well, it was a good holiday. Camped at Green Point, on the beach at Pacific Rim, Saturday to Thursday. Only a little rain, the first day, which of course soaked the tent we had borrowed and made it so we were slopping around in wet oogy sleeping bags for a few nights. Once something's wet, on the west coast, it stays wet. Unless you take it down on the beach and bake it in the sun for a while. There was a bear in the campsite but we didn't see it. On Tuesday there were frantic messages on my cell phone that no-one had turned up to work at the booth... as I expected. Boys. He'd slept in, but it wasn't Dylan, the new boy, it was Joseph, who for some reason had agreed to work for Alison, who for some reason was in Parksville. When I said I was leaving her in charge, I kinda meant that maybe she'd work? And not parcel out her shifts to the unreliable? Whatever. By the time I persuaded my cell phone to make outgoing calls (by standing on the hood of the car) Joseph had arrived at the booth and was deeply apologetic.

It was fun to lie on the beach and watch the others swim. I find the water too cold (read: I Can't Feel My Lower Extremities) and am quite happy to leave the fun to them. We headed into Tofino one of the days but there were too many people so we just bought chocolate and went back to the campsite.

The boy who is working for me this week, while I'm on holiday, is hopeless. The other booth in the mall hired him and trained him, and sent him down to me when Joseph, as I mentioned before, the boy who was supposed to be working for me while I went on holiday, got a job on the ferries. Yesterday I heard that they'd fired him, and since he insists on showing people his newly pierced nipple, and fancies himself a ladies' man, I'm not surprised. He called me, just after I started writing this, to see if I was coming in, and I said, yes, at 4, because it's payday, but he wants someone to work a few hours this afternoon while he "does a few things" before going to a friend's birthday party... Won't be me. I'd not much like to be him in a while if he calls Alison, either.

I'm worried that he won't show up next week. And I'll be at Long Beach...

miraculously, although I was called in to work on Sunday, I have managed to have Saturday, yesterday, and today off. So I've been baking, and reading, and mucking about in the garden. I've made biscuits and blueberry muffins (courtesy of a fabulous case of blueberries that I froze two weeks ago) and pavlova, which I've always wanted to have a go at, and was happily gobbled up tonight when Mum and Dad came to visit. I've read a big fat Jilly Cooper book about a bunch of loons making an opera movie , a hitherto unread Ruth Rendell, No Night is Too Long, that Serra who used to work for me was in the movie, and Margaret Forster's Have the Men had Enough, which made me miss Grannie. I've weeded the bean patch and made a salad with the harvest, and also weeded the front garden, which was beginning to look like tiger habitat. (Observe behind the dry grasses, as the tigers play with their young...) Also I've been making coffee and drinking it, reading the newspapers from cover to cover, and Rachel and I have been to the park and to pick blackberries.

So far, a very satisfactory vacation.

last exam tomorrow. Had one on Tuesday, I think it went well. My eyesight is fuzzy with this hot weather, and my right hand doesn't want to do what it's supposed to. And the vertigo is still lurking, waiting to capture me if I turn my head too fast. I'm contemplating going back to the doctor next week and telling him that I still can't drive, and seeing what he has to say. I also had to give up yoga, which was sad, because the vertigo gets really evil when I try to do the moves where you stand up and then bend over, lie down, come back up, etc. I get really massive nausea, to the point where I have to go to bed afterwards and lie there for an hour or so until the world stops going round.

Anyway. I'm still mostly upright, which is good, although I'm having to train myself not to nod my head in response to people's questions at work...

hate my job. hate hate hate. jumping up and down putting my tongue out and thumbing my ears at customers hate. I hate it that people keep coming round to complain about Alison, but when I want to know why their reasons are very vague... that she's sitting down, that she's reading a book. What exactly would they like her to be doing? I think what offends them the most is that she's overweight. They actually feel comfortable saying, "That fat girl", to which I am not sure how to reply. Apparently she merits no consideration. No-one has told me that she's dishonest, or rude, or unkempt, just that they think she's "lazy". To be frank, it's a damn boring job, as I think I've mentioned. I keep my sanity some days with difficulty. If I was tall enough to sit down and still be able to reach the machine and the cash drawer, I probably would.

I'm studying in earnest now. First final on Tuesday next week...

