October 31st

8pm. The Halloween festivities continue, it really is a major event over here. Here earl;y into the evening Tabby & Charlie sit on the steps of George & Lesley's house having collected their first candy of the night. After this we drove back to our neighbourhood & made the rounds with some local family friends. Everything went well, except for one miserable house full of dope smoking losers who told the kids to get lost - I hope they get a visit form the local poltergeists soon. I say everything went well, towards the end of the evening, high on sugar Charlie fell over & split his lip - the chicken suit became somewhat blood spattered & the evening drew to a rather teary close - they had a great time though & collected a huge mound of candy, which i manages to recycle to the kids who came knocking on our door long after ours had gone to bed.

October 30th

 

7pm. It's Saturday night, All Hallows Eve & in one of the new Condo complexes in downtown Canmore there is a haunted house. The kids are not too sure about it, Charlie barely crossed the threshold before a ghoul popped his head out of a hatch & scared the sweet bejesus out of him. He fled & kept a considerable distance away from the entrance while his sister bravely went round with her mum. Great fun & hopefully poor Charlie wont be getting nightmares tonight!





October 29th

 

1pm,. Centre Street, Calgary. A stupendously glorious day today as the weather turns yet again. It's been a very warm, mild autumn & long may it continue. I was here for the day working, but sapped this shot from the sunroof of the car as I headed downtown.



October 28th

 

6pm. Poor Charlie, he is destined to spend Halloween as a chicken - for what reason I know not. He doesn't seem too fussed about it in fairness, i think he is glad to have full hand access for unwrapping sweets & clutching buckets/baskets for collecting the aforementioned candies. Trial run today, the outfit fits like a glove!



October 27th

9pm: My kitchen is overflowing with apples & I am the one buying & eating them! What is so special about this? Well generally the apples over here are truly foul - waxy, glossy balls of mealy nothingness. Genetically modified to hell & I avoid them at all costs. However for just a few sweet weeks, Blush Lane Market in Calgary brings in from it's own orchard in BC, a bumper crop of Cox's Orange Pippins - a beautiful blast from home, i adore them & for these blissful weeks i devour them in great quantities before sadly the supply dries up & the only alternative once again is the monstrosities in the supermarkets.

October 26th

 

3pm. Its turned a bit cold & the snow is back, not much but enough toreally underline the advent of winter & the end of the gardening season.



October 25th

 

 10pm: Our kitchen table is constantly strewn with books as Tabby plows ahead with her reading, she is doing very well & certainly enjoys it - not to be outdone Charlie insists on having books read to him all the time & even listens intently while Tabby reads.



October 24th

2pm. We went for a downtown Canmore walk with George, Lesley & baby Gavin today - it was nice to see them & to wonder through the autumn air. A simple stroll & a bite to eat at the end - very nice way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon.

October 23rd

10pm. My little indoor garden is starting to grow, the basil is doing best - it smells wonderful!

October 22nd

9pm. I ordered myself a new guitar today in Calgary, a beautiful custom made Fender Telecaster which will take about 6 months to be built & shipped up to Calgary from California. I also bought a Twin Reverb amp, a serious beast of an amp which will rattle the windows. That should arrive a bit sooner, I also rented my self a little Mexican tele to mess around with - here it is after some serious practise. Man i love the guitar - why didn't I start earlier?

October 21st

3pm: The last produce from the garden was a bunch of super sweet little carrots. The kids loved these unadorned, crunchy & tasting about as carroty as you can get! The garden is no more for 2010!

October 20th

7.30am. A lovely sunrise over the Trans Canada highway as I head into Calgary for work. The mornings are getting much darker & somewhat chilly as Autumn makes way for Winter.

October 19th

 

10pm. I was presented with this lovely piece of 3yo old artwork by Charlie today, who is obviously busy at preschool - i love all their paintings & drawings, our house is an art gallery of Tabitha & Charlie creations.



October 18th

 

7.30pm. Much fun tonight as I took a very eager Tabby down to the local library for a worm composting workshop, after an introduction from our genial teacher, we got down to work. This is the result, a plastic box, filled with damp newspaper & a handful of worms. These little critters will eat anything edible thrown their way - we can save the Earth by feeding them leftover vegetable peelings, eggshells, mouldy fruit & the like - thus avoiding our waste going to waste & come the spring the resulting bio-mulch will help my own plants thrive in the garden. Above all though Tabby had so much fun doing this, her questions were hilarious & she even set about naming the worms, although how she will tell them apart I do not know!

October 17th

10am - I took an early flight keen to get home & to see the family, the sun shone all the way & I had a great view of Calgary shining in the morning sun as we flew in, but the best view was looking straight down as we made our final descent from the east.

