Holidays Are Always Too Short

27 December - I can't really complain because i'm really on a permanent holiday while I'm over here but the four days off I've had has gone by far too quickly. Was woken up by a call from Dimitri at 9am - god, these Vancouverites like to do things early, asking me if I wanted to meet for breakfast. I did! Had some very healthy tasting and reasonably delicious buckwheat pancakes and he had some tofu and dill concoction which may have been nice if you were a vegan but didn’t really appeal to me. The cursed bike - I'm still mulling over what I should call him, he is in bad need of a name - has a slow leak in each tyre. Not bad enough to warrant changing (if the hole is too small it's impossible to find) but needs pumping up each day - tres annoyment. Returned some library books and biked down to Granville Island to see what all the fuss was about. I've been down there a couple of times for work but it's always get in there and hustle out because a bike courier's work is never done. Kind of disapointing - overpriced food markets and overpriced hand made craft shops - it's not as if i've not seen a lot of markets and craft shops in my travels where much better bargains can be found. Still, it's something to cross off my list and I may well head down there at night some time in the future - as it's reputed to have something of a nightlife, but we will see. Rene came home in the afternoon, raving about his weekend away and full of stories about his rich friends (one of them gave his parents to brand new mercedes and bought himself a corvette racing car) and very keen to continue his Christmas cheer with the inhalation of THC. Also met our cleaner who came in for her fortnightly visit. I tell you, the cleaning ladies sure are beautiful in this country. She's a Creed native american and her cleaning gig is just there to substitute her work as an artist (she's just been commissioned by the canadian government to do paintings) and she is an extremely TALKATIVE lady and a very meticulous cleaner to boot. She used to live in Dee why and its always nice to commisserate about the heat over there and the cold over here (that's the one thing the canadians (outside of native BCers) who've visited oz always bring up. Went to the only local place that serves Guiness (but is in most other respects a grimy sports bar) for a few drinks with Devene to commisserate the end of the four day weekend - headed home early and tried to force myself to stay away from the ridiculously awful cable TV in order to get an early night. Last few nights have been very lat tto what i've been conditioningmyself to and i'm back at six o'clock alarm tomorrow, nnot looking forward to it.