I've just realized it's been 9 days since my last blog post, I just haven't been able to find the time / energy to sit down and write in the evenings. Also, I'm not sure if people are actually interested in reading about every day things or not and I'm paranoid sometimes it may be a little bit boring. Oh well, I'll let you decide and I guess if it's boring you then you can always stop reading...!

I've been 'running on empty' for the past 5 days so I think by the time it's Christmas day I'll be needing that break for sure. Last time I wrote we'd just started to get some snow here but the anticipated large snow fall never happened, it seems like the UK got it all instead! At the early part of the week it was actually up to 9 degrees here one day, however it's slowly started to get cooler recently.

The shops have all started to become busier (especially the malls) but I have to admit it doesn't seem to have got as bad as it always does in the UK. I've been expecting to see bare shelves and humongous lineups but it doesn't seem to have happened, at least not in the places I've been to anyway (maybe I've just been lucky!). The supermarkets seem to operate differently here too, I haven't seen the large quantities of festive related produce on the scale that you'd see in the UK. I've barely seen a mince pie for instance, though it could be a fact they just don't pile them up at the entrance like British stores do!

Last week we finally got our new leather sofa delivered and it's made a huge difference, it's really nice and comfortable. It's the first time we haven't had a hand-me-down couch too so (as good as some of the previous ones were) it's cool to have something we've picked ourselves! We'd been using a sofa bed since we moved in to the apartment but it was quite uncomfortable and just before we replaced it we'd actually resorted to sitting on the floor instead. It did the job for us initially though and its now in the spare room until we figure out what to do with it next. I love coming home, putting my feet up and watching the Canucks on TV (and that's about all I seem to have energy for too).

Work for both of us has been really busy, things have scaled back a little as is to be expected but because theres more staff absent with vacation there's still been a steady work flow at both of our jobs. I seem to find myself leaving later and later each day at the moment aswell. Hopefully it's not going to be a continuing habit, I just can't seem to finish things off recently. This week Lou has been on evening shifts, she's coming home after I'm asleep and I'm leaving for work before she's awake. This means we haven't seen each other since the weekend except for a few seconds when we've woke up briefly during the night which is quite strange. We're having to make do with talking on our mobiles when one of us gets a break at work.

Today I had an unusual start to my day. Usually I get up at 5:30am and jump on the SkyTrain for work at 6:30am, then I cruise along listening to podcasts on my iPhone whilst trying to wake up properly. This morning as I walked up the stairs to the platform I noticed the train was stationary for longer than usual. The trains normally stop at each station for 20 seconds before leaving so when I jumped on I was expecting the doors to practically close just behind me as I boarded. This time however I rushed to get on but then waited, waited, and waited some more. Eventually I heard a message on the intercom system - the trains weren't moving because of a switch error and no trains were running into Downtown Vancouver. I thought it would be best to phone my boss to let him know I was going to be late and co-incidently when I did I discovered that he happened to be on the same train! We decided to meet on the platform and then we jumped in a cab together to get to work (paid by the company of course). That was no simple feat though as quite a few people were trying to do the same thing, it was almost like a sadistic game show contest "He who risks getting run over the most, gets the taxi"! We ended up being almost an hour late but I actually enjoyed the unusual aspect to it all, It sure woke me up more than usual anyway.

This evening I've been searching for a Christmas present for us both and I'm now totally tired out! We decided to get something jointly (because what we want is quite expensive) but to be honest we had really left it too late. I spent two hours unsuccessfully searching around Downtown straight from work for it and then once I got home I spent a further hour phoning places to check their stock but it was all to no avail. Just as I was admitting defeat Lou phoned me to say she'd been searching on her break too and she'd found a place that had 1 left! Not only that but she'd also persuaded them to reserve it for her. Needless to say I wasn't exactly feeling up for heading back out into the shopping chaos but it had to be done. Thankfully I managed to get without too much trouble so we will have something from each other to open on the big day after all, yay! Lou is super excited now, I just hope I manage to get a look-in once it's opened haha!

I had to walk through metro-hell on the way home but somehow, despite it being busy, people seemed to be parting like the red sea to let me get through. I think it must have been my "don't mess with me because I ain't got time for this crap" expression that I was probably showing, maybe I should be like that more often!