Buckets, aka Neil, has been a good ws host to come home to. He's living in a furnished apartment and where the owner is, I don't know. After the emotionally draining day, it was great to come home and talk and joke with Neil. He was making dinner and dumping it into the pan when he said, "it's going to get smokey in here". Within about 15 seconds, I could barely breathe and my eyes started to sting from the chilli peppers vaporizing into the air. I started to cough and as there was not nearly enough time to urinate into a handkerchief, I was forced out onto the balcony while Neil was seemingly immune from the stinging gas. How appropriate I will be visiting the WWI battlefield sites soon.
We covered a wide variety of topics and I was impressed with his encyclopeadic knowledge of music, including Canadian bands. The real owner of the apartment has a variety of books in my sleeping room and some of the titles are quite disturbing. Neil suggested that it didn't matter WHAT kind of books you had but that no one should have 4 metres of one kind of book on their bookshelf. Moderation is the key. There was nothing moderate about the picture hanging over the bed; my brain wouldn't process it at first and was reluctant to put the blurred picture into focus. Many types of people in the world. Neil said it was the deterring factor in why he choose the apt.
I was the beneficiary of Neil's attempt at Soda Bread and as he had a company breakfast to prepare, he started an mass program to bake a bunch of soda bread. I was happy to drink my beer, listen to music, and watch the soda bread being made. Of course, due to the gassing, I could only see a blurry shape through my tear covered eyes but it seemed like that was going on.
I headed out the next morning thanking Neil for his generosity. My first warm showers experience where I didn't have a bike!