Not much happening...

Last week went fast. One of those weeks where you can't remember what you did, or how you arrived at Friday so fast. But we did...and the kids got fed and Bronwyn was taken to and from preschool and stuff got done. Anyway, I just finished reading "A Prayer for Owen Meaney" and I really enjoyed it. There's tons of reviews out there so I won't add to it all. I felt is was a bit over-long, and it took me a while to get into, but it really is a great story.

Now I am beginning "In the Wake" by the Norwegian author, Per Petterson. I recently read "Out Stealing Horses" by the same author and it instantly became one of my favourite novels. The writing style in "Out Stealing Horses" is understated, simple, and yet beautifully poetic. The main character is a man in his late 60s who chooses to live alone in a remote part of Norway. Whilte there, he looks back on his life and on a series of events that took place when he spent the summer in the country with his father during the second world war. It is both beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. Anyway, on to the next one. Mark read the write-up on the back of "In the Wake" and made a comment that I was reading yet another "cheerful" book. I (of course) immediately took the bait and replied with some snippy remark about "happy" books, and then growled that I have been known to read Terry Pratchet, Bill Bryson, and Marian Keyes, thank you very much. Mark snickered in a "ha ha gotcha" type of way. Fortunately for him, I am not PMS-ing...he was spared any serious injury.

Bronwyn and I did some work on our book based on Adventures of Cow. Of course, if you don't have kids, this may mean nothing, but it's basically the silly adventures of a plastic cow, told in funny photographs. We chose to use a plastic horse and call our book "Adventures of Horse" (...Bronwyn's choice). We based our story on the book where Cow goes to the grocery store. So we took plastic horse to the grocery store. We got some funny looks, but we're used to that by now. Here's one of the pictures (the caption reads "First stop, yummy bananas!").

Then this one reads, "These grapes are heavy". Get the idea? Very silly, and fun.

I did my first run of the trails since early December. The snow has just about cleared and we had a bright sunny day. For me, running through the forest trails is one of the pleasures of living in this part of Vancouver. You almost forget that you are actually doing exercise, or, as in my case, clearing the cobwebs due to drinking a bit too much red wine the night before. C'est la vie.