Started at M Bridge and was sent to S Steps at 3pm because they needed more pushers. (See? I made the right decision to be pusher!) I saw the manager’s little baby. He’s so cuuute! 6 months! He already wants a 2nd one. It rained a bit this afternoon but I was lucky none of my 4 tours were caught in the rain.
I was making good tip in the morning, 6£ and 5£, and then it stopped. (school groups… grrr! They never tip!) I try to include the word «tip» in my tour, ya know: “A student left an umbrella at the TIP of the steeple of King’s College Chapel” or “Do you need a TIP or two on punting?” or even “The self-hires TIP a lot but the super ferries are quite stable.” Maybe their sub conscience… You never know, it could work! The best one is still “The Anchor is where we all go for a beer after a hard day’s work and the chauffeur that made the biggest amount of tip buys the first round. It’s also entertaining to sit here around Mill Pond…” and I just go on with the tour, hoping they’ll get the clue.

Je remarque de plus en plus combien les pietons sont dangereux, en plus mes freins marchent pas dans la pluie, alors j’pense que je vais me pogner une clochette, meme si j’suis juste ici un autre 4 semaines... My god.... dans 4 semaines exactement, le lundi 28 aout, j’serai en avion pour revenir au Canada ! Ahhh ! Gotta work on my ToDo list ! Demain j’ai off et ca va me couter cher ! Je vais skier a SnowZone avec du monde de Scudamore’s, en avant-midi, et ensuite la plupart d’entre eux viennent au Wine Tasting, pour lequel je suis maintenant rendue a 29 personnes. Weee!

Don't trust the weather forecast

So the British weather is absolutely unpredictable. The sky was blue with white clouds this morning, but the weather forecast said we would have lots and lots of rain. I called Sal & Dan to let them know we wouldn't go punting to Granchester, and I spent the day chillin', updating my blog, cleaning my emaild accounts. Turns out it didn't rain at all.
Saw my first Ali G video, Sunday, and I finally understand why everybody calls me “MeJuuuley” at work. Borat is even better. We ate the Salsa dip at their place and later I burned all my pictures and videos of England on a CD that I will treasure forever. I might play a slideshow on my laptop if I do a goodbye party in my backyard the last week I'll be in England.
Je suis arrivee a Cambridge super tard mais juste a temps pour aller en bicyclette avec un ami jusqu'a Granchester, ou yavait deja 3 groupes en train chanter autour du feu et manger des saucisses. On est retournes en punt, a la fin de la soiree, les bicyclettes dans le bateau.

Sat.er.day.

5th. day. out of 5. Always the hard one. Still pushing at Silver Street, I did another 6 tours. Vers la fin de la journee, mon poignet recommencait a faire mal (uh-oh) Apres le travail j'ai ete ramassee par Andrew, et pour la premiere fois depuis 3-4 semaines.... J'ai passé du temps relaxe avec Vero et Andrew, j'me suis ecrasée sur un sofa comfortable, j'ai regardé des niaiseries à télé (Team America: World Police), j'ai mangé du chinois take-away et j'ai dormi sur un matelas gonflable extra comfortable. Ahhh... La température semble etre mauvaise demain. Ben de la pluie toute la journee. Va peut-etre falloir que j'annule mon picnic a Granchester, avec Sal, Dan, Véro, Andrew.

Happy B-day Sal!

Pour la premiere fois j'etais pusher a Silver Street, ou j'aurais jamais cru qu'on aurait besoin de ca. Contre toute attente, j'ai fais 6 visites et j'etais crevee a la fin de la journee. Je rencontre encore du nouveau monde, j'me melange entre les 7 Ben et les 15 Tom. Arrivee a la maison j'ai fais de la salsa dip maison a l'avance pour mon picnic a Granchester que je vais faire avec Vero-Andrew, dimanche.
I then called my favourite B-day girl, Sal, who was already getting tanked at the Regal Weatherspoon (massive pub/restaurant that used to be a movie theater). Being me, I obviously forgot my ID so she had to come out to save me. "it's my birthday. Let her in. She's my friend." I had a great time there with her friends but I went to bed early. Happy 30th B-day Sal!

