VANCOUVER - One Fine Day in Suburbia

The early school run is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God to mankind. Maybe not the actual drive itself; depending on how snarled up the highway is (darn commuters) but there's a blissful hour or two straight afterwards when normal people are still asleep when you can put the dog in the back of the car, drive off to the provincial park of your choice and go watch the end of sunrise over the bay without any distractions. There's the odd other person winding through those forest paths with their dogs at their heels; you won't see any of them nattering away on their phones, or being distracted by a diary. The world won't wake up for another half an hour, and they're making the most of it.


Another gorgeous Vancouver skyline. Will I ever get bored of them? Not likey.

I have been able to make this discovery through my recent acquisition of a house, children and a cat and a dog. Not my own, I hasten to add (I'm sure my girlfriend will be relieved to hear it) but those of some of the parishioners at St. Francis who I am housesitting for whilst they are off to the other side of the Atlantic for the better part of a fortnight. Which means I am the parent substitute for Geoff (16) and Maggie (13). Or, to put it more rightly: the guy that drives the car to school, football practice or the stables. Ah yes, the stables. This being West Vancouver, this level of housesitting comes with a free ticket to the world of the desperate housewife. My initiation began with lattes and a yoga class (which, if you're suitably lazy about it, boils down to a relative peaceful lie down away from the driving rain outside) and has seen me spending my Saturday at the stables trying to work out how to attach a pair of Mickey Mouse ears to a horse's bridle for a costume competition. And then doing the same for Angel the dog in time for a Halloween styled video evening.


Continuing the ever so infrequent Phil's Phworld series of cute animal pictures: Angel as Snow White. Awww.

A few days in and I can safely say that the desperate housewife's lifestyle does seem very compatible with the writer's. There's ample opportunities for hours of peace and quiet, which can be filled to the rafters with all sorts of little distractions in the kitchen or around the house if you so want them to be. Sadly there hasn't been much opportunity to resume novel duties in between scouring the classifieds for apartments and scooting round town in my lovely little red Mercedes. Yes, you heard right: little red Mercedes... Yes, I know what you're all thinking. And, no, I don't see any threat to my legendary masculinity from my new homemaker stylings. But just to get the obvious question out of the way: no, I shall not be putting myself in for a bikini wax. I don't care how many hours of free time I have in the week.

ADDENDUM: I discovered the fabulous Celebrity face matcher at Heritage.com and am posting the results here for everyone's perusal. I'm guessing that snooker's Anthony Hamilton and acting's James McAvoy are not in the database since, although I'd love to think that I have similar bone structure to Billy Boyd, I can't quite see it. Nethertheless; he, Mr. Sarah Michelle Gellar and 'that guy from N-Sync- join the long list of people guilty of the most heinous crime of stealing my face.