Grey Area

Back in Blighty, Easter Monday is unequivocally a Bank Holiday, here it's not. Or maybe it is. Officially it's definitely, positively not a Stat Holiday, Kevin has had to take it as a day's leave. On the other hand, some companies offer a choice between Good Friday and Easter Monday. Yet others just have it as a holiday, not taken from your leave entitlement, thus most but not all shops are open, government, city offices and schools are closed and I'm off too. I haven't yet checked to see whether Canada Post are delivering today, but I'd be surprised.

We have been to another Grey area, Ben and I went to Point Grey in Vancouver. We were still looking for a graphic novel for him to take on the plane with him. We ended up with a Neil Gaiman, which, I'm guessing, would have cost less in the UK, though I can't be sure. Neil, I believe, lives most of the time in the States, but from reading his blog, travels back to the UK frequently. In fact, looks like he's there at the moment.

But driving around the area gave me some very grey feelings indeed, because this is where I had to do my driving lessons and test - the one I passed. But it is a difficult area. You just get used to the four-way stop and then suddenly you're at a two-way stop, then there's a mini-roundabout. It's a kind of equal-opportunities traffic area, newcomers or even, going on feedback from other Vancouver residents, ones who don't actually live there, find the constant change off-putting. According to my former driving instructor, only Europeans are comfortable with the mini-roundabouts, something which is born out by the way people hesitantly approach them. Point Grey, in my opinion, is the worst area of Vancouver for this palaver, when I have driven to Karen's or Gail's, the intersection controls seem far more consistent.

First thing, the sky was also grey, but now it has perked up. I, who will whinge and whine about the heat all through the summer, am now wanting some sun and raised temperatures for my little plants. The tomatoes have hardly grown at all since germination, it's as though they have been in suspension for about two months.

Not grey, but on Green Wing this week there were some lines to savour, I particularly liked, 'fake as a tranny's fanny' - I'm not sure that technically a tranny has a fanny, but then maybe that's the point, oh and of course, I am using the English meaning of fanny. Another one was 'nervous as a very small nun on a penguin shoot'. Tortured but oh, so funny.

Stephen Harper, headmaster of Canada, is currently over annoying the French. Good, good. One thing I will say about Stephen, he can actually speak both of our official languages, so I'm sure he had a few bons mots with Dominique de Villepin who apparently thanked him for saving France back in 1917. Oh alright, I know, I've taken liberties there, but I am getting a little bit p.o.-ed with all the 'I'm sorry,'s and the 'thanks for,' when the things they're apologising or being grateful for happened not even in the person's lifetime and was out of their purlieu anyway.