November 8th

7pm: A day off today & so what am I doing on a plane? Well flying it actually, this was the rather wonderful Xmas present