The advantages of my work...

Jaunted off to Sint Maarten/Saint Martin again. But this time, I rented a car (first time ever!!) and could base myself outside the cruise ship town/capital

so I chose this...

Back to my happy shop...

Dordogne strawberries!!

close to us wine

all my yummies

made up into a delicious salad - I had many

with my pal and former colleague from Greece, Chiara

I did do some work...

a neighbour caught some fish and shared them

So fresh and delicious 

I scoffed back my favourite brand of gazpacho before heading through security and back home

Look what master and dawg did today

Using the running harness that M requested for his birthday

Our lovely man's birthday

We did a number of small things to celebrate

The night before his day was warm enough that our lovely library had opened its windows

and then we sauntered up the road to a buck a shuck night

Darwin checking out the running harness that was the main (requested) gift

 We did pizza with his bro and the kids on his actual birthday, and then beer at a craft brewery with some colleagues the night afterwards.

But the big thing was cycling the Niagara Parkway (Niagara Falls to Niagara on the Lake)

with our amazing, temporarily transplanted friends, Rob & Angele
After a delicious meal - for which our great Toronto pals Matt & Susan joined us -  we paused and sipped during the return cycle trip (not all of us made the full return on 2 wheels...)

So this happened...

Appointed a part-time, sessional "professor" at Centennial College. I am teaching the Humanitarian Assistance and Service Delivery course in the International Development Post-graduate certificate. I have 11 students (a very small class) from 3 different countries.

It's been good so far - though I seem to have inherited quite a few boring readings! And I have yet to mark anything yet...

A weekend in Kingston that wasn't so royal

To be fair, it was cold and wet and oh so dreary everywhere in southern Ontario. But off we went to Kingston because a certain trampolinist had a competition. 

We did a little tourism as the events were 2 of 3 days (and are "blink and you miss him" in length)

Grandad would have loved this. Reminds me a of a certain picture from Westmount Park circa 2008

It cleared up a little on Sunday - but didn't warm up

We had a delicious meal at this gorgeous converted space right on the lake.

We were there are at a bad time; the students were gone or moving out that weekend (so many moving vans!!) and the tourist sites hadn't opened yet. But the kids are completely unconvinced about small city charm or university towns; they were begging us to get back to the Big Smoke!