December

Snowy out, eh.

-12 degrees C today, but beautiful bright sun. Nature is providing me with frosted glass windows!


It's cold out there. So I'm mostly staying inside! I did go for a walk to the bank yesterday, though.

Kara's been on workshops about enneagrams, and I've been reading up. I'm a five. Pretty interesting, and helpful in that it reassures me that I'm not "just weird" or anything. I really just do need quiet time to myself - and that's ok!

We're going away for Christmas, out East - so I'll knock another two provinces. That'll be half way - just the prairies and Newfoundland and Labrador (plus the Territories, of course) to go. Then as soon as we come back we're moving - into our own little flat. Very little. Should be fun!

I'm doing a lot of complaining at the moment, "about Canada", which is perhaps a little unhealthy. I'm considering starting a specific "rant-blog" so I have somewhere to moan.

I don't mean climate or anything - that's fine, it's just how it is (and perhaps I should be saying the same for these other things..).

What am I talking about? The penchant for Canadians to be overpaying (in my mind) for things.

Look at internet. This is in-city where the infrastructure costs should be the same, roughly, in any large city.

	UK	Canada
10Mb cable internet	Intro: £15.25, then £20.25, unlimited downloads	$46.99, 60Gb limit
Cheapest, no prerequisite DSL	£6.49 for 10Gb limit; £13 for unlimited. "Up to" 20Mb but probably less than half that	$21.95 for 2Gb, up to 2Mb. That seems to be part of a bundle; no doubt more if you don't add a land line in
Competition	www.broadbandchoices.co.uk/ lists at least 8 suppliers for my UK postcode	Bell for DSL, Rogers for Cable. Other suppliers might be coming.

Oh yes - in Canada you have to add tax at 13%. In the UK, the VAT is included...