Spring Is Coming!

I had a nice day today. The sun was shining, it was warm enough that I could go out in my jean jacket, rather than bundle up as I have had to do for so long now. The ground was dry - no puddles and mud on my shoes. No wind to blow my hair into my face and down my throat. I went out with my camera, and took pictures of some old buildings and people on the street. I got some nice shots of a falling down fence, and took some macro shots of a discarded piece of crotcheted material in the alley among leaves. I sat on a bench in Jubilee park and took pictures of the children's playground.

This evening I spent hours at my kitchen table, making a birthday card for my six year old niece. I used my watercolour pencils. Those are very cool to use. They can be used as regular pencil crayons, or they can be dipped in water and a brush pressed against the wet tip of the pencil to make a watercolour painting. I painted a little fat, naked fairy.

While I was out today with my camera, I ran into the guy from my old apartment building, who has been trying to date me since I moved to this city in September. I seem to come across him every time I go out, he rides around the neighbourhood on his bicycle all day, I guess. There isn't much I can do to avoid him. He's nice enough. I talk to him, and he seems to know about a lot of things - we've talked about bears, and about India, and the atom bomb, and old buildings.... I've decided I won't snub him anymore - there isn't any reason I shouldn't accept him as an aquaintance. I just wish he would stop trying to take me out. He asked me to take a picture of him posing in front of a Japanese restaurant, so I did that. He asked me out for drinks, or would I like to go dancing, to a movie, out for dinner, for a walk...? I used to feel tense when he interrupted our conversation to try and persuade me to go out with him. Now I just laugh and say no. It's become a kind of joke I guess. He laughs too. I wish he would stop though. I have no intention of dating him. Wouldn't it be great if he was cool, so I could actually be excited about a guy finally showing interest in me? I'm beginning to wonder where all the cool guys are - they don't seem to be anywhere around my vicinity.

I have some hopeful news ... I received a phonecall the other day, asking me to come in for a job interview! It's my first real bite so far. The interview I had at Moores clothing for men was not a "real" bite because I phoned them, meaning they hadn't actually selected me as a possibility. This upcoming interview is different, because they phoned me. The interview is on tuesday morning at 9 am. It's at Taylor Office Supplies, and is walking distance from my apartment where I'm living now. Actually it's five minutes up the street from my old apartment, so I've been walking past that place since September, and never imagined I might be working there one day! Hope the interview goes well - I need a job A.S.A.P.!

Another bit of good news - I found a cheque in my mailbox on friday - it was my damage deposit from my old apartment, plus a reembursement of half the month's rent that I'd had to pay for February even though I wasn't living there. They'd promised me they would reemburse me if they managed to rent the suite during this month, and so they have! They've rented it for the 15th, so I got half a month's rent returned to me! Sadly, that money is not mine to spend - it all has to go to pay bills. But ... at least I now have the money to pay those bills! I'm very pleased.

It's getting to be time to start planning my garden. Just imagine - if I still lived in my old apartment I wouldn't have been able to plant anything! No potted plants, no window boxes, no balcony to sit out on and enjoy the warming sun. I would have been looking at all the buds starting to make their tentative appearance, and I would have felt left out. Spring just isn't the same without some kind of garden. Happily, I have my little patio here. There's a cemented area for me to place a couple of chairs. And a fairly wide border of soil around that where I can sow some seeds and plant some plants. I have arranged my two window boxes at the edge of the cement. I've placed a bamboo mat to cover the cement and make it look tropical. I like to stand at my open patio door and figure out what I will do with my little space. I'm thinking I'll rake up the soil (it's all growing with weeds and moss at the moment), add some compost and sow the entire area with shade loving wildflowers. I'm north facing, so I won't get a huge amount of direct sun. All my garden will have to be shade loving. I plan to have a lot of fuschias in my window boxes, and in baskets hanging from the high wooden fence that surrounds my patio. I'm thinking I might buy a hammock and hang it from the fence, at an angle, so that it swings over the wildflowers that I envision growing there. I'm also making myself a little gate from bamboo canes. The fence that encloses my patio is open at one end, to give an entrance, and my nearest neighbours can see right in from their own patio. I want more privacy, so I'm making this bamboo gate.

It's going to be a nice spring and summer, I think.