November miscellany

I know it’s been a while, and even then my last post was hardly startling, but I’m not one to apologize for my absence. I blog when I have something to say, I don’t when I don’t, that’s it :)

November kicked off with a work trip to Ottawa. I really wasn’t looking forward to the hassle of traveling, especially after such a tiring October, but it all worked out well in the end.

This was my first experience of long-haul (roughly six hours in the air) domestic flights over here so I didn’t really know what to expect. Compound that with the multiple connecting legs (two outbound, three return) and what looked like ridiculously short intervals on the ground in between, and it all felt rather daunting. But it turned out to be easy. Bag checked through to final destination, so it was just a matter of hopping from gate to gate to the next flight. Then there’s the never-ending entertainment of carry-on Tetris as passengers rearrange the overhead lockers to find space for their multiple ridiculously oversized bags.

I was there for a three-day project workshop, a collaboration between the federal government and multiple provinces. It was good to meet folks from elsewhere in the same line of business.

In between times there was a little bit of time for a stroll around Parliament Hill, and as a bonus I even managed to visit the public gallery while a debate was in progress.

I was 'ere :)

Megan finished football this month, which she is sad about. As this is her final year she discovered the sport rather late, and wished she’d thought to try it out sooner. The school team hasn’t been going long and isn’t rated as particularly good. They are so short of senior players they have to bring in some of the juniors to make up numbers, but they reached the play-offs which nobody expected. They got beaten by the one unbeaten team in the league, which was understandable, but it could have gone either way until the home crowd turned nasty and intimidated the heck out of the players in a very unsporting display. That was a disappointing end to an otherwise enjoyable season.

Yes, that's our Megan in the middle

This month I organized a Movember team in our office, and found we had a couple of new hires who were very enthusiastic fundraisers. Between us all we raised over $3,000, which was a spectacular result.

And of course I’ve been working on the latest novel. A hard copy went with me to Ottawa and whiled away the hours of travel. For once, I’m actually enjoying the editing process, although it has not yet been subjected to any independent critique. That stage will come soon.

Next stop ... Christmas!