I have had nearly 3 days in Montreal and i am loving it bt i can`t beleive how difficulat it is proving to catch up with myself!! I don`t want to forget about anything. I think this page will be about Saturday 5th April..... and what a perfect day it was!! An early start i had to be ready to leave the hostel at 8.30am!! I got up super early to sort something out with Selena as i had promised myself.

At about 8.15am Deb, Trim, Johan,and Lorena arrived - the sun was shining and it was another glorious day - not a cloud in the sky!! We were all heading out to St Lawrence market - i have been there many times but not at the weekend when it is super busy and there is another section of the market open! A lot of the vendors get there with all their fresh produce at 5am!!!

Lady rachel was working at 9am at her other job at the outdoor shop so she walked part of the way with us. She recommended that we all go to the meat stall with the yellow sign for a world famous peameal bacon sandwich!! A bacon sarnie is always going to sound good! Peameal bacon is canadian bacon and it is a particular cut of the pig (not sure which bit though!!). So we all agreed we'd be having a second breakfast when we got there!!! haha!!

As we arrived the market was bustling. We went round the main building first and before going over the road to the other part of the market we cat where we could find a space and enjoyed a peameal bacon sandwich - the stall even had tommy K and Brown sauce to go with!! Peameal bacon is like little medallion steaks! So its a bit thicker than bacon as we know it in England (traditionally). It was served up hot in a nice fresh Teacake (bread bun - whatever you folk want to call it!!) Perfect!

We then went over the road and there even more food stalls - these ones all had lots of little samples of food to try too!!

We then went outside to enjoy some sunshine in the market squre and play some form of football with Deb and Trims little crochet ball!! I am still useless at football and truly do try to kick the ball like Hitler! haha! it was fun though!! Trim is very skilled with the crochet ball and has evidently played many times before!! haha! I made everyone get in for a 'self portrait' photo - 5 of us all in - the most i've done yet!! Its a great photo and we had a great time - i'll treasure it forever! We then decided mutually that - a bbq was in order - we would all chip in, get some fresh meat and veg and bread and get some drinks and have a good old bbq! Perfect!

We all walked back up to Kensington market - we had decided to get all the veggies from there to save carrying it all the way back up from St lawrence market and would be equally as good and fresh! Deb and me sat down with a brew and made a list of food we could have and what we needed to buy! We then went out for a long walk (to make the most of the weather) and to do the shopping! Then from about 6pm onwards gradually people started to gather in the kitchen and the back patio - Deb , Trim and me prepared all the food and Anthony arrived and went out to the licquer store. Adele and Gareth cam round too - i was glad i would get to see them before i left Toronto. Darren - an irish lad staying at the hostel cam to join us in the kitchen - he didnt want any food - just came to socialise. I asked deb if she thought he was already quite drunk - she agreed with me - he is only very skinny, he hadnt eaten all day and was drinking Absolut vodka - it was only 6.45pm too! I didnt think he.d last much longer!

Selena had been working and was going to go trevors in the evening but decided when we said we were having a bbq that she would stay so that she could see me a bit more. I was kind of flatterd but at the same time uncomfortable - for me it wasnt all ok between us. Maybe i have to grow up a bit and let go. Anyway - we all still had a wonderful evening filled with good people, good times, good music, good food and lots of laughs. We ate, drank and cooked all night - it was nice and chilled!! However - at about 11.45pm = Darren was just pouring the last of his 1 litre of vodka into a glass with very little mixer and swaying evrywhere as he stood. Then with what seemed like the flick of a switch he turned nasty! He started saying he was going to kill trevor (Selenas trevor hasd come to join us) if he didnt stop staring - it was unprovoked. Trevor handled it well and eventually wnt outside to be away from Darren. By now we all felt a little uncomfortable but darren then turned on Gareth! Again he wanted to kill him! What a total idiot! Gareth was frustrated because he too is Irish and felt ashamed because Darren was Irish and was behaving this way! It got a little heated but Trim stepped in and broke it up - he didnt touch either of them just made enough noise and movement to divert them both. Deb and me took Darren outside and pointed off up the road - we knew he wouldnt get very far but he needed to have fresh air. ten minutes later i went outside to see where Darren had got to and he was asleep on the bench at the front of the hostel. I decided to leave him for a while!! It was too cold for him to spend the night out there but i asked Trim if he thought half hour would do him some good!! He agreed - he did actually suggest a little longer!! haha! (we wouldnt really have done that!!). Three guys staying in the upstairs dorm came home about 30 min later and offered to bring Darren in and take him upstairs - he was staying in the dorm right on the top floor! So they did that and i got the key to unlock the dorm and get him in.

As we got Darren to the top of the steps he came round a bit and decided that he had to use the bathroom - so in he went slammed and locked the door - Brilliant!!! Trim and me waited a bit and then there was a silence!! erm...."Darren???" No response! I used the dorm key to unlock the bathroom from the outside then as i opened the door i decided that Trim could go in first incase Darren had his pants round his ankles or something worse!!! haha! As the door opened we could actually see his (dressed) legs across the floor - i pushed the door further open and Darren was alying face down across the floor! O h how wonderful!! I actually though he had passed out but he was just sleeping and there was no waking him! We manged to turn him onto his side and he still wouldnt wake up - i was going to cover him and leave him to sleep there but then i thought htat if anyone else used that bathroom and found him they might get a shock! So we picked him up between - ozzy Jeff (another hosteller) came to help us my this point, we put him on the dorm floor near his bed and left him - i put him in the recovery position and left a glass of water next to him. Unfortunately in the process of all this we had managed to wake up another guy staying in that dorm. He was a little bit erm..slow (i do not mean that in an unkind way - but he was - he was from Montreal and had come to Toronto to vist some family but i think had wanted to do the trip on his own).. so being woken up for him was quite scary. He needed to come downstairs and sit with us all for a while. He was ok though. I think he lives by routine and a change in environment is difficult. i noticed he always had to sit in the same seat at breakfast - one morning he actualy asked me to move chairs so that he could sit in that particular one. So being woken up totally disrupted the routine of sleeping til morning! It was all ok in the end though.

Well..what a day and night!!!!