Canada Day weekend

Steph's Mum and Dad arrived on Thursday. This Sunday is Canada Day and Monday is a bank holiday, so we are taking advantage of the long weekend to take a trip to Whistler together. We are hoping to do a bit of sightseeing and perhaps some walking. The weather forecasts are in disagreement, but sadly don't look good. It is still pretty wet here - very disappointing for the end of June. We are taking rain gear, and preparing to get wet while we walk :) Doubtless there will be photos next week to upload.

Hope all our friends and family have a good weekend too!

Mini Film Review: Paprika

This is as unusual Japanese anime about dreams. It is pretty crazy, but quite inventive and with some fantastic imagery. Lots of imagination on display. The story treads a fine line but barely remains comprehensible, which was a relief. It's one of those movies that leaves you feeling pretty good at the end too. If you like Miyazaki movies and that kind of whimsical Japanese fantasy, you'll probably like this movie too. Thoroughly pleasant!

Life stuff

It's raining again. Where's the nice summer weather we had last year? It actually thundered a little this afternoon which is very rare for Vancouver - it might only be the second or third time we've seen that.

Last week was pretty uneventful, and slightly miserable for me as I'm recovering from my gum graft. We did go out on the Friday evening for an Indian. The food wasn't bad, but not fantastic either. We met Tom and Amy, who are visiting some of our other friends. They were very nice.

Yesterday, Lauren and Woody had a housewarming barbeque. They've bought an awesome house in Kitsilano that Steph and I thought was ace. We arrived a little late at 3pm, and finally left around 1am when we were all kicked out :) The food and drink never stopped. All credit to Lauren and Woody for putting on a damn good do. There was plenty of inane drunken conversation later in the evening too which is always nice. We took a few photos which I uploaded here.

This week Steph's parents arrive for about two and a half weeks holiday. We are going to Whistler next weekend with them. I hope the weather improves! And tonight we are going to see Paprika at the cinema with Laurie and Bob. I'm hoping it will be good - it looks completely mental.

Gum watch part 2

I had the dressings taken out on Thursday when I returned to my periodontist. He was very pleased with the progress of the graft, and reckoned it looked like two weeks of healing rather than just one. Unfortunately, removing the dressings revealed that the roof of my mouth (where the graft was taken from) was still very raw. It was bleeding a little on Thursday, and since then has been improving, but more slowly than I expected. Even today it is too tender to touch things that I eat, which means I am still limited with my meals - nothing hard or sharp. I can at least bite my teeth together now, so chewing is possible again. I'm very happy that the graft itself has gone well though. I've also had good news on the financial front, as my dental insurance should pick up most of the cost. Hurrah!

Micro Film Review: Day Watch

This is a Russian fantasy thriller, and the sequel to Night Watch. Night Watch was a pretty entertaining film with lots of inventive moments. Unfortunately, Day Watch was fairly awful. The plot is disjointed and mostly incomprehensible. The dialogue is mostly bizarre or just bad. What little action there is does not manage to thrill at all. There are still a few parts of the film that show some creativity, but they are not worth having to sit through the rest of the film for. I think there is going to be a third movie in the series, but I won't bother with it unless I see some good reviews first.

Gum graft

Today, I had my gum graft. I've postponed several times because of visitors and other things, though probably in the back of my mind I was dodging the inevitable - I was not looking forward to it. I have receding gums (I think it might run in the family) and the gums around my lower front teeth are particularly bad. My periodontist said that if I didn't have the graft the teeth would eventually fall out, so that motivated me into doing it.

I was awake for the whole thing this time (I had a general anaesthetic for my wisdom teeth). It lasted about 45 minutes and was a little uncomfortable throughout, but no pain. They removed a piece of tissue from the roof of my mouth, and then attached it over my lower front gum area.

The rest of the day has been spent ice-packing my face to reduce the swelling. I did get some useful stuff done too - I managed to create a DVD from a load of camcorder movies I have of my family. I like my new Mac - it's fast enough to do cool stuff :) Eating is quite difficult, because I have hard dressings over the donor site and the graft, so I can't actually close my teeth completely to bite. I am staring down the barrel of another exciting week of eating soup and feeling really hungry. Looking forward to it. Still no pain yet though, so it's not all bad. Oh yes, and it cost nearly C$1800 dollars! I hope my dental plan will cough up...

Sadhana visits

Last Monday we said goodbye to Sadhana (a schoolfriend of Steph's) who stayed with us for a week. She was a fab guest, and the week zoomed by very quickly. I think the holiday was pretty relaxing for her, and before leaving she was talking of maybe visiting again next year. It's the "Vancouver Effect" in action!

We have posted a couple of photos sets from the visit. The first set here are some general photos of time Steph and Sadhana spent together. The second set here are photos from a weekend away in Victoria. We had great weather for a change (it usually rains on us when we go to Vancouver Island.) Our opinion of Victoria has improved too since our last brief visit - it was a great place to spend some time.

It was lovely to see you Sadhana, and we hope the interview went well ;)

Rob & Kim's leaving do

Two weeks ago, we said goodbye to our friends Rob & Kim. We got to know Rob through work - in fact we met him when we first came over for our interviews in May '05. They decided to return to the UK to live, and Rob is now working at another Vivendi studio in Birmingham. We wish them all the best for the future, and hope to see them again. Here are a few photos from that afternoon.

Kayaking at Deep Cove

This was a little while ago now, but Steph organized for a whole bunch of us to rent kayaks at Deep Cove for an afternoon. We had a mixture of one and two-person kayaks which we rented for three hours. It was a little nerve-wracking for me, as I am not much of a swimmer. I'd prepared for it beforehand by spending some time in the pool in our apartment building. It wasn't as bad as I'd anticipated - the kayak seemed very stable, and the water at Deep Cove is super-calm so I felt safe most of the time (except when a wave came over the front of our kayak!)

We paddled out to a little island (it might have been called Raccoon Island - not sure.) The island was kind of interesting because it was only a single island with a beach at low tide. At high tide it was two small islands with water between. Anyway, we got out of our kayaks and stopped for cake, before paddling all the way back. It was tiring but great fun. Hopefully we will do it again soon, and perhaps next time we might do a whole day.

You can find a few photos here. They were taken by our friend Woody who was the only person with a real camera there. We took some photos on a disposable waterproof camera, but we'll have to wait until we use up the film before you can see the results.