Warming up the flat, working for free

You see, some people in this world deserve a break, and my boss John at the cafe is definitely one of those people. He opened the café a little less than a year ago, and works 12 hours a day if not more, everyday. He is often inclined to give people free coffees and attempts to treat every patron with respect and dignity – even if they are bums on the street. Also, he has given Marian a pretty sweet gig because she is allowed to work when she would like M-F for 4 hours/day (unless business is particularly slow). This has helped greatly with allowing us to plan trips and to help pay bills and for fun stuff. So as a thank you John and Marian volunteered to work for John for a full day at no cost to him so he could have a full day off and sleep in for the first time in months. We completed this offer on a Thursday before we left for Northland so John would get a nice day off before Marian was away for a week. Sorry, it does get a bit confusing with the two Johns.

That Saturday, we had a flat warming party with our flatmates and mostly their friends. Although, we were able to drag a few friends of our own as well. The theme of the party was “the Olympics,” so you will see that Marian dressed as a sunburned mountain sporting person of some sort. Mom’s old ski coat worked as a great asset. John chose to go with the “too cool for the Olympics” (although he did say his theme was "Olympic Spectator" without any the athletes would not make any money) until it got cold, at which point, he put on a Nike running shirt and was subsequently teased for finally deciding to join in. Nevertheless, it was a successful flatwarming party, with the party making its way downtown later that evening. However, the only flatmate that actually made it downtown was Matt, the rest of us decided that the party at the house was enough fun for us. John and Marian were particularly happy because the next day they were leaving for a Northland adventure!

Here is Marian with Matt's friend the wrestler and our friends Angie and Dave (who were unaware of the theme party)


The hair seen in this picture is our flatmate Phillipa rocking out to Bohemian Rhapsody


Here is Marian with another skier and our flatmate Claire who has her hands up with the boxing gloves.