XXL catch up blog

There have been blogs running round in my head for DAYS but my head wasn't in the right time zone to instruct my fingers to do the writing (apart from the huge effort for The Magic Faraway Tree, but that was for a blogathon and HAD to be completed on the 30th - I'm such a goody-two-shoes)

SO here is a random accumulated blog, possible because I've just slept for TEN HOURS STRAIGHT which must be some sort of crlncxn record. Note to self: In order to sleep very well on my return home, go skiing all day. Problem solved.

1. The most annoying thing about Canada is the wall sockets. Stupid pathetic skinny little two pin things. My macho BRITISH plug (THREE pins and sturdy and somehow BRITISH) in its pathetic Canadian adaptor with only two silly pins keeps falling out of the wall. And then my netbook isn't being charged when I think it is and I get dire warnings about critical battery life.

2. Every crowd has a silver lining. When we were staying in Vancouver, in a block of apartments we had THE most inconsiderate neighbours who began to party at about 2 a.m. The first night wasn't so bad because I was awake anyway, it being 10 a.m. in my mind.

The second night WASN'T okay. It occurred to me that if only they turned the music up a bit LOUDER so I could hear what it was instead of having to endure this incessant thumping which caused me to strain my ears in an effort to identify the tune... TUNE? Yeah right. I can tell you for a fact it was nothing by Simon and Garfunkel.

I think they got a bit of a shock when, at about 3 a.m. a very irate bearded British man in striped pyjamas barely concealing the paunch (Pete) pounded on their door and demanded that they turn it down. "She looked quite scared when she answered the door," he said. Terminator 4. I always think complaining while dressed in striped pyjamas is so DIGNIFIED.

The silver lining bit? I read a WHOLE book (How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff - wonderful) AND I suddenly had a genius brainwave about how to extend a 5 minute monologue into 30 minutes for the TV series.

So THANK YOU, you inconsiderate, ASBO-deserving, low-on-musical-taste neighbours in Rosellen Apartments, Vancouver. You have changed my life.

That's enough for the moment. It's 6 a.m-ish. Time to limber up, do those stretching exercises, ready to...make a cup of tea.