Chairs, Desks And Automobiles
Over the weekend there have been severe forest fires in Kelowna. Many people had been evacuated from their homes but thankfully some have been able to return now, unfortunately though some haven't been quite so lucky. Kelowna is about a 4+ hour drive from us so we haven't directly seen anything related to it but unsurprisingly it has dominated the news out here.
Our own weekend was reasonably quiet, we didn't do anything too outstanding to be honest. On Saturday we went downtown for a short while in the afternoon and then on Sunday we went out for dinner before spending most of the time at home catching up with a few things paperwork-wise. The weather has continued to be scorching hot each day and the fan that we got the other week has paid for itself about a hundred times over. Most days it is hitting the 30's so we try to avoid being outdoors around 2pm, usually opting for a nice air conditioned place around that time before continuing on with our day. Nearly every local is still telling us to make the most of the sun whilst it is here as they know full well what Vancouver's most famous attribute is - rain! We've still not been down to any of the beaches yet but we want to go when it's just a touch cooler than it is right now as otherwise I might end up doing the typical lobster thing.
Today Lou went to the gym for the first time as she now has all the correct attire and no more excuses left! Lou said she felt tired when she got back but felt good for doing it and she now aims to go each day or at least every other day. I'm not going to make any bold predictions regarding myself but I'd like to get in the habit of going down at least 3 times a week especially with it being included in the rent and being very close to home. In the afternoon we went to Brentwood to see if we could get some furniture like a proper desk and some accompanying chairs. We've been to the Pacific Mall downtown, and Metropolis at Metrotown far too much recently so we wanted to go somewhere a bit different just for a change! On our way to Brentwood we got off at Gilmore as we'd noticed a Home Depot place (like B&Q) as we rode by, but that ended up being wasted time as they didn't have anything we were looking for. We managed to get two fold out chairs and a small fold up table from Zealers (like a Wilkinsons / Woolworths place) in Brentwood, they are a slight step up from the cardboard boxes I had been using as a desk! Carrying them back on the SkyTrain was a bit of a hassle again, but we're becoming a bit thick skinned to it now. We also had a speculative look around at some cars as there were a few dealers close to the mall that we were visiting. Second hand cars are very expensive out here, and they definitely keep their value a lot more than the UK - especially (it seems) if it's a Toyota which is what we'd been hoping to get. This hasn't come as a complete surprise to us as we'd researched it before but it still makes our choices a bit harder and the options a bit limited. It's safe to say we will probably end up with a 'run around' initially as for something which I'd say is semi decent will cost about $10,000 here.
From 4pm onwards I've been concentrating on the job search and sending out my resumé to some more places, it's early days yet but I'm still feeling positive something will happen sooner rather than later. Tomorrow and the majority of the week will be mainly more of the same for me (with a bit of football in between like last week) so I'll apologize in advance if there's a lack of interesting blog posts.
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