Happy birthday me!! tee hee!! Wow i have had so many messages and texts - it makes me feel all warm inside! I've had a really nice weekend and there seems to be a good week to follow!

On friday morning i worked just for a couple of hours then me and Selena sat down and sorted out some of the donations/sponsors for the benefit concert so far - the day seemed to fly by really quickly.

At 11amish though we got some bad news - Anthony (the hostel owner) came by to tell us that Dominic (one of the workers here) who has been working with Anthony on the new hostel had possibly cut 3 of his fingers off using a circular saw. We were all naturally quite worried about him and waiting on news from the hospital as to whether they had managed to save his fingers.

It suddenly seemed to be 3pm and friday dinner wasn't bought and hadn't been started! Selena also had to pop out - so i went and got the groceries and started dinner! The weather started to get bad and the forecasted snowstorm was beginning! Selena ended up being about 1 hour late getting back so i had to cook dinner - i had to ring her to get instructions on what we were meant to be having that night!!!!

Just as Selelna was getting home we got a call from Anthony to say that Dominic would have all of his fingers and he was going in for surgery first thing in the morning so that was good to hear. Bless Dominic - friday is his favourite night having pasta and drinks in the kitchen with everyone - inbetween his hysteria Anthony said he even said "i just want some pasta"!!! There' always next week! Dinner turned out just fine in the end - Selena finished off while i had a shower and finished getting my laundry!! haha!!

I went to see a local hockey match on Saturday night - the Toronto Marlies against the Manitoba Mooses - the top 2 teams in their league! The toronto Maple leafs are the big premier league team and they also had a home game on Saturday night so the stadium i was at (Ricoh stadium) wasn't as full as it might normally have been. Hockey is the name for ice hockey in canada - if you're talking about anything else its field hockey, but 'Hockey' is played on ice! Trim got the tickets for us all - there was 11 of us going. Getting there was an expedition in itself!!!! Toronto was a having a very bad snowstorm allday and night on Saturday!!

So people going was Trim & Deb, Adele & Gareth, Daniel & Michelle, Ray, Johann, Lorena, Anthony, Lady Rachel and myself - which actually makes 12 of us!!! haha! Anyway we had all decided to go to the brewery for a few free beers first!! The Hockey strated at 7pm so the plan was to leave the hostel at 4.30 and get to the brewery for 5ish. A few of the gang went round to the hospital to see Dominic as we had the news that he was out of surgery and was awake and doing ok. His fingers were ok and should all function (so he can still play piano) but his thumb was about 3mm (a saw blade) shorter than his other hand - because he severed the bone in his thumb with the saw blade!! Going to the hospital meant that we weren't all ready to head out at 4.30 and then half the gang didn't want to go the brewery anymore because of the snowstorm!

S Deb, Trim, Anthony and me set off walking down to the brewery and met Lady Rachel from work on the way down. We had only walked about 200 metres and i felt well and truly weathered!!! No matter which direction i was facing the wind was blowing a tonne of snow straight at me - the snow was so thick i couldn't see much so i kept my head down and didn't really know where i was going!! We must have all looked pretty funny - the snow banks were getting deeper and it was really slippy too cos the snow was really fluffy and fine so it was like walking on sand!! As we got round the corner onto Spadina Ave (one of the main streets running north to south of the city) Anthony said we should treat ourselves to cab!! Guess what .... the street that is normally full of cabs - there wasn't one in sight!!! so we kept on walking til we saw a cab - surprise surprise we got to the brewery before we saw a cab!!! We were all white from head to toe!!!!!! It was 5.45pm (took us 45 min to get there - should have been about 20min!!) only to find that the brewery closed at 6pm and we hand missed the last tour!!!! They gave us all a couple of free 'samples'. The boys all split on a crate of Pilsner to drink on the way to the hockey.

Anthony again suggested we definitely needed a cab as in those weather conditions the hockey stadium wasn't in walking distance - we went down onto lakeshore boulevard (another main strip running east to west) guess what.... only 2 cabs went by and they were full!!! we stood on the road like bunch of lemons and all we could do was laugh!! We decided to go 'round the corner' to try our luck. The snow was all fresh as no one had walked there - so it was very deep too. Anthony went first to create a path - so we all ended up taking Anthony (6ft 5) strides!! haha!! poor deb is only 5ft 3!!

As we got near traffic lights a people carrier pulled up - lights were red so obviuosly he stopped! Lady rachel jokingly said...oh lets hitchike!! So Anthony laughed and said in the direction of the car 'fancy taking us to the hockey??...' the guy in the car wound his window down asked where we were going and said 'no problem... i have room for 4!!' The 4 of us girlies jumped in!! His name was Geoff and he was a really genuinely nice man (had Jack Johnson playing too!). Unbeleivable!! However about 2 mins into the journey he said 'so where is the stadium??' erm... we didn't know!! we had a vague idea!! Couldn't see much in the snowstorm either!!! Anyway it was just a bit further along the road - he took us right in and right up to the door!!!! God bless Geoff. The boys came about 20 minutes later on a bus and still then stayed outside a bit longer to drink the lager!! Then the rest of the gang turned up to!! we were ready to roll!

The game was great - only one fisty fight though - i was expecting more!! haha! The game is pyaed in 3 'periods' each lasting 20 min - the 2nd period was definitely the best and the fastest. Final score was Toronto Marlies 0; manitoba mooses 3... oh dear!!!!

We all got the bus and streetcar back up home together - by that time we were glad to be back indoors - what a great night though!!

Hope everyone remembers how much i love them and i am thinking of them