Being Nan

Like Being John Malkovich only more energetic and slightly less surreal.

Tonight, the others went to watch the BC Lions Canadian football team play and I stayed at home with the kids - Gott sei Dank.

I had forgotten quite how much you don't get to sit still with small children around. But they are also very happy with quite unsophisticated things to play with.
The temperature is so high at the moment that they were able to play out on the balcony for a couple of hours in the evening with just a pan and the washing up bowl full of warm water and bubble bath, some yoghurt pots and a wooden spoon.

When the sun had sunk low in the sky, we watched the film 'Monsters Inc' which was a lot of fun, but then we were hooked into children's TV and it makes me wonder how the entire nation isn't ADHD. Everything in 'Treetown' is brightly and garishly coloured, the inhabitants' speech is hyper and they waggle their heads like idiots on speed. Through this, children are supposed to acquire an appreciation for French, I fear that their fear starts here.

It was lovely to have them to myself for the evening, have Teddy snuggle off to sleep in my arms. Holly never quite did, but she stayed in her bed for most of the time.

The bridge collapse in Minneapolis is quite horrifying. As well as several of my friends having friends and family there, I can't help wondering about our own bridges here. Whose job is it to maintain bridges, the city, the province, the country? In a country where there is little socialism, you can't help wondering who looks after the good of the public.
A couple of weeks ago, I met another Brit at a party who solved a couple of perplexing problems for me. I said to him that I couldn't see why so many people see themselves as having left wing views and yet I never meet anyone who is a supporter of the NDP, Canada's apparent equivalent of the Labour Party.
At the same time, you do meet people here who are proud to say they are liberal.

We have a Liberal Party in Britain, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, it would be fair to say that at a time of huge social reforms, many of them were orchestrated by the Liberal Party. But that was also the time when the Labour Party was started, and by 1924, Britain had her first Labour Prime Minister.
This was the death knell for the Liberal Party at national level, David Lloyd George, the same premier who had instigated all reforms, was also the last Liberal PM in Britain. The Liberal-Democrats are now seen as a centre party, or a local party, someone to give the Tories a run for their money in their strongholds.

Meanwhile, back in our own backyard ....... well let's just say, when you hear the words 'Nigeria' and 'internet' together in the same paragraph, you'd factor in the word 'scam'.
And yet......Richmond RCMP have had to actually issue guidelines warning people not to fall for some dating scam now parting them from their money. Exactly how stupid do you have to be to send money to someone who e-mailed you from Nigeria?
Pretty damn stupid.