I was supposed to have a day off today, but Alison who works for me's mom had a stroke last weekend, and needed to go for tests in the hospital today. So I agreed to work so Alison could accompany her, because I know how much it sucks to go for tests in the hospital all by yourself. Also, strangely enough, with the fact that the mall's air-conditioned, I get a lot more studying done there in the cool without kids and dogs than I do here. Apart from the interruptions from customers, of course.

Rachel is very worried tonight. The parade went well, I sprayed the convicts while they supposedly pulled the Crimestoppers car with ropes attached to the front bumper, and Joy, who was driving, kept putting the brakes on and jerking them backwards, which the crowd thought was pretty funny. At one point, Tim, one of the convicts, started yelling at me "Water, I need water" (I was wearing the cop suit) and I yelled back at him, "No water for you", and a small boy came out of the crowd and gave Tim a bottle of water, to widespread amusement.

The fireworks were also good, tonight, we got waterfront perches and although Kirsten was convinced we were going to catch fire we remained unsinged and all was well. And our car escaped towing from the no parking zone we parked in.

Rachel is worried because there is, she says, a butterfly somewhere in the house. She is worried that the butterfly will come into her room while she is asleep and crawl up her nose. I don't know where she got this idea. I told her, yes, in fact it probably was an evil butterfly, and it was probably hiding in a corner somewhere thinking up things to do to her... When she finished laughing, she said "Would a butterfly realllllyyyy go up my nose?" No. it would not.

it's good to have them back, even if they did bring all their laundry.
I'm going to be in the bathtub days parade on Saturday, with police volunteer group I belong to.

email from Rachel, when I got home from work: "Hi mommy I miss you I know you are at work but now we are in enson so be happy I,m home towarwo I lov you bye."

M sent me email this morning saying that he doesn't want to come home yet. I think he probably will, though, as he was supposed to be back at work on Monday. The new plan is that they'll be home by Monday night but I guess we'll see. Joseph, mentioned previously here in dispatches, came to see me yesterday and told me that he thinks he's got a job on the ferries, so he might not be able to work for me while I go camping with the kids in August. The curse of my holidays returns.

In 1993, when Kirsten was 2 and I was pregnant with Ian, we took a week off and went to stay at Alberta Beach at M's parents' cabin. We'd been there about twenty minutes when the kids at the gas station we ran at the time phoned us and said there was an irate customer who was planning to sue us, for M overfilling this guy's daughter's oil in her car. That pretty much meant the week was spent on the phone with lawyers... and it rained non-stop.

Didn't take another holiday for a long time. In 1999, when I'd been running the coffee shop for two years, I tried to take a week off, and stay home, and M went down to the shop and had a big fight with one of my staff, and it was hell for the whole week, with people crying on the phone. The next year, although you'd have thought I'd have learnt, I tried to take a week off, had it all arranged, made M promise to stay away from the store, and the guy who was supposed to be working for me fell down the stairs while drunk, and I ended up working anyway.

Patterns? Oh, probably. The universe just wants me to keep working, I guess.

as I think I mentioned, it has been a very long time since I lived alone. Ages. I'd forgotten. How little space and stuff I need for myself alone. Kids certainly do fill up life and space, there's always something someone wants, or something that could be cleaned or tidied or tied down or sewn, if it stands still long enough. Someone always has a plan of something fun you could do, be it swimming or walking or playing cards or going out and weeding the garden, I usually order my time based on the demands of four or five other people, if you include M and the children's friends... I come home, and they one by one come and tell me their plans, want to make a cake? play cards? go to the mall to get such-and-such a birthday present? go to the movies? read a book? give the dog a bath? sell Rachel to gypsies? and I give them all time frames: cake, maybe later. I'll play a game of cards with you at bedtime. We can all go to the mall tomorrow, when I get off work. I don't have money for the movies, maybe on the weekend. If you pick a book I'll come when I'm finished the dishes. The dog doesn't need a bath, she needs a crewcut. We're not selling your sister. Typically, twenty minutes after I come home from work I will have promised all my spare time to one project or another, and that's after I do my homework and the housework.

