Friday, June 12, 2015

Birth of a canoe, ladies football and work work work!

Its happened - I knew it would and I expected it, but when it happens its a bugar.
'What' You ask? Well its a dangerous place this town of Winnipeg - Especially after a little bit of rain when the sun comes out. The little bugars come out of hiding and attack you where you stand. Yes, I'm talking about Mosquitoes and my first bite of the summer.

It's been especially humid and wet the last few days and when the rain stopped they came out in force. Now admittedly after the first bite I received I was really pissed off. It itched really badly and stayed lumpy and irritating for a number of days, but having been bitten a few times since - including today - the new bites don't seem to be bothering me as much. Buffy reckons the first one of the year is always the worst and at the moment it seems to be the case. Fingers crossed!

Now, what else has been going on in our fanciful existence?

1. Car.
2. Driving Licence.
3. Work.
4. Football (They call it soccer here!)

The car - we finally picked up the 'yellow peril' a couple of days ago after waiting for 5 days for a tyre to be changed. We both love the car, its just like our old Fiesta in England, but a year younger and a lovely shade of gold! The air con is a well wrth having as the summer is looking to be a good one this year. Unfortunately, our experience of buying the car wasn't so great. The dealer we bought it from (Birchwood ford) was terrible. The only decent person we saw there was the actual bloke who sold us the car a guy named Daniel. He was honest, funny and a pleasure to deal with - but the rest of the dealership can go and swivel!

We didn't need finance but were forced to take the advertised price. Believe it or not to pay cash would cost $1000 more! So we take finance and pay it off after the first payment - so that the dealer gets a kickback' from the bank . The dealership then kept adding extras like a $800 warranty and then a fee for a temporary insurance which we had been told was free. Then when we said no, they miraculously took the extras off and game them to us fro free like they were doing us a favour. Finally, the showroom condition car was taken for cleaning, which took 45 minutes - even though it was already clean! Only Daniel saved our frustrations by letting us get away on time to make the football later that afternoon. All in all I would definitely NOT recommend buying a used car at Birchwood Ford.
Aint she beautiful - its a pity Buffy is in the way though!! haha


Driving Licence - Another bit of hassle as I had to run home from the insurance dealer who was sorting out a Canadian Licence as he forgot to tell us which paperwork we needed! Luckily, its only close. Then when we had the correct paperwork, the computers went down so I had to come back later in the afternoon. Now though I am the proud owner of a temporary Manitoban driving licence and am expecting my new one to come through the post in a few weeks, My old English one? Well, they have taken it away and it will be stored in a vault for the next few years and will be returned only when I have to give my Canadian one in! I may never see it again! It does mean that when I go home to UK to visit I should be able to drive as fast as I want!! haaha

Work.

So I started work at Wilderness Supply last week and so far its going well! I have been serving customers, selling everything from shoes and boots through to chairs, sporks and paddles for canoes and Kayaks. I'm learning all about the different types of boat and their materials and make up as well as unpacking them when they arrive in the store. Its quite good fun unwrapping a brand spanking canoe - taking off the plastic, cardboard, bubble wrap and finally the 'sock' - a material almost the same as a big bandage which protects the boats from damage during transport. The smell of the new canoes is lovely - that plasticcy brand new kind of smell that always smells good! The storeroom and showroom for the canoes and Kayaks is almost full at the moment with boats for sale and others ready to be collected after being sold, so its a struggle to find places to put them all, but its nice to being doing something different!

New Canoe

Here she comes!

I can see the head!
Its a boy!

Lovely, shiny, new Canoe!
  Lastly for this installment - we are lucky enough to be hosting a few of the games for the Women's Football World Cup at the local stadium. Its normally where the Local Canadian Football team (American style football with quarterbacks and funny shaped balls) plays but for a couple of weeks real football is being played there - we have the Australian, Swedish, Nigerian and USA teams playing there and we were lucky enough to join the 31,000 crowd to watch a double header last Monday and see a fantastic 3-3 draw between Sweden and Nigeria before watching USA beat Australia 3-1. .Now I will admit, there wasn't as much 'hard' play as in men's football but the skills in the women's game were great and it was like watching a real professional men's game - in some ways it was better as there wast as much play acting. There were some great players and to see 10 goals in two games was great. The crowd was great too - a lot of Americans came north to watch and loads have stayed for the whole week, bringing a lot of money into the city and you can spot theme all over town enjoying themselves. There was also a big contingency of Nigerians at the games who played drums and trumpets all through the game which was great - they really enjoyed themselves especially after coming back from 2 goals down to eventually draw. It was a great day out!!

The stadium

Sweden v Nigeria line up

The Nigerian band!

Our view
Finally whilst I was working at the second store in town last week a really cool caravan arrived driven by a couple who wanted help loading a kayak. It was such a nice caravan I had to take some photos to share with you! Apparently it was originally made from an upside down septic tank - but you would never tell! It was lovely!

Keep your eyes open for more soon!!

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