coughing up a lung (2005-12-05 - 5:10 p.m.)

So, I think I�ve found the best abdominal workout ever. Catch whatever disease I have and develop a constant barking cough, and your abs exercise themselves! Seems to be working so far, because mine hurt (and it�s not from sit-ups, let me tell you).

The only downside is not being able to sleep at night. I think I may have to stop by Boots tonight and invest in some cough mixture. This is getting ridiculous. I don�t know why it never occurs to me to take me to actually get medicine until I�ve been suffering for a week.

Whine whine whine. Sorry about this. My body always chooses one week every few months to fall completely apart (last time it was the simulataneous sprained ankle and conjuntivitus) and last week was the Week of Medical Issues from which I am still recovering. The cold will go away, but I�m still a bit worried about the knee.

So how about that Canadian election, eh? So crazy! Non-confidence votes and mud-slinging, holy crap! Way to force our way onto the world stage in an unusually dramatic manner, trailing scandals and rhetoric. I will be very interested to get home and see what the newspapers are saying. I will also be home in time to vote, which is good. Can register to vote from here but it�s a pain.

So it�s Monday. My last Monday. Argh. Argh! I�d say �where did the time go� but actually I�ve had a mental countdown to this week going for more than a month now, so I know exactly where it went. Still not pleased, though. Was sort of hoping for the weekend to end all weekends (at least in Edinburgh) but because of disease and depression did not exactly work out. Friday night I had my usual pre-departure freak-out and that was not much fun. Saturday the plan was to go watch the Hearts play Livingston (that�s the football, aka soccer, for the uninitiated). Livingston are rubbish by all accounts, so we didn�t book in advance since we thought it wouldn�t be busy. Turned out to be a bad idea as it was sold out (Andrew said, �I told you so�, and it�s true: he had) so we are going next weekend instead. Hearts vs Inverness.

Instead we went for coffee and shopping. Ooh, and a quick stop at Plaisir du Chocolat. It had to be done. We got take-away goodies as the caf� was packed, and went and sat at the City Chambers near the top of the Mile. They have an Advent calendar projected onto its many windows, such that each one is numbered and each day a new window is �opened� to reveal someone who lived in Mary King�s Close. Hard to describe, but a very very cool effect.

Keeping with the sports theme, went to see the Edinburgh Capitals play the Belfast Giants in hockey. I was particularly interested for two reasons: 1). Was sorry to never have seen a Giants game when I lived in Belfast � they get much more excited about hockey over there than here in Edinburgh and 2). One of the Belfast players is Theo Fleury, late of the Calgary Flames, who gave small guys everywhere hopes of an NHL career. His major drug & alcohol problems pretty much got him kicked out of the NHL, and he seems to have ended up in Belfast. (Though I would have thought it would NOT be your first choice of hometown if you already had alcohol abuse issues already). Other things I did not know about Theoron Fleury: he�s Metis, and he has Crohn�s disease.

Anyway. So despite being part of the reason I wanted to see the game, Theo was not exactly setting the ice on fire. However, Belfast is the best team in the league (Edinburgh�s down near the bottom) and beat the Caps 11-2 in their first game of the season. As it turned out, it was the best hockey game I�ve seen in a long while. Belfast is a pretty rough team and they started loads of fights, including one which included pretty much all of both teams and was very entertaining to watch. The gloves were off! As well, all the Belfast girls had their straight hair, short skirts, Giants jerseys and colour-coordinated boots. I think the Belfast cheering section had been practicing on the bus, because they had very complicated and well-rehearsed chants. Although I did hear this from our side when the captain, Tony Hand, scored: �Head and shoulders, Toe-Knee Hand, Toe-Knee Hand!� which was clever at least.

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Missed anything?
moved! - 2008-05-12
Sunday = time to ramble on - 2008-05-11
apparently I'm doing monthly updates these days. Sorry. - 2008-05-04
watershed - 2008-04-06
end of trip - 2008-03-31

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