Again ready

I'm not really ready. I need a day off to calm down after a few weeks of 9 and 10 hour days at work. Who would have thought when I started planning this BC adventure that within a few months I would be running one of the teams that's at the vanguard of the largest financial integration programme ever seen in Europe? In January I had 14 people working for me; now I have 23.

I really really want a day just to kick back, feet up, maybe have a bbq in the sunshine...

But no. Mum and dad are picking us up tomorrow morning at 9:30. I don't even get a decent lie-in because it's Sandra's hair-wash day, which means half an hour of vuvuzela hair-drying. She does it on purpose. Like the packing. She's been packing her stuff since last Sunday, I'm not joking. I packed last night. Weighed my case, 18kg (limit is 20kg). So I put a few more pairs of pants in, plus a couple of shirts. Weighed Sandra's case, 25kg. She took some pants out, weighed it herself, said it was down to 19kg. Her pants don't weigh that much. I weighed it, 23kg.

There will be tears tomorrow at the check-in desk.

Remember I said I would be booking that last ferry trip "in the next few days"? That was on 24th May. I did it last night. Finally filled the last little plastic envelope in my Canadian Fun folder (2010 edition). It was a good feeling.

I picked up the holiday money today too, that was nearly a disaster.

"I've come to pick up some holiday money."
"Name?"
"Dave Murphy."
"Reference number?"
"... what? You're kidding me, right?"
"You should have got a reference number when you ordered the money."
"Errr... it'll be Canadian dollars, does that help?"

It wasn't as bad as the time I ordered Egyptian pounds and they gave me Irish punts, but I had that same panicky feeling, that "aaargh no contingency days left!" feeling.

Had a moment of pure delight last night when I checked out my Twitter page. I follow Bill Shatner, of Star Trek fame, and his tweet last night said, "Fellow Canadians! Join me at the Creation Convention in Vancouver this Sunday http://creationent.com/cal/stvan.htm My best, Bill". Yes, there's a Star Trek convention in Vancouver on our first full day in the city. We won't be going (apparently), but it will be a nice little echo of our trip to Vulcan, AB, a couple of years ago.

And so, some information. Most of British Columbia uses the Pacific Time Zone, and employs Daylight Saving Time the same as England. Therefore BC is 8 hours behind the UK. So when we're over there, our bed time will be getting up time in England, and our getting up time will be finishing work time in England (for those people who work). It's a 9 hour flight, and we land an hour and a half after we took off. The England-Germany game is at 7 o'clock the following morning - I might miss it.

The weather: http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/cabc0308

The big things: http://www.bigthings.ca/bigbc.html

The road cams: http://images.drivebc.ca/bchighwaycam/pub/html/www/index-SouthernInterior.html

Shall we play?