Back to bloggin'!

It has been a really long time since we last updated the blog. I was wondering why we hadn't been maintaining it as well as we once had and came up with the following possibilities:

• that's just the nature of blogging
• we're too busy
• we're too lazy
• we've don't have anything interesting to say

I think I can break these down a little further.

1. That's just the nature of blogging

Blogging is like piano lessons. You see someone who does it well and say - "Wow, I wish I could do that!" - and then you think of all the cool benefits of doing it and convince yourself that it's important and worthwhile and that you'll be a maestro in no time. You start out enthusiastic, practicing twice a day, doing extra homework, but within a matter of months you realize that you will never get past "Oats and Beans and Barley Grow" and you would rather spend time riding your bike with your friends. The piano becomes a slightly oversized side table (sorry, Mom). I bet if someone commissioned a study of all internet blogs, the vast majority would show the same sort of exponential decrease in blog maintenance versus time. I truly believe that after a year or so all blogs settle in to one of two camps: all-star blogs that have wide followings and tonnes of material and others that post only when something interesting has happened. Or maybe I've just convinced myself of that so I don't feel so guilty. Anyway, again, just like piano lessons, eventually you get older and wiser and think to yourself, "Wow, I wish I had stuck with those piano lessons." Most people just leave it at that wistful thought and walk away, others grab their Sharpie, write the names of the keys back on the piano and start practicing their "Oats and Beans and Barley Grow". I'm hoping to be in the latter group.

2. We were too busy

This is entirely possible as well. I know what you're thinking - any clever person would quickly point out that if were so busy we must have been doing some cool stuff; the kind of stuff we always used to blog about. I would the offer back that it is possible to be busy doing stuff that is so boring that no one cares to hear about it. I know your response to that will be - how sad for us. In order to maintain some dignity, I now propose that we were busy doing semi-cool stuff that was interesting to us but perhaps not to a wider and much more worldy audience.

• driving lessons and driving tests - in order to get our British licenses we need to pass both the theory and practical driving tests. Theory was no problem - easy-peasy. We then signed on with a driving instructor for what we thought would be a quick couple of hours as a tutorial for the practical test. Our tutorial turned in to two hours every Saturday for a month. It paid off for Fiona, who passed with flying colors. My test was delayed by inclement weather - it's now scheduled for the 19th. Our test facility has a 55% pass rating, so chances are good that I will fail. I actually have serious problems with a system that will allow me drive for a year without a test and then forces me to all of the sudden to correct 16 years of bad driving habits (mirrors? what mirrors?) so that I can continue to do something that I was already judged good enough to do for the past year. I am preparing my list of excuses for my imminent failure ... if you have any good/creative ones, let me know.
• Olympics - we picked up a pretty good tan from sitting in front of the television the last two weeks. Thoroughly enjoyed all the sports and the unique Eurosport coverage of them. When they show biathalon, they show ... all of the biathalon - start to finish, no commercials, no cutaways to "get-to-know-the-athlete" montages. Really cool. Despite the brutal 8 hour time difference we managed to watch a little bit of just about everything, with the consequence that the next day we were too wiped out to do anything but ... watch more Olympics. It was also good to get all fired up and patriotic about how well Canada did. It has been quite a while since Canada was "home" for us, but we definitely felt that way for the last two weeks. Too bad that for most Britons the Games played second fiddle to Europa league football matches.
• painting - Fiona's been going to her painting class and producing some small works. She is so good at it. I steal most works to hang in my office. She has to fight her perfectionist nature most of the time, but she has a really deft touch and a good eye.

3. We're too lazy

Um ... yeah, OK. But you sit around after a day of work somewhere where the sun only shines through the rain and the cold, miserable dampness seeps every ounce of vigour from your bones and then try to do anything but creep under the covers and stay there. Have I mentioned we've had a crap winter?

4. We've got nothing to say

Slightly ironic that I'd have something to say about having nothing to say, but there's a lot of small stuff that we don't quite think warrants a blog post, especially now that we're into year two of the Scottish Trip. For instance, our front yard is slowly developing into a carpet of crocuses (croci??). We took a wonderful sunny walk down by the River Don. We found out Wii bowling doesn't help you get better at actual bowling. We went on the hunt for an antique ottoman and found nothing but the realization that I should not be allowed unsupervised in an antique bookshop. Hot stone massages rock. Casey has convinced herself she is people. The amaryllis we bought were a month late in blooming, but were absolutely worth the wait.

Maybe we'll start finding a way to present the everyday and mundane as something worth writing, and more importantly, something worth reading!