Flashback of May 2006

L'organisation du wine Tasting s'en vient ben. J'etais pusher encore, alors j'profite de mon temps entre mes tours pour aller "touter" mes amis pis les convaincre de venir. Aussitot que j'ai atteint le nombre de 7-8 personnes, tous les autres voulaient embarquer (gang de moutons...) . Je suis maintenant rendue a 14 de mon bord, 13 du bord d'Andrew. 27!
Today was a big flashback of the month of May because it was RAINING! Finally. I did my first 3 tours between scattered showers, but then I ran out of luck and did the 4th one in the rain. By 4pm, everybody was unpacking boats in the rain or hiding under the bridge in comfy blankets and cushions. It started getting interesting so I got my camera out. Jonti showed up with friends on a self hire, soaked after a swim, Seb jumped off the bridge twice, dressed in a small lifejacket and his underwear, and Michelle got pushed in. These things don't happen at Silver Street.
Tonight I'm playing dressup with Sal. I have her silver jewellery and her black tube top, my black pants and my silver belt. Black & silver looks sophisticated. And I did my own make up. B-bar and fez tonight, hanging out mostly with my two favourites, Tom "babyface" and Nick "the cripple" (he's in crutches since he jumped the bridge on monday... and he'll be jumping it again as soon as he can walk in a few weeks). After witnessing the most dangerous double-bike-ride ever at 1am, I had a FRESH night's sleep. At laaaaast!

Would you like a shisha?

First day of work out of 5! I'm a pusher all week... let's see if I'll survive the physical challenge. I did 4 tours today, and it's still very hot. So a little update on my life: I'm getting people together to go to the Wine Tasting I'm planning, next Tuesday. I'm already at 12 people from Scuds and 13 from Andrew's job. NICE! I can't wait to be there and drink and eat and be merry. 6 wines, 6 dishes, and all my friends.
Also, the Jaffa Net Cafe right in front of my house is kewl. The man that owns the place gives me free internet hours and drinks and lollypops. He even offered me a shisha! "I must take care of you, my children have gone, I take care of you. Life is short. Want another free apple J2O?" I have about 15 free hours left in my account, there! Nice...
À part ça tout va bien, je travaille fort et je suis en forme. J'pense qu'à cause de ça (attention es garçons immatures) ça affecte mon cycle menstruel. J'étais 3 semaines en retard et ça m'a duré 2 jours seulement! Awsomeness. Si seulement c'était comme ça à l'année longue... J'attends toujours des nouvelles de Grand-Maman, prochaine fois que j'serai chez Vero et Andrew je vais appeler au Canada. I mean... I didn't talk to my Mom since July 3rd!

Je t'aime Grand-Maman.

J'ai enfin pris le temps en cette journée libre d'aller m'asseoir a CB2 et lire mes courriels. Ca fait du bien de parler a la famille un peu, sur MSN. J'ai des nouvelles de Grand-Maman Aline qui est mourrante. Un e-mail de Maman qui date de samedi. J'éspere que ca se passe bien, Grand-Maman est entourée de ses enfants et de ses petits enfants. Je voudrais etre la, j'aurais pensé etre revenue a temps. Je voudrais bien un vol d'avion rapide gratuit, aujourd'hui.
Mon coeur est avec vous, je suis avec toi Grand-Maman. xoxox

I met up with good friends, Becks, Marcello, Tom and Nick, and we went punting on the Granchester river. Nick managed to take my mind off my Grandmother by breaking his left knee. We quickly brought him to the hospital. *** For the full story, e-mail me *** I spent some more time at the jaffa internet cafe and went to Nicole's Goodbye Party at TaBouche. She's our nicest cashier/boathand/supervisor. We all signed a Scuds paddle that she might not be able to bring back to South Africa. We'll miss you Nicole!

A fire, sausages and a guitar... that's all I need.

5th day’s work is always a bugger. I wasn’t a pusher, so I did 3 tours and touted a bit. I didn’t get thrown in yesterday or today. I kinda wish I did. I’m still hot from morning to night. Every day. I miss the Canadian winter! According to Becks it’ll cool down soon and then it’ll start raining again, just like my three first weeks here, in May.
Après le travail, plein de monde disait qu’on allait punter jusqu’à Granchester pour faire un BBQ dans le parc, pour la fête de Ondrej (André). Alors j’ai apporté d’autre sangria! On était 2 punts énormes et on s’est rendus vers 10h30, on a bu, mangé et joué de la guitare. Yayyy ! C’est l’fun, ça me rappelle le Lac Lyster et le camp Larouge et Leader Action. J’ai fais la paix avec le superviseur de Magdelene Bridge, Horse, qui est normalement bête et plate, qui dit jamais svp ou merci. Je lui ai dis que je vais l'ecouter, même si yé gentil de temps en temps. Y m’a souri pour la première fois. *ting!* Tabouère c’est exigeant! Retour à la station vers 2hAM.

