Rhian Wilkinson's Official Website

RHIAN'S SOCCER JOURNALS:

ROBYN GAYLE & DIANA MATHESON VISIT 29th -31st January 2010

This journal is a guest collaboration: Robyn narrating and D typing.

On Friday morning D and I headed off to sunny, crazy, frigid Montreal to visit Rhian and to see Amy and the newest addition to her family. Well before we arrived, Rhian had warned us that the temperatures in Montreal are much colder than those in Toronto, but it wasn’t until we stepped out of the airport that we truly appreciated what she was talking about. Our mutual and natural defense against severe cold appears to be to start screaming. We screamed non-stop until Rhian picked us up from the airport sidewalk a few minutes later. I could swear that I am now only sporting 4 fingers on my left hand where frostbite has taken its toll.

As soon as we arrived here in La Belle Province, we took care of business and went straight to Build-A-Bear: To build a teddy bear for the newest Walsh family arrival. Once there, at Build–a-Bear, we selected a hypoallergenic bear which would contain no child-threatening materials in it, and most importantly, we signed up for life-time health care for the bear.

With some guidance from the overly cheery Build-a-Bear employee we finally agreed on an appropriate outfit from the ridiculously large selection of clothing and accessories that were available. We considered getting a wig for "Bearamy," but none of them suited his facial features. Then, after pumping his heart and giving the bear a tight squeeze, we rented our bear condo and we were on our way. D wanted to buy a bear passport, but I thought that this was just too much.

Our next foray was to venture out to St. Hilaire on the Montreal south shore to visit our new best friend Jack, and see Amy and JP too. Jack greeted Rhian and I with warm smiles, and is already astute enough that he greeted D with expressions of extreme terror. We tried to pass the baby around us, but he was only comforted by the arms of his mom. We had a great time visiting, and it was wonderful to meet Jack. Hopefully we will see them again before we leave!

Saturday, we had a relaxed morning with tea and crosswords, before we headed down the street to see the local Macdonald College Woodsman lumberjack competition???? I was a little skeptical about all this at first, but after I removed the icicles from my eyelashes, I could see, literally I could now see, that these events are really quite interesting. There were many competitions from axe throwing, to cross-cut saw, to climbing the tree, but for me, the most entertaining was the fire starting competition where the lumberjack (or lumberjill) had to start a fire with wood axe and matches, and boil water the fastest.

Later in the evening, when we had again thawed out a little, we met up with Rhian’s brother David and his wife Kristina, for a trip to "Beijing" a restaurant in Montreal’s Chinatown. Our lack of Chinese was obvious when the appeared a little puzzled about our entrée order. I suppose he was perplexed that 5 people were ordering up to 10 main dishes. However, he needn't have worried. With plenty of assistance from Rhian’s brother we were able to polish off most of the food.

Following dinner David drove us around for a short tour of Montreal. There was plenty to see, including French language only road signs. Oh, and there was a nice view from on top of the Montreal hill, or mountain as they like to call it. Really though, it was fun, and to be honest Montreal is quite pretty.

This morning (Sunday), we went back to David’s house for breakfast and to watch the Arsenal game on his wide-screen TV. The good news is that David is a great cook and we had a great brunch, and while my brothers usually provide me with good food as well, they have usually ordered the food in. The bad news is Man U had a great game and punished Arsenal for every mistake they made, resulting in a 3-1 defeat for the Arsenal. I had a good cry as I saw the league title slipping away, and then we bundled up and headed over to see the Montreal BioDome. Here, we saw a lynx, some bats, some penguins, and a mythical creature, which appeared to be a cross between a hamster and a warthog and it had webbed feet. I’m not kidding.

At this point in our Journal writing, Robyn has left the room. We have obviously mentioned all that we have done here in Montreal and the journal must ne over. We head home tomorrow evening, and hopefully we will see little Jack again tomorrow before we go! It’s been a short visit, but a good one!