Bluenosing around

I've been visiting my Nova Scotian hometown for the past few weeks, trying to find myself. Since I'm still busy looking, I haven't yet updated on the goings on here on Canada's sweet, albeit misty North Atlantic Coast. Most has to do with whales, lakes and wondering how everyone from my graduating class in high school has managed to get married and pop out a few kids already.

If you find me, please return me to London, England by August 1st, so I can update this ol' blog properly.

Chipstick it

As a Canadian living in England, it's confusing enough for me to have to call fries chips, and chips crisps, but to make chips that look like fries, or rather crisps that look like chips, or chip-crisps and call them chipsticks?

England, you mess with my head.

If you are what you eat, I'm an identity crisis.

Greasy breakfast = Modern romance

"It's brilliant," my boyfriend said with the kind of enthusiasm he usually reserves for sweets. "We really, really have to get some."

The opportunist in me agreed wholeheartedly. If he was that excited about buying a Lush massage bar, I'd be a fool to dissuade him. But then he went on.

"This massage oil really is just so nice," he said, sniffing each tester in the shop's display. "Mmmm." And he paused thoughtfully before adding, "Really, really nice."

It was that last "really nice" that busted open the Pandora's box of things to strategically ignore for the benefit of any modern romance, and the ghost of one of his ex-lovers popped out to tell me just how nice she thought the massage oil was too.

"How exactly did you find out you like this stuff so much?" my inner-masochist prodded, and in the same breath I asked him not to answer that. He knew what I was thinking though, and just as much as my face didn't conceal jealous discomfort, his didn't conceal annoyance.

"How exactly did you find out you like sex so much?" he countered.

That shut me up.

With a little breath, I locked Pandora's box again and reminded myself that having a boyfriend who likes to give massages is far better than one who doesn't – no matter how he developed a taste for it, or the skills. You can read further into that if you want.

So we went back to the task at hand, and agreed on our favourite scented oil, which was easy, because we both liked the same one.

But the universe couldn't just leave it at that.

The next day an old fling found me on Facebook and sent the message that he'd been "thinking fondly of old times". While that fling was brief and lacked long-term significance, I realised I hadn't walked away empty-handed. In fact, he'd taught me something I've gone on to share with most of my friends – something just as, if not more intimate than massage oil ... breakfast.

Delicious, delicious breakfast – and I make a mighty fluffy scrambled eggs with cream cheese.

This is what dating looks like in England.

Privacy piracy: In a home near you

"What I want to see is pure, unadulterated blogging – a total exposé."

It's a gutsy thing to say considering I've just moved in with him. But he meant it, and I knew it, because he's the sort of man who likes to get down to the gritty uncomfortable truth of ... everything.

My other new flatmate, his long-term partner and also my friend (the one who brought me along as her fashion assistant for a day) immediately clocked the risks, "No, no, no, no, no!"

The rest of their dialogue was lost on me, with both arguments presented simultaneously, enthusiastically, and with English accents, so I only caught her "last word", which went something like this:

"...because I don't want the world to read about my shit taste in films and your insane rants!"

With that, she won.

I assured them I'd never expose their private life on my blog – despite that I find them both to be fascinating individuals and exponentially so as a couple. Besides, they've been loving enough to offer me their spare room in a beautiful area of London, helping make it a little less expensive for a bit and a lot more likely I'll be able to stay. That, and it was only my first night here.

Then, illustrating her point, we settled in with a glass of Merlot to watch the last half of Bridges of Madison County – still on pause since I arrived with my bags an hour earlier – and then he led a short analytical discussion about family values and gender inequalities.

While I made a quiet little wish about how I hope these two stay together forever, I also decided to make an exception to my promise, and write about them ... just this once.

This is to illustrate how I'm not actually invading my sweet friends' and benefactors' privacy – except maybe just a little.

Touching famouses

"Jake Gyllenhaal kayaked past me with [so-and-so] in Mexico."

And with that, she'd won the celebrity-spotting competition. So-and-so was a reference to some annoyingly famous and annoyingly hot young actress, but I don't remember who. After she said Jake Gyllenhaal and kayak, I was too turned on to listen.

My entry was thrilling but weak, as I'd recently brushed by Claudia Schiffer at the toilets during London Graduate Fashion Week. Dammit. I should've faked a stumble and grabbed her on my way down.

Damn me and the poorly timed instinct to play it cool – it hardly ever kicks in – why then? I surely would've won with, "I scared the piss out of Claudia Schiffer at the toilets."