A little fall of rain can't stop a family picnic

First one in! I haven’t felt comfortably cool in about 10 days… I’ve been taking cold showers everyday this week. The sky was gray this morning so everybody was crossing their fingers for some rain, but the sun just came out to take the piss out of us. I made some delish salsa dip for Nic’s B-day picnic on Laundress Green, the park right by the punting station. Just as he got there, it started pouring rain! Oops! So a few girls and me and whoever happened to be in the kitchen, we ate all the salsa dip, because I thought he’d give up. Turns out he didn’t.
Arrivée @ 9h00, partie à 4h30. Nice. Je suis allée le rejoindre et j’ai rencontré toute sa famille et ses amis. Ma famille me manque là... Moi aussi j’veux un picnic avec Maman! I want my Mommy! La température était pas pire, alors on a sorti trois self-hire punts et on s’est promenés d’un bout à l’autre de la rivière Cam. La pluie nous a rattrapés pendant un bout. Pas grave! Ça fait changement! J’voulais vraiment pousser Nic à l’eau (even if I must go down as well) parce que c’est la tradition. Mais je risque de me faire lancer à l’eau 100 fois ! Je suis sortie à «The Slug and Lettuce » (ayoye) et Soul Tree avec la même gang, après avoir eu un peu de sangria maison avec Tom.

Pietons, tassez-vous du chemin!

Le réveil était dur. Je suis royalement tannee des pietons qui regardent pas des deux bords de la rue avant de traverser. Les cyclistes ont autant priorite que les voitures, sauf que les voitures vont pas avoir mal si elles frappent les pietons. Ils sont dangereux ! Je peux dire serieusement que je dois m’arreter brusquement au moins une fois par jour pour eviter d’envoyer un pieton a l’hopital. Et mon unique frein, le frein arriere, est pas fort fort.
A Magdelene bridge j’étais encore pusher. 5 tours, et il fait encore extrêmement chaud. Là je sais pas ce qui se passe avec la rotation mais on était seulement 3 personnes qui faisait des tours, Becks, Julien et moi. Les 10 autres faisaient QUE « touter ». Ben excuse moi ben là, mais j’ai besoin d’au moins 15 minutes entre chaque visite !
Aujourd’hui j’ai vu des enfants bruyants, mais surtout des adultes bruyants. Elementary school teachers, celebrating on the river, playing pirates. Hilarious ! Some kids got in a triple-punts water fight and I got stuck in the middle. We had a booking with about 20 punts in front of St John’s and I was sent home around 7pm. Great! Had a cold shower as usual, a hot meal, and then I found the laptop was suddenly working again and I quickly saved everything on my USB-key! Early sleep, I work at 9 tomorrow morning.

Mula, mula, mula, mula! Everything's good and everybody's your friend!

Silver street, j’ai touté pas mal! ... Peut-être que j’serai pas sur le salaire minimum aujourd’hui ! Mais je pense encore qu’etre « pusher » c’est ma meilleure solution pour faire plus d’argent. Après une longue longue journée on est tous allés à B Bar et Life (again, I know) pour trois anniversaires à la fois, mais avant j’ai eu de la sangria-maison, avec irish Kate. C’est la première fois que j’invite quelqu’un chez moi (en général, ma maison fait dur... SAUF pour la cour arrière qui vient enfin d’être clairée de sa montagne de mauvaises herbes en décomposition. Maintenant reste plus qu’à se débarasser des poubelles pleines à craquer depuis 4 semaines.) La soirée a passé super vite et après Life tout le monde est allé manger un burger. Avant de rentrer à la maison, j’ai arrêté au « skate park » en face de chez moi à regarder Ben et Nic (le b-day boy de dimanche) faire des jump en bicyclette.

Hottest day in 45 years, 7 tours

Strawberries in my cereals… yum! Why didn't I do it before? According to the radio and newspaper, today was the hottest in the last 45 years. And guess what, today was my busiest day in 45 days. It was my first try as a pusher (push a tour, take 15 min off, push, take 15 min) and I was KNACKERED! 35 degrees Celsius and a lot of humidity. This week is just like Perù! I pushed 6 tours in 7 hours, four of them back to back, and I didn’t always get my 15 min breaks. I was so hot that I jumped off Magdelene Bridge with Becks, and Rory got it on video with my camera. I'll figure out a way to put it on the web, I'm taking more and more videos.
L’eau est sale et dégueulasse mais c’est quand meme rafraîchissant. Je suis revenue travailler vers 21h00 pour un booking, une trentaine de super ferries étaient sur la rivière, dans le noir, pour une grosse conférence. C’était un vrai chaos vers 23h00 quand tout le monde revenait. Yavait un océan de punts a Mill Pond !! J’ai fais un peu de tip, dont 5 dollars US que j’ai perdu tout de suite après. I was knackered.

Word of the day: "knackered"
A knacker is a person in the trade of rendering animals that are unfit for human consumption, such as work horses that have died in harness or are too tired to work any more. This leads to the slang expression "knackered" meaning very tired.
'Knackered' also means tired, exhausted or broken in British slang, and is still commonly used in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.

