I know, I know… my blogging record of late has been atrocious. I’m
not sure what has caused my lack of blogging mojo, but I just haven’t been
up to my past standards. I’ll try to do better… I promise.
So, what have we been up to since we got back? Well, yesterday we made a trip
to Spa. It was something
we both needed desperately. Since coming back to Belgium, Andrew’s been
thrown head first back into work. I’ve been dealing with trying to get
our life back on track and organised and I’ve been attempting to catch
up on things in photography land. Now that I have the digital camera I can say
good-bye to slides (but will I, is the question…) but I still have a backlog
of 14 rolls to scan, edit and upload to various places. At my current rate of
progress, I should be done by early spring… *sigh* On the upside, I received
a special order through Etsy over the weekend. It’s always exciting when
somebody likes your work enough to ask for something special.
Yes, so back to Spa… The good news is they have recently improved our
favourite relaxation spot. They’ve built a brand spanking new, not
to mention huge, sauna and a beautiful new steam room especially for us colonial
prudes who don’t enjoy getting an eyeful of wrinkled naked Belgians while
we sweat. The bad news is they still haven’t done anything about the dismal
food situation. When you go to a multi-million euro spa complex, with state
of the art facilities, don’t you expect something more than a bland salad
or a microwaved crepe?!? Oh well, everything else was perfection.
In other news, we have a very musical rest of the year ahead of us. We’ve
decided to finally take full advantage of the fact that we live beside a huge
international city, and start to go see some concerts. Other than seeing Anouk
last year (still one of my favourite concerts ever) and the Gotan
Project in the spring, we really haven’t been to up on the music scene.
So, before our trip home to Canada, Andrew and I sat down and went through the
upcoming concert listings around the country and picked some we thought we’d
both enjoy.
While we were home, we managed to catch one of my favourite groups, Shaye,
who were promoting their new album at the casino. It was a wonderful concert.
It was very intimate, (only about 200 people at tables around the stage), and
it felt like we were at a great party with friends. The women’s voices
harmonise magically. This was the second time we’ve seen them live, and
I would go again in a heartbeat.
Last weekend, we went to see another of our favourite artists – Norah
Jones. This concert was a far cry from how we saw Shaye. Norah played to a sold
out crowd in Brussels, at a huge concert stadium. While the show was fantastic,
and her voice was unbelievable, the show lacked the back and forth banter and
intimacy of a small show. I’m glad we went nonetheless.
The rest of the concerts we have planned are big names in big venues, but hopefully
they will be fun as well. So, coming up in October, we go to see Gwen Stefani,
then in November it’s Joss Stone. Finally, in December we’ll go
to see Maroon 5. We also have the possibility of seeing local girl (local to
NS that is) Feist in October as well, if I can still get tickets. Bring on the
music!
So life is humming along here in little Everberg (sorry about the pun). Life
is moving on around us. In fact that was the topic of my
latest Expatica article.
I hope everything is moving along in your corner of the world too!
We've been home for a week now and I'm still trying to get my sleep schedule
back to normal. I'm still fighting off a cold and the trip back to Canada is
still a blur.
Because I'm not coherent enough to write about everything we did, I thought
I'd post my favorite photos from the trip. After all, they do say a picture
is worth a thousand words...
After saving for ages, I finally got my new digital camera, a flash and
some fantastic lenses.
As you can see, I'm very happy about the camera purchase... Andrew is
smiling because he hasn't seen the bill yet and Phil is a happy camper from
all the commission I'm getting him.
Cheri at the scene of the crime.
Chillin' with my Amy.
Canadian coffee eh?
We look like crap because we had to wait until midnight to buy Harry.
Yes... we're dorks.
But at least we're happy dorks...
Clan Matheson - We're not often in the same place at the same time.
Me and my Gram
My Grampy
Getting some Lobster in St. Andrew's. (I had lobster 6 times in 3 weeks...)
Drew looking for whales.
There's one! (We saw loads actually)
and another...
Mom looking up from the lower deck of the whale watching boat.
Dad likes his Guinness...
Sue, Charlie & Keji in the car.
Cap'n Drew
Sue and Keji
Sue and Keji
Moi, Sue and Keji dans le bateau
Charlie and Keji
Me and my Jenn pre sushi fiesta.
The boys looking tough with their Japanese beer.
Jenn tolerated many portraits that evening...
Jenn and Stew
This is why she put up with my photos for so long...
We’re finally back from Canada. My body it severely jet-lagged and even
after sleeping for 15 hours when we got home, I can still barely keep my eyes
open.
I can’t begin to process everything we’ve done in the past three
weeks: eating, drinking, talking, enjoying the Pugwash Pool, whale watching,
driving, driving, driving, exploring rural Quebec, shopping, eating and driving
some more… There wasn’t much sleep involved, that I recall.
The sun was unexpected and glorious – only three days of rain in three
weeks…
Thank you to everyone who put us up (and put up with us). We had a fantastic
time. You know you’re always welcome on this side of the pond. To everyone
we got to see, Thanks for coming out. To everyone we didn’t get to see,
once again we’re sorry. I still can’t believe how fast three weeks
went by and how little time we had.
The pictures will follow (from the new camera!!!) when I’m coherent enough
to post them.