Right now, with just me and the dogs, I come home from work, make my supper, eat it, and then? Nothing. Just my homework. I did the housework on Saturday and nothing's moved yet. I remember this from before I had kids... before the tide of clutter invaded my house. Tonight the dogs were goofy so I took them for a walk. Maybe they'll let me sleep in in the morning.

so he calls and says, what are you doing, and like an idiot I tell him the truth: drinking gin and watching Australian porn... (to be fair, however, I didn't know how much sex was in it when I rented it, it Claimed to be a Romantic Comedy...

apparently everyone's worried I won't eat... Mum and Dad are coming to take me out for dinner.

it's very quiet here. The dogs are sulking, they're convinced everyone else went somewhere exciting and they're stuck at home with me. They're right... M and the kids called me last night, they were in Blue River, so I imagine they'll get to Alberta Beach today.

It's been many years since I had a house to myself. I woke up this morning and my first thought was, "I wonder if they're up. What should I make for breakfast" and then I remembered, I'm the only one home. Yesterday I got a ton of school work done, and today should be more of the same. Rachel was very worried, she said I didn't have enough food for a week, and that I couldn't live on Nutrigrain bars...

so anyway. I went to court yesterday again, to listen to more of a trial I was observing about two weeks ago. It was submissions from the defence and the Crown yesterday, in the case of a man who was professing to be a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine, and ten women were accusing him of sexual assault. When I went a couple of weeks ago, he was on the stand in his own defence, and I thought he was very... glib... I know the lawyer who is prosecuting, he used to be a customer at the coffee shop, and he talked to me outside at the break, and helped me with the spellings of the case names, for which I am eternally grateful. I now have to write a paper on consent issues and similar fact evidence. In other words, he says the women said it was ok, and the Crown says that under the Criminal code all bets are off because he abused a position of trust, which vitiates consent. The similar fact thing has to do with him being tried for all ten cases at once, and whether that constitutes prejudice. Meaning, is something being said about his character... that's a hard one. Ten women saying similar things. The defence suggested collusion, but the Crown said that two or three of the women not only didn't know the others, but went to the police separately without knowing that anyone else had.

some things the defence said seem, if you'll excuse the word, indefensible. He, the defence lawyer, compared these women, who kept coming back for treatments, to drug addicted prostitutes who kept coming back for more drugs. He also tried to insinuate that they were all flakes and all had mental difficulties. Granted, I didn't see any of them, I took care not to go when they were testifying as it seemed too voyeuristic. I liked it that Danny, the Crown counsel, knew who I was and why I was there, I figured if any of the others involved said to him "why was that woman in the back taking notes," he'd at least know the answer.

today I harvested the first radishes from my garden. this year I have: radishes, green onions, lettuce, peas (two crops, one early, one late) carrots, tomatoes, and some things I can't identify. this is due to the joy of compost. I think one is pumpkin, but there are some others that could be watermelon or squash or zucchini... the surprises will come in the fall. I tried a different variety of lettuce this year, and I'm really happy with it. I ate a leaf the other day and it was really tasty, not bitter at all. I'm supposed to be studying. not messing around in the garden and writing this. back to work.

I hate the paper I'm working on. It doesn't say what I want it to. I know I only have myself to blame. It's not due until Friday, maybe there's time to save it...

M has come home early. Kids are happy to see him... He enjoyed his stay in Victoria, apparently the campus is full of rabbits?

The weather was lovely, a slight breeze and a few clouds, and we duly headed off to Newcastle Island. Although I decided not to bring a backpack, so it wasn't really a picnic, but we did have icecream from the concession. We found a little beach and made a sand castle which, as Ian pointed out, looked something like Buddha. And we discussed a whole bunch of things, and got sand between our toes, watched ferries and saw a snake and fleets of crabs and sat on the deck of the little ferry with the wind in our hair. I put the end of my icecream cone in my mouth and told the kids I was a wasp, and Ian said, "You'd have to put it up your bum to be a wasp..." Kirsten told us the story she heard when she came out to Newcastle with her class, about the Hawaiian Islander who was hanged at Kanaka Bay for murdering his girlfriend's entire family. She says the authorities knew he was guilty because his girlfriend's father managed to bite off the Islander's thumb while being attacked.

The kids are sad that I'm not going to Edmonton with them, they're going on the 12th for ten days, but I have two big papers due the week after and I want to wait and take time off when I'm finished school in August. Miguel is taking them to stay at his aunt's cabin at Alberta Beach, and they're looking forward to it.

Just to prove that dogs have more fun...