just a little corner

halloween

man they don't half celebrate it here! I learnt today that it's just behind Christmas in retail sales!Lots of people dressing up - apparently one kid got sent home from school yesterday cos his costume was "too scary"- and on saturday night i saw someone dressed as a shower - with a curtain and everything! so how did I celebrate halloween?

just read that sentence and realised that those of you who don't know me might classify me as Satan worshipper or something so I'll rephrase...

How did I spend the evening of the 31st Oct?

Ok not quite the desired effect!

Get to the point. Well I met some people (Larissa and Steve) at church on Sunday and they invited me to a small gathering with a few other people. There was Marie and Joelle (French), Angela (from Africa), Natalie (Canadian) and Forrest (Chinese) and a few others joined us later.

Quite an international grouping. And we had snacks including pumpkin seeds taken from real pumpkins which we made into ingenious designs including Forrest's samurai pumpkin which was very good. We also had fireworks: Steve told me as we were walking out of the apartment, ready to go and set them off, that it was his first experience of a homemade fireworks show - and he was in charge of setting them off - so you can imgaine I stood well back (obviously, when you're used to an expert like my dad setting them off, anyone else slightly unnerves me!- although i do remember a particular bonfire night which involved a neighbour and a homemade rocket which was less...safety conscious!)

So after the fireworks we had popcorn and had a competition to see who could make the best shape out of 3 orange pipecleaners (the fun we christians have!) and everyone seemed to think mine was good, even though it was only a man riding a bike holding a bag.

I can sense your amazement at the crazy halloween evening I spent. Yes it was quite chilled and just hanging out really. But it was really weird not hanging out with the others - we have become so close. But after all I'm not just here to hang out with English people!

But it was pretty far to get there, took about an hour to get home. Luckily it wasn't just me who had to work so we left fairly early, but it can't be helped, I live in North Van and the church is across the city and most people live in the community around the church.

In other news...
Work is boring, that's all I have to say but I'm nearly done, and I definitely leave on Friday. Wahoo! It was take our kids to work day today so saw lots of teenagers at lunch trying to look grown up and like office workers! Bit like me really. A teenager in the elevator used the word 'brang' as in: "I brang it this morning" but considerately I didn't laugh. Found out my second favourite recuitment agency woman smokes. Why does adult smoking still shock me?!

Plus... spending less money on internet time (eg now) cos I followed Ginny's wonderful suggestion and joined the Vancouver Public Library which gives you 1 hour a day free internet time! Guess where I hang out after work?! I'm being serious, it was Rachel that got me hooked. We're real library geeks.

And on that note,
adieu.

posted by Claire @ 1:42 am