Birthdays, Bluesfest and Builders

Hi all, apologies for the lack of updates, but we've been busy! For one thing, we've had something like one hundred and eleven birthdays, including mine and Elli's.

Elli's birthday included a pancake breakfast, a visit to Chrissie, and lunch with Peter, Jenny and Alyssa (Jenny made a cake - she's really very sweet). Then I took her on a river cruise on the Rideau Canal, which runs right through the center of Ottawa.

The Rideau Canal

After that, we went and saw a bunch of live bands at Bluesfest (more on that later), and then hung out with some of Elli's friends from her work in an Irish pub, until they kicked us out.

The crew - third from the left is Seanna, second from the right is Matt, both from Elli's work. And no, I'm not stoned.

Elli will hopefully post about the job(s) she's been working. I will talk about more important things - pubs! Specifically, the Irish pub we were in is actually five separate Irish pubs joined together! They each have their own bars, toilets, menu's, dance floors etcetera - how freakin awesome is that!

My birthday was a little more sedate, being on a Monday; Elli made me a delicious breakfast and lunch for work, and we had picnic in a park with Peter, Jenny and Alyssa.

So, on top of all that, we had been roped into volunteering for a local music festival, Bluesfest, by Mische. Despite the name, there were many different musical genres present, including some pretty big name pop/indy acts - Live, Ani DiFranco, Michael Franti, to name a few. There were also lots of blues acts and various Canadian favorites scattered around the five stages.

Peter was volunteering as well, working security

We were working in the 'Gold Circle', an exclusive area of the grounds where only the cream of Ottawa's elite were allowed (*cough*). The work wasn't that bad, mostly serving drinks or taking tickets; but, it was an extra four to eight hours on top of our day jobs, which proved to be quite exhausting.

However, it did get us into all ten days of the festival for free, which was well worth it. My personal favourites where: Feist, a native sort of 'indy retro-folk' rock chick with an astounding voice - I think one of her songs was getting a little air time on JJJ just before we left; Terrance Simien, a crazy guy out of Louisiana with a very memorable voice, an energetic stage presence and a musical style that defies description (mix roots, native Creole, blues, reggae, funk, add some errr - 'unique' musical instruments); and Michael Franti - full of beans is an apt description.

Michael Franti - that fucker is seven foot, sumtin

Ani DiFrano put on a pretty good show too, just her and a guy with a double bass

During the festival it was Mische's birthday as well, so we made him a banana cake which we ate, with beer, at the end of one the festival days. The Monday after the festival finished was of course Jenny's birthday - she got a carrot cake from me, and a food hamper from Elli (Jenny is one of those people who horde's things like crazy, and she's got scads of stuff, so we decided to give her something consumable).

And during all of this, our landlord decided to invite a whole bunch of workmen into our house to trash the place! They smashed a three foot deep trench through our bedroom, destroyed the pavement outside (including the steps up to the other apartments - the other tenants had to come through our apartment for access to their own homes), covered the place in dust and ground several cubic meters of mud into the carpet. All good clean fun - we had to stay at Seanna's place.

So! I think I can be forgiven for not posting sooner (and apologies if I owe you an email! I'll get to my inbox properly soon).