London, Ontario very Urban and rural and spread out.

I liked the apartment I saw with the 25 yr old male room mate that has a 2 yr old son. It was on the 10th floor. The building itself was very child friendly. He was also willing to give up his master bedroom and take the smaller. He was a nice looking man, with blond hair, about 6ft tall, he obviously worked out and he had a slender body. Not that looks matter because I am married. However, I believe how a person looks shows how dedicated, hard working and motivated one is, if they can look the best to their potential when meeting others for the first time. This is more than I can say for some of the places we looked at. There was this one apartment, with a 47 yr old woman and her 45 yr old partner. They both seemed very nice and friendly. However, they were smokers and they did smoke in the house, although they said they did not. She was a round woman with strawberry blond hair. She had a blue, flowered swim suit on with blue jogging shorts and her breasts sagged down. Her Partner was also a tall, about 6'4ft man, he had facial hair and curly, wild dark brown hair and he wore glasses. He was also a well rounded man. Although he carried all his weight at the bottom which seeped through his over sized gray t-shirt. Her name was Rose, she offered us a coffee, we just asked for water. It was a very hot humid day. Rose had a cat and the litter box was in the centre of the living room. That could have also made the living room smell foul. In any case, there was a sadness in her eyes, the same sadness that I see in most smokers. A vulnerability on the inside, so deep but a toughness and rough exterior on the outside. They were from Newfoundland. She seemed lonely to me and I looked through her tear filled eyes and I could sense a desperate need for companionship. Rose said she had never worked a day in her life, she had two sons. Rose asked if Tom was the real father of Markus. I thought it was strange to not assume that the man that is with a child and woman is not the father. Yet, as we saw more apartments and met more people, I began to realize how urban and rural London is. The people I met all were single parents in either relationships with other parents. Most of those people smoked and there was a toughness to their exterior that I have seen many times in my life before when I grew up in Kitchener on Mowat. We did not have a lot of money, but my dad was educated and my mom worked all her life, born and raised in Germany from well to do parents. We did not fit in with the people on Mowat but somehow we got a long. Many people were on well fare, could not afford to feed and cloth their kids, my mom used to feed many kids in the neighbourhood. As we grew, many friends began smoking and drinking. They talked tough and swore a lot but deep inside, they were kind, vulnerable, sweet and still a child.

Anyway, I saw that in London with the 23 yr old girl with a son. Erin, she told us her son was at his father's, so we could not meet him and how is father cheated on her and does drugs. The question Tom and I were thinking is why did you let him take your son for the week if he does drugs. Erin said that he is a good father and does not do drugs around her son. However, in order to be a good father, you have to be clean all around. I don't think you can have one without the other. Well, Erin seemed nice, but her apartment was a mess. It was on the hoarder borderline. I know that she still had a room mate that was coming to pick up her stuff. By time I come, if I choose to take the apartment, it would be cleaned out. I did not judge her apartment or her based on the way it looked, I would still take the apartment if it was convenient and I could clean it. However, I could tell she smoked inside. It was still a 20 minute bus ride from the school and I don't know how much studying I would get done.

I am going on Saturday again to view some bachelor apartments that are about a 35 minute walk to the school and a one bedroom that is a 5 minute walk but 4 other teacher college students live there. That would be the most convenient, but Markus would have to go with Tom and have my friend Magda watch him during the day.

Driving through London, on Sunday was hell. It started to hail around Ingersoll, I was driving, so I had to pull over on the side of the highway until the rain cleared up. I could not see anything. Other cars had the same idea in mind. When we approached London, it had never rained or hailed there. It was sunny. It was like being in another country. We went to Victoria park, where sunfest was going on. I ran into Paul, whom I used to date. Our break up was bad. We did not have the best relationship. Now, he runs a company called Nharo, he is one of the faces of fair trade and he goes from Africa to Canada to sell artisans for reasonable prizes. I talked to him for a little while and introduced him to my son. It was awkward and he did not know what to say. He said about being pregnant, at least you got to miss a few periods for a while. It came out of nowhere upon meeting Markus, so I could tell he was nervous.

I tried to facebook him and send him a message, but he has not responded yet, so I am assuming that he is not interested in any kind of communication with me. I was his worst break up because he fell in love with me and asked me to marry him and I said no. So, I am the one that broke his heart. For me, it was nice to see him. I have actually dreamed of that moment, meeting him again after all these years. Not in a romantic way, but it could be the start of a new and improved friendship. The meeting did not go the way I had imagined to be in my head.

Overall, things are coming together. We are spending a lot of money on gas to get to London and back, but I am improving on my driving abilities. I am getting a lot of support and Tom is starting to see that he needs to step up and be a father without parental involvement or me. So, it will be a new direction for both of us.