October 16th

2pm: One of the best days of the year, certainly one I had been looking forward to for a very long day. Yes it was a beautiful autumn day in this most beautiful city, yes i had a great cup of coffee on Granville Island in the sunshine, yes here I am stretching my legs along the rive below Stanley Park. Yes I had a great plate of sushi for lunch - but above all I got to see my beloved Teenage Fanclub play tonight, an awesome show - i was right at the front, practically under Norman's nose such was the low stage - they were magical as usual - even though he politely declined to play Shock & Awe. I first saw them as a penniless student nearly 20 years ago in Manchester, hard to believe how circumstances change & time flies! An unforgettable night.

October 15th

11pm: I wish I could post something momentous about this day, but it was just work, work, work! As ever I am in the Sandman on West Georgia, where the staff know my name! It's late & I have forgotten to take a picture..

October 14th

 

8am Calgary Airport & this is my never-to-be plane heading to Vancouver. We boarded as normal but then sat there for an eternity before the captain informed us that the computer on the plane was broken. Dutifully we de-planed & waited for a replacement, I arrived in Vancouver hours later - but better to find out the computer was down while at the gate then 38,000ft over the Rockies I guess.



October 13th

5pm: Five years ago today we landed in Canada, I still remember the awe as we drove down Highway 1 towards Canmore for the first time that afternoon. Me, Nicky & am 11month old Tabby. Lots of ups & downs since then, mostly ups it has to be said. We love living in Canmore, an incredible place - we have been accustomed to incredibly freezing winter days or blazing hot, high altitude summer days. We have thought about going back to the UK at times, but family apart - what is there to draw us back at the moment?

October 12th

11pm: The first signs of life in the Aerogarden as tiny basil shoots appear!

October 11th

11am: Canadian Thanksgiving - a public holiday & supposedly a day for Roast Turkey & the like. We choose to ignore these traditions. Roast Turkey if for any time, is for Christmas in my book. So we spent the day as a family out & about including a morning trip to the little play park up the road & the much loved tyre swing.

October 10th

3pm: Our Indian summer continues, a warm but windy day - typical Chinook conditions. We took the kids to Quarry Lake for some kite flying, but as with the fishing trip a while back, we ended up with a tangled mess of line & tantrums. Eventually we just cut the line free & gave them a small leash with which to fly the kits, they had great fun running up & down the slopes, with kite trailing in the wind behind them. The session ended with the inevitable chucking of stones into water.

October 9th

10pm; I took delivery today of an Aerogarden, an indoor garden that will provide the right light, moisture & nutrients to grow almost any type of plants. I went for the herb module (no, not marijuana!) - with basil, chives, oregano, mint, thyme & dill. We will see if it works, I just though it would be cool to have something growing during the chill depths of winter.

October 8th

1pm: The spectacular trestle railway bridge at Lethbridge, Alberta : I had to make the 3 hour drive down to Lethbridge for work today. It was another gorgeous Fall day & actually pretty hot down here in the South (25C at least). Lethbridge is a nice town,  maybe a bit windy/dusty for my liking but surrounded by lush countryside, with the pass that leads you into Southern BC a 150kms to the west. Still a good drive & with a stop off in bustling Okotoks on my way back, a long day.

October 7th

11.45am: I popped down to Charlie's pre-school today to witness the arrival of the Fire Brigade & local mascot - Sparky the Fire House dog. The kids of course loved him & Sparky did his thing, posing for photos & demonstrating the stop, drop, roll procedure for anyone who finds themselves afire! A gorgeous day again, with the market in full swing. Canmore at it's best. Here Charlie, Sparky & Lucas pose for a photo in front of the engine.

October 6th

8pm: Glad to be on a plane westbound & back home after another difficult day. Here we are flying over Lake Sakakawea in North Dakota on a lovely evening.

October 5th

2pm: A work day today in Mississauga - highly stressful given the goings on recently at the company I work for. I missed a rare Charlton live TV game. Watching it later I was amazed to see a comprehensive victory over the MK Dons - here is a photo  I took from my laptop of interviewees Scott Wagstaff & Kyel Reid. I missed the company Go-Karting ( which i wasn't sorry about) but enjoyed a good meal with colleagues somewhere in downtown Toronto - in fact I ate for the first time escargots, which I now thoroughly recommend.

October 4th

3pm: So here I am again, at Calgary International Airport on my way across to Toronto for work meetings. Leaving behind a sweltering Calgary day by the looks of it.

October 3rd

11pm: One problem with a dry spell is the loss of humidity at this altitude, to keep my guitars from crumbling to dust I have to whack the humidifier to its highest level in my little basement studio/office.

October 2nd

11am: We made the most of a glorious Canmore Fall morning by heading down to the park by the river. The kids threw stones into the Bow River & then Charlie decided to start running in the shallow water lapping the beach - of course within minutes he fell in & was completely soaked - thus curtailing the trip. It was good fun though & very funny.

October 1st

1pm: A day off to enjoy the warm weather that has suddenly arrived. Time to start putting away the garden for the year, with the help of young Charlie. Warm enough afterwards to have lunch on the deck as well.