Achilles Last Stand

In the photo, I have just removed a sock, so that is why the skin is all crinkled around my ankle. But oh, what a bummer man! I cannot run because of either a strained or pulled left achilles tendon. Perhaps it might be the Soleous muscle where it attaches to the Achilles tendon, but neverthess I got this injury because two weekends ago I earned a Gold medal in my age group from the Double Crown road race in Burlington. I ran two races back to back, a 5K and then an 8K with a break in the middle of about 40 minutes. On Monday, two days after the race, I did a hard workout and then came up lame the next morning. I have only been able to run twice since then, and my left ankle area hurts like hell. So, in the meantime, I ride my hybrid bike, a stationary bike, a racing bike, and a spinning bike or any combination of the two in one day for at least two hours. I have lost 4 pounds since the injury. So perhaps this is a blessing in disguise, although many would say 4 pounds is way too much on my frame. Hopefully I will come back soon, and I can still race this Fall. Fingers crossed (that's the expression our tv producers use when updating us on the next Murdoch movies and their funding processes, "fingers crossed" they say, or "we'll keep you posted"). We now have had the glass installed in the shower, the final piece in the bathroom reno, and Maureen is demonstrating to the dogs what can be expected when we use the shower both with and without them. The installers said we must wait 24 hours before we use it so as to let the glue set. Silicone is more like it. Anyway, tonight's the night. Maureen went back to the hospital today because she was feeling a terrible burn in her elbow. The doctor said it was nothing too worry about and to just monitor her body temperature. He said there was no infection. We are both relieved, but she rests alot. It's going to be awhile before she can lead her normal daily life again. Bye for now.

Word On the Street

The annual Word on The Street festival was held for the second year around Queen's Park Circle in Toronto. This was the first outing for Maureen since her accident of two weeks ago. Prior to last year, the festival was held in the trendy Queen Street neighbourhood. But the organizers felt that the new space would allow more exhibitors and freedom of movement by the hordes of people. Bargain hunters are who mostly come to this day. I do not like the new spot and would prefer they go back to Queen St. I know many feel as I do. Maureen did fine and managed to meet up with fans and Bruce, the head of sales at Mcclelland and Stewart. She is making good progress but it will be a while before she feels back to normal again. I am off to see the Rolling Stones tomorrow night for the 11th or 12th time. Everytime there is a Stones show in Toronto, I want to see them. It's embedded in my nervous system. Here comes my 19th nervous breakdown. Not really, just joy that all is well and the future is looking very bright.

Maureen is improving

After one week has gone by since the surgery, I am happy to say a lot of the swelling is going down and her overall condition continues to improve every day. Tomorrow she is off to the hospital to get the post surgical cast removed and either a lighter cast or a sling put on. Thanks to everyone who sent flowers, wishes and prayers. I will continue to update things here as time goes by. We have not heard back from the police at all so I suspect this may be a person who got away with it so to speak. But with all the tv and radio reports, perhaps some leads have been sent along. I assume we will not be told anything until the police lay a charge if indeed they have a suspect.

Black and Blue

Crime against crime author! At approximately 10:45 am on Monday morning Sept 12th, my wife, author Maureen Jennings (The Murdoch Mysteries), was traveling west on Dundas St at Yonge in Toronto on her bike, and was struck in the right hand lane by a hit and run driver who was attempting to pass over to the left lane. 4 people called 911 and the only description of the hit and run vehicle was that is was a black sports car with a rear spoiler. Maureen was taken by ambulance to St Michaels hospital and had to wait 30 hours in emergency before she was given a bed on the 9th floor. The police came and took a report, Constable O'Neill from 51 division was the officer who took the details.She claimed she would be interviewing all parties that phoned 911.The surgery took place Tuesday night Sept 13th and she was discharged Wednesday at 3:00. She has a broken elbow and was severly bruised as you can see by the photos. We are lucky it was not worse.This has caused great stress and pain to Maureen and her family. We have hired a solicitor to help obtain some compensation in this cowardly attack against my wife by a maniac. Thank God she had her helmet on

Ferry Cross the Mersey

Yeah and Gerry and the Pacemakers look older than me thank goodness. Off to Toronto Island for the annual Longboat competition. I of course wimped out and decided to run the 5K instead of the 10K. Part of the decision was due to the fact that I have not raced in about 5 months. So given my low epxpectations, and mixed training I have had over the Summer, I still managed 2nd place in my age group and 14th place overall. I plan to run in something called the double crown next week so this race was more of a tune up for me. Really enjoyed the whole experience. We get the glass shower doors next Tuesday so our bathroomn will be completely done. The last thing we are going to do this year is re-decorate the kitchen. New floor to match the bathroom floor and new paint job. Getting a little overdrawn as we did not expect to spend $4,000 on some new wiring. Need to let the coffers build up, but there is really not much left to do. I am off to see U2 with my nephew tomorrow night. Big month for show, U2, The Stones, and Michael Flatley. Will try to post bootleg photos from the cell phone. Ciao for now.

