Settling in and first visit to Ottawa

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It's 22.54 on the 24th of April. So we're settling in nicely here in Ottawa, and time is already starting to pass at an alarming rate.
We got up Thursday at the usual time and had our breakfast - I even managed to get up for a run beforehand. We headed then back out into the garden to continue with the house, which was, by this point, only half complete after 2 days work, if that. The next big step for us was to construct the A frame and beam for the swings, attach it to the 'fort', then begin putting together the slide on the other side. Kate and I got on with that, while Rosie and Matt continued to clear the garden and then help out with laundry and cleaning in the barn.
The play structure construction was making slow but steady progress, and by lunch we had moved onto the slide. Lunch was the usual platter of chicken, salad and vegetables that had come in from Mexican night the night before at the barn. After eating and a cup of tea, we were back out to start on the construction of the sections of the covered slides before attaching them to the fort itself. However, there were 12 or so parts which needed bolting together with nuts and bolts through holes infuriatingly close to the side of the slide, making it near impossible to get a screwdriver or drill to the right angle to get the bolts secure. I think we needed to get 50+ bolts in just to make the sections of the slide, and many had to be redone when the halves didn't line up properly. As well as this, the temperature has dropped dramatically, and in the wind - even with a coat - it is uncomfortably cold to be fiddling with bolts and washers and the like.
Anyway, we got the parts together and attached the first of 5 to the fort before calling it a day for the afternoon, and heading in to warm up and relax in front of the TV. Dinner that night was also a matter of helping ourselves as Laura had taken Ashley to a fitness class, and Tim had taken the boys to Bennett's ice hockey training. They arrived back later that evening, and we sat and chatted while Tim sat and went through Bennett's homework with him for a good 40 minutes. Laura and Tim's ability to juggle seemingly countless responsibilities and duties is staggering. Not only is Tim the PMs chef, he also served in Afghanistan and is still in the fire service as a volunteer. And he still has time to take his kids to practice and do homework with them...
We had a day off today (Friday) and therefore decided to hitch a ride with Tim into Ottawa for a look around. Unfortunately this meant being ready for 7, so when we arrived we needed a good hour in Starbucks to wake ourselves up. Once caffeinated, we headed across the bridge into Quebec Province and to the museum of Civilisation.
The museum was really pretty interesting, with a huge hall filled with massive Native American totem poles, and tonnes of smaller exhibition rooms filled with arrow heads and fish traps and the like, as well as ornamental masks and headdresses from early civilisation in Canada. Not only this, but the museum boasted the largest stamp collection in Canada, a feat that is marginally less dull in actuality than it sounds.
Once we had exhausted the museum, we wandered back into Ontario and into the main part of the city, and walked along the canal to the shopping mall to get some lunch. We've discovered that food courts in these malls are by far the cheapest food outlets, presumably because all the chains are competing with each other.
Incidentally there was a protest on the Main Street of Ottawa that day, which we had heard on the radio to be about use of animal fur in clothing, but I could have sworn they were carrying Armenian flags, so think there was maybe a contingent of the protest at least concerned itself with the Armenian massacre of 1915 that I've heard about everyone, but haven't yet read up on. Also, you might remember a few months ago a jihadist gunman shot and killed a guard on Parliament Hill, then breached the parliament building before being shot dead himself by a cop before he hurt anyone else. Well, when we drove passed Parliament Hill, Tim pointed out how much the security has been raised - with at least 6 police cruisers parked permanently on the grounds. Terrorism isn't something you necessarily connect with Canada, but talking to our hosts this far it's clearly quite a troubling issue for Canadians.
Tim picked us up at 3.30 after we did a little shopping, and we headed home. The whole family was going to a family party that night so we and the German Girls (who we have decided are a little too haughty for their own good) had pretty much run of the house for the evening. Of course it was the Habs-Sens game tonight (3-1 in terms of games at the start) which Habs went on to conclusively lose 1-5 (grr), meaning another game is to be played on Sunday. Tomorrow, I believe, it is time to tackle the dreaded slide once more.

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