It's Friday.......

I can't believe it's Friday already. This week seems to have just flown by. It's chillier this morning, with frost on the car, and the sun was shining when I left home. But by the time I got to town, it was really cloudy and dull. The temperature is about 3 at 7:30 but it's supposed to go up to 14 today with a mix of sun and cloud, so that's not a bad way to end off the week.

I don't have to go to town in the morning. It seems weird to not have a quilting class to go to. I think they're done with classes now until the fall. It will be good to get up early and get right into some house stuff. There are a few areas that I've been neglecting and now I have no excuse to not get at them. The fact that I have company next weekend helps to motivate as well.

I typically leave the house a little before 7:00 which puts me down to the bridge around 7:20.
As a rule there is very little traffic, and I can usually just merge right onto the highway. For whatever reason, this morning there must have been at least 10 cars coming across the bridge, that I had to wait for, and my first thought, was, wow look at the heavy traffic this morning. Then as I was crossing the bridge, I realized that I've become somewhat acclimatized to life here, where 5 cars can constitute a traffic jam. It seems like a million years ago I was navigating the 401 on a daily basis, from Brampton to Toronto and back.

Now, I don't even give a seconds consideration to attending something in Summerside because, gosh, it would take me an hour to get there. So why would I even consider it? It would have to be something truly special to make me drive that far. Yet we never gave a seconds thought to attending a concert in downtown Toronto on a week night. I remember a couple of years ago, I bought Lloyd tickets for a concert at Roy Thompson Hall on a week night. It was in December and the drive from Guelph to Toronto was quite fine, but by the time we got out of the concert hall, it was snowing quite heavily. It took about 3 hours to get home in zero visibility and heavy snow.

Now I won't drive an hour to Summerside without an extremely good reason. On the other hand, I have no problem driving out to Souris, which takes about as long. But that usually involves a beach or something equally splendid! Not that we have to drive an hour to get to the beach - that would also be insane. Here I'm literally 15 minutes from Lakeside Beach, which is great.

I was never a beach person in Ontario, because the only real beaches are Sauble or Wasaga, and that involves a 2 to 3 hour drive to get there, in bumper to bumper traffic. That just doesn't make any sense to me, never did. But now I can go whenever I want, at any time of year. But then now that I live here, I don't tend to do the things that tourists do when they visit, like go to the beach. I would much rather go on a chilly day, or off season, when it's deserted and no one is there. There's something very calming about walking alone on a deserted beach.

Now having said that, we are not adverse to driving to Halifax for the day, which we have done. I've also just learned from a co-worker that there are a couple of great Farmer's Markets in Moncton. So that might be an early Saturday morning trip some weekend.

As I'm sitting here, a young man has just come up to the counter at Timothy's who obviously works in a kitchen somewhere, because he's wearing the unmistakable checked pants that all kitchen cooks wear. I have to admit I do miss those days of not having to give a seconds thought to what to wear to work. You just get up, get showered and throw on the same clothes every day. I will have to get my summer clothes out this year if I'm still at the University for much longer. Last year I don't think I even unpacked them as I really didn't wear anything anywhere other than chef clothes to work, and jeans or sweats at home. This year may be different but time will tell.