interrupting, etc) was suggested. Look it up but find no answer, only another question: why, Vanessa Whitburn, WHY?
3. Watch Four in a Bed. Decided I would apply to be on it if I ever open a B&B & go through scenario in head in which do audition tape, send it off and am rejected & pretend to be OK about it to neighbours, lady in local shop etc (all of whom have been rooting for my application as a 'local hero' who gives them wine when they 'just drop in'), but am in fact indignant but not embarrassed.
4. Hip hurts. Look it up. Probably arthritis, which seems premature because I haven't done half the things I was supposed to do before crippled by arthritis and/or have a hip replacement, e.g. appear in Four in a Bed, own a lively dog, go riding again, get photographed gurning behind Sting  when he is being challenged about his helicopter.
5. Notice seem to have cold, if a cold is water running out of your nose. Lie down. Remain lying down. Write this lying on left side so right hip doesn't hurt with water running out of left nostril. 

(Just one extra thing)

Five (5) Things: Friday 8th February

1. 2 cold hard boiled eggs for breakfast and a tiny cup of milky coffee which was like a child's drink (if they are quite a sophisticated child). Had manly tea. 
2. A lot of snow for Toronto, which means not much if you are from Montreal or Saskatoon, but a fuck of a lot if you are from for e.g. England. Everywhere quiet, meetings cancelled, busses skating, a taxi catches fire and we see it (the driver is OK). 
3. Did a phone conference about Quebec. Said some things about average basket size, Catholics and Celine Dion. A great deal of talking happened, mainly out of my mouth. Had some water.
4. Did a personality test thing. Apparently my top 5 themes are Input, Individualization, Futuristic, Intellection and Learner. I do not know what it means, other than I like reading. (True.)
5. All planes being cancelled out of Toronto, apart from ours.  We take a punt, yes we do. We look the sky (black) and at the ground (40 cm of snow) and back at the sky again (snow is still coming out of it), and we decide it will never take off, so we take the (5 hour) train instead. The plane took off and landed in Montreal before we were out of Ontario. Trout that was not trout, brandy that was devil wee wees. Crying with joy at a picture of Sting in his under crackers doing yoga. Stopped at a station: "We may be detained here for an indefinite period" or similar; man refuses to eat his supper and stands around watching us eat. This concerns the hostess of the carriage who wishes to reheat his stew; he will not have it. Some fellow passengers find this funnier than I believe it is. The man opposite me snores. We will be home time time around midnight, I think.

Five (5) things: Thursday 7th February

1. Spend morning writing a presentation which goes from "quite shit" to "alright, as it goes" in a perplexing way that has something to do with a picture of two babies in hockey jerseys punching each other in a playful style. Find self saying "yes yes very interesting" out loud to myself about my own presentation whilst sitting in an open-plan office listening to Sufjan Stevens on a set of Sennheiser noise-cancelling headphones accidentally 'acquired' from my last workplace.
2. Decide not to go to Toronto tomorrow morning because of pending snowstorm but was told had to go so went tonight instead.  Forgot to pack undercrackers.
3. Got 90% of the way to airport, realize have forgotten ID required to mount a plane. Make taxi go back the other way, wait, then come back again. Was sure would miss flight but O happy day flight delayed by 2 hours: good (caught it); bad: 2 hours late, wasn't allowed to land, crammed in tiny seat for 90 minutes more than any living being should be next to two girls I can only describe as asinine. Read the WestJet magazine twice and two chapters of a book that includes the word "Measurebation".
4. Get in cab. Driver says, do you mind if we take someone else too, there are few cabs tonight in this (non-existent) Torontonian snowstorm. A man gets in who is tall and thin with a sharp face carved from cheap frozen cheese. He is a consultant and he travels the whole time. He has a baby and he thinks that ladies should stay at home and not work especially as childcare costs $3,000 a month. (If this is the case he is an idiot and living in the wrong place and probably sending his kiddy to an organic free range nursery of some kind). It is all a bit embarrassing. He gets out of the car. The driver (in cap) attempts analysis. I realize it is 10.30pm.
5. Am on bed in hotel. They always leave me free biscuits.