November 4th

 

3pm: On my way back along the TC to Canmore on a beautiful November afternoon, I stopped to capture the front range of the Rockies in all their Western movie glory! Yamnuska to the left, if i was mountain savvy I could name the other peaks - I am not & I can't.



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.

May 7th

9am: On my way from Kelowna up to meet some customers in Armstrong, the weather forecast was calling for thunderstorms & this impressive stack was brewing in the north west beyond the little town of Oyama in the foreground. the storms didn't transpire though & by the time I got back to Kelowna in the evening we had time for a nice dinner at the sushi place on the main drag through town. The kids ended up playing in the little park on the lakefront downtown, but they were exhausted - a result of sharing the sofa bed & the chaos that this entailed.

April 30th

11am: On my way back from the hospital in Banff, I came across this magnificent train near Banff Station. I think it's pulling the tourist train from Calgary to Vancouver - it looked beautiful against the blue skies & white caps behind. Rail travel for passengers in Southern Alberta is all but non-existent, barring this freakishly expensive luxury service. Crimial really - in a landscape made for rail travel. A busy day on the medical front with knee stuff over in Banff at the Hospital & dentist stuff in Canmore - needed a quiet night, and got one!

February 22nd

12pm: Westward bound on the Trans Canada, another glorious day weather wise!

February 18th

8.30am . This innocuous shot is actually a momentous day in the family calendar, it marks the first day in about 4 months that we get sun in our back garden as the sun finally rises high enough to shine over the mountains & forest that we back onto. Here the sun is shining on my little herb patch. From now on we get sunnier & sunnier mornings, culminating in the beautiful mornings we enjoy here in the summer as the sun hits our side of The Valley first & breakfast is taken outside as often as possible. Another momentous day for other reasons, as Charlie was introduced to the potty & took to it like a duck to water - not sure if that figure of speech is the best descriptor, but he seemed to enjoy the new experience anyway.

February 9th

4.15pm. Me & my shadow......on the Highway upto Edmonton I noticed the car's shadow ahead, alongside and behind us depending on the heading of the road. It was a 3 hour straight trip from Calgary, no traffic, perfect driving conditions but little scenery of note to take pictures of & I knew it would be dark by the time I got to E-town, so this was a good way to depict my day of driving.

February 7th

1pm: Canmore's Olympians assemble before the adoring masses prior to their departure for Vancouver later this week. Tabby is bottom right in this picture, with the pale blue ski pants on!! She is not participating in any Olympic events of course, but was one of the local kids - from the XC Skiing club - who paraded earlier down Main Street with the team & formed a guard of honour as they approached the Town Hall. A stupendously beautiful day in Canmore, warm , sunny & as usual a tremendous sense of community abounded - Main Street itself had been converted into a cross country ski course & we spent an hour or so afterwards shuttling up & down the tracks with family & friends. Credit here also to Paul for taking the picture, I couldn't get near the front - so passed him my camera. So good luck to George, Stef, Ivan & the rest of the team - bring back some medals guys!!

January 31st

1pm: Katz's Delicatessen is a fixture on the Lower East Side on the corner of Houston & Ludlow. 100+ years old & looking pretty much the same inside that it must have done in the Sixties/Seventies. Once inside it's a mosh pit of shouting, scurrying staff and bemused punters - myself included - trying to work out the ordering system. Katz's is famous for it's pastrami on rye and that is what I ordered - you get a taster from your sandwich maker at the counter before he assembles the most monstrous sandwich you will ever see - I had mine fully loaded with mustard & pickles, but I could only eat a half of it & needed no further sustenance for the rest of the day. The food? Well it was OK - not mind blowingly good, but the pastrami was fresh & tasty, the rye bread so-so, the pickles distinctly average and the ambiance - amazing!

January 23rd

2pm: A full day at Norquay skiing in the morning with Tabby prior to her lesson & then just messing about with Charlie in the snow. A beautiful sunny day that culmiated, on Tabby's insistence, in a visit to The Drake for an apres-ski pub dinner - perfect!

January 20th

3.30pm: The Olympic Flame comes to Canmore enroute to Vancouver. Great excitement in town as a bunch of people ran around carrying a torch before some dull speeches & guff about changing the world - good family fun & a lovely atmosphere that matched the warm, sunny weather  ... BUT.... it was more about the Coca Cola sponsorship than anything else, loads of free coke on offer & everything emblazened with their logo. Charlie came back saying he wanted some more Coca-Cola, job done for those guys :-(

January 7th

The unmistakeable Mount Yamnuska, peaks out at 7400ft & is the first real mountain as you head west into the Rockies. It's located just before the village of Exshaw. I snapped this view from Hioghway 1 on my way into Calgary this morning, as the sun was rising & casting a golden glow on the sheer walls of the mountain, the surrounding forests & slopes still in the cold shadows.

January 6th

A bitterly cold (-25C or thereabouts) but beautifully sunny day in Canmore. Here we see Cascade Mountain in the background, the Rundle Range on the left, The main road is the Trans Canada Highway which links Canmore with the town of Banff. It was so cold that I didn't have a lot of time to compose & think about the picture, hence the unsightly cables stretching across the picture!!