Tuesday 10 July 2007

New Start 7, 8 and 9 - Halifax retrospective












I'm getting behind due to being pretty damn busy these days, both at work and at home.
It's meet the Canadian family time. Top is my brother Graham. Then cousins Susan, Stephen and Steve's wife Diane (who is an amazingly youthful belly dancing 50 years old!!). Then my niece Laila - don't think weight is an issue with her and she eats really healthily (cow! - LOL). Then sister in law Hadi with the 2 kids, Laila and Lachlan and finally more of the same at my cousin, Stephen's house in Halifax which backs onto a lake. Not too shabby as a setting eh? D and I were terribly jealous of the garden/lakefront although the house needs a lot of work - he started talking about perhaps trying to find a lake or river front property in france!! Typical man's "see nice thing - want nice thing" reaction....
Anyway, we had a lovely day in Halifax with the cousins and the kids and really enjoyed both the waterfront and the lakeside barbeque.
On the belly dancing front, Diane took it up as a laugh a few years ago and now dances semi-professionally in a troupe in Nova Scotia performing at weddings and other events. She has gone from a fairly frumpy, slightly mumsy looking 40 year to a fabulous looking 50 year old. I'm planning on taking up the wondrous belly dancing this autumn myself once LL classes finish with some women from the village, so maybe it will have the youth glow effect on me too!!
Her costumes are awesome and she has some very funny tales of Egyptian/Arabic weddings she's performed at - at one the troupe were expected to dance the couple into their bridal suite so they could consummate the marriage between the meal and the evening reception - presumably returning having done the deed to the applause of family and friends. I think they compromised by stopping at the lift!!
Work has been hectic so have not done any exercise beyond brief dog walking since my run on Saturday. I'm golfing tomorrow though and personal training on Thursday so will get something in this week. I also have my LL class ttomorrow too!! After an initial very swift drop on my return the scales haven't moved much in the last couple of days, perhaps due to the lack of exercise. Still, I'm back in the swing and not cheating so that can't be helped.
As I mentioned, I have visitors this weekend so it'll be pretty busy. As the guests are not close friends and, moreover, Malaysian, I feel the need to prepare food for them so I will have to go shopping and cooking for the first time in ages! I'm trying to plan really carefully so as not to have loads of food left over which would constitute a temptation and also so that my shopping trip doesn't turn into an uncontrolled chucking of tasty stuff into the basket type event. It's difficult though as I don't know what sort of food they like and I know that if I prepare Asian type food, Hadi could probably do it better! Tempting to go for the British standards but I'm not eating them so it seems daft not to cater to their tastes. Grrr Will speak to Hadi and pick her brains tomorrow.
I've just started again with my french class this evening so that was good to get back to. Next week I have to discuss my holiday in detail so that'll be a challenge - not sure if I'll ever need the words for whale, moose or puffin in french but it'll be fun looking them up.
Anyway, it's after 10 and I haven't sat down yet and still have a pack to eat so I'll finish for now. Bon nuit tout le monde!!

2 comments:

Sandra said...

Thanks for the comment on my blog about Kenco. I downloaded from the website the picture of him on the DT truck. He looked so cute!

BTW: I am so impressed with your pics of Canada. It hasn't ever inspired me as a destination I have to say. BUt seeing it through your eyes makes it seem a lot more interesting!

Sandra
www.livejournal.com/users/kiwirevo

chrismars said...

For someone who's really busy, I don't know where yo're finding the time to post the photos and write the blog. But fascinating reading by the way.

I laughed at the belly dancing bit as I've been thinking if having a go myself - I've definitely got the belly for it! And it was only yeterday when I took Liz to the gym to book an induction for her that I saw a poster advertising belly dancing classes. Prophetic, or what!

Hope you sort out the menu for the weekend. I have no worries over you not being able to cope - you will do so well.

Have a good day, Lesley.

Chris x