Chillin' in the park / POTC II review

Monday
I walked home from Claire’s, only to go back the same way to Michelle’s place, to get my bike. I did half the groceries and most of the laundry, and then I went tanning in the sun in my tube top to lose my farmer tan again. I was relaxing in the shade, drawing, and I started thinking about my summer of 2006, as always. Thinking about all the friends I made on the river, about what I’ve done and what I have left on my ToDo list. It will be harder to leave everybody from England in August than it was to leave Canada, knowing that I’ll probably never see them again. After some more vedging in my room, checking if the laptop works once in a while (bollocks!), I went for some late pizza and some beer on Parker’s Piece with Sal, Dan, his little brother and a French girl called Fanie. Which is funny in England. Because they say "fanny" when talking about the female genitalia.

Tuesday
Pas de stress aujourd’hui, j’aurais dormi jusqu’à midi, mais y fait beaucoup trop chaud et j’ai pas d’air climatisé. Alors je me suis réveillée en sueur vers 8h30. J’ai fais l’autre moitié de l’épicerie, j’ai passé à la job pour prendre mes heures, j’ai fais du ménage et j’ai écris une liste de tounes qui vont me rappeler l’Angleterre. Bare with me, les chansons sont pas toutes géniales. Après avoir fais une sieste juste parce que j’avais rien d’autre à faire, j’suis allée manger au resto avec Véro et Andrew à The Vine, près du centre d’achat.
Finally, after a week and a half of waiting, I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest! And as I expected, the sequel was far from being as good as the first movie. I could write a whole chapter about the things I would never have even dreamed of putting in the movie. But very briefly: a lot of action, but not as well planned as the 1st movie, more stupid jokes than smart jokes (the 1st movie was brilliant!), too much of Keira Knightly. Johnny Depp was still amazing but a good actor doesn’t change a bad story into a good one. I was also weirded out by the last 15 minutes and I’m not sure if I want to see the third movie…

I'm now a pusher

The job is really getting repetitive and the weather is just not cool… really HOT! Je commence à avoir des bobos partout là, le punting c’est vraiment pas un movement naturel pis le monde se fait mal au dos... J’ai mal après 5 jours pis en 2 jours ça se rétabli. Aujourd’hui c’est le 5e jour. Ow. Je travaille fort fort fort pour avoir un peu d’argent quand je reviens, aussi ben en profiter, les livres valent tellement plus que les dollars canadiens ! Si je peux revenir avec 500 pounds c’est déjà pas pire, ça me donne environ 1000 piasses ! Et en étant pusher au lieu de "tout chauffeur", je vais faire plus d’argent.
I asked someone that worked here for years, how many times a year they clean the blankets and cushions... and she said never. Then I saw a little girl playing with a cushion and stuffing her face in the blankets… I felt like screaming Noooooo!
I feel bad that I haven’t been doing much for SAFA, my student association back at Ottawa U. But I have been SO busy here and I never have access to the internet. So the best I can do is to draw the cartoons of all our faces, for the Arts website and CD-ROM, and to send it to them. The laptop doesn’t start, since a few days ago, so they’ll get the drawings like… 2 weeks late. Hopefully, they haven’t sent the Arts CD-ROM to the 1st years yet. At the end of my really boring work day, after 2 tours, I went to meet up with Vero & Andrew and their friends from work, and we punted on the Granchester River and had pizza at Claire & Adrian’s place. We even tried bridge jumping! Wookie is very good at it, I was just hanging from the bridge for 30 seconds…. I’m getting tired of the job, but I still enjoy punting very much. Isn’t it funny that the first thing we like to do, on days off, is more punting?

Du fromage et des baguettes! Super!

Silver street today, in at 10, out at 8, very long and hot and busy Saturday. I did 5 tours but got very few tips, as always. I gave a bilingual tour because of ONE French girl, but I don’t get paid double for the whole translation. It’s a lot of work, mate! I also gave a tour to an almost-blind old lady. I ate about… 3 lunches? I’m not making much money so I will ask to be a pusher only, to be paid 7£ per hour. It’ll really make a difference, I suck at touting. Depuis mon makeover ma bicyclette est chez Michelle… man, j’ai de la misère à m’imaginer comment je faisais pour toujours marcher au travail, le premier mois ! Je m’ennuie de mon becyk! La foire et le Marché français sont encore au parc, avec leurs fromages, leurs saucisses et leurs baguettes. Andrew m’a dit que ça s’appelle Pop in the Park. En marchant j’ai croisé les parents et la petite soeur de Michelle, pis honnêtement, j’avais vraiment le goût d’aller dans le Twister alors j’ai laissé la petite Melissa me traîner jusque là. C’tait super le fun.