Dragon Reborn

It's hard to believe that we are on the eve of the broadcast of an adaptation of Maureen's novel Under the Dragon's Tail. Last year at this time, Maureen and I were on the set of Under the Dragon's Tail, right in the center of what is really the make believe, never never land of film and television. Two years ago we went to Winnipeg and stayed at the Fort Garry Hotel, getting picked up by the publicist and taken straight over to the film set where we met Flora Montgomery. Except the Dying and Poor Tom Is Cold, at that time, were in their 3rd week of production and there we were, right in the middle of Maureen's world of fiction, with all her characters and lots of people running around totally focused on just that. It was just an amazing experience. We all thought the production company was going to be able to finance the next two films without much trouble. Not so, as these things are never easy. But they did get enough to do one more, and that is what is on TV tomorrow night, Thursday Sept 8th, on BRAVO television. Keeley Hawes was pregnant last year so she was unable to reprise her role as Dr. Ogden, but she has been written back into the next two scripts, so we will have to wait and see as to when they get the financing to carry on. BRAVO is keen to do more and more. If you live in Canada, I hope you get to watch the show, another wonderful production that many are calling better than the first two. Enjoy!

A man for all sides

One of our Summer highlites was spending two weeks in Ludlow, Shropshire. There is an annual festival oddly enough called The Ludlow Festival and it runs for two weeks at the end of June. The festival has everything from street entertainers to theatre and music, but the big attraction is a Shakespearian play that runs in the castle under the open sky. This year the play was Richard the 2nd. It is a rather mediocre play in that there are no real bad guys similar to the tragedies like Othello and Hamlet who manage to create a fascination and desire to see their comuppance (?). The play is more of a history which we all know was Shakespeare's least interesting work. Unless of course you are a historian fascinated with 16th century Britain. I do love history but find these plays drone on a bit. One good thing that came out of sitting through a very cold evening was a line recited in the first act. "A Journeyman to grief". When I heard this line, I leaned over to Maureen and said: "This should be the title of your next book!" She agreed and that is what her next novel will be called. So I really do love Shakespeare and eventhough the histories can be dull, I think there is always a gem to find in the text. The play was very well staged and the acting superb, but it will be the last time I will see Richard the 2nd, I have had enough of it. The street festival with the buskers yielded up some interesting characters including Queen Victoria and the referee who was quite concerned about us adapting to the football rules they were attempting to establish in the square. All rather amusing. I do miss the English bacon and if I had my druthers and the money I would buy a small house over there to travel to every year.
Bye for now

Attack over Seaton Village

Holiday weekend???
The best thing about Labour Day weekend is often the cooler September weather, and that thousands of people hi-tail it out of the city. Ultimatetly that can mean a peaceful feeling around Toronto before the noise and stress of the coming school year which commences on Tuesday. In our neighbourhood, that is a big deal because we are very close to the campus of the University of Toronto, and have a number of public schools nearby. But no, we've been out of luck as far as quiet goes. The annual Air Show is in full gear as a windup to the CNE this year. I ran like a madman to the window many times to try and shoot a photo of a jet, but sound travels at about the same rate of speed as the planes that have been buzzing our neighbourhood, so I was often late and no photo, only jet noise to piss me off. I decided to try a photo outside and only managed to capture an image that was too small to put on the blog, but nevertheless I HATE THE AIRSHOW. So as you can tell this has been a crappy day for noise, but a lovely day weatherwise and now that it is almost 6:00 so perhaps it will stop.
We had a team of four people in here since Friday cleaning our house. $300 dollars later, I can say that it is done thank God!! But, and I say but, the electrician is coming back on Tuesday to do some more cleanup of old wires, however this time he is going to install a special wire within a wire, outside from the basement, and then up to the third floor. He does not have to bust holes in the walls thank goodness because we have cleaned up the dust and I want a holiday from plaster dust. We're also taking a break from the construction for awhile except for re-hanging the bathroom door. The door currently opens into the bathroom and it hits the toilet seat. So we spent $15,000 completely re-doing the bathroom and nobody thought about the door. I called the contractor and I said this was a big problem for me so he coming back to re-hang it. The other photos are of the Dining Room with our new Chandelier, and of my office with a nice new hardwood floor that I managed to mark already by dragging a book case a few feet. We are still waiting for the glass to be installed in the shower, but I did manage to take a rain shower last night and it was amazing.
I should be able to post to the blog more often now that we have settled the house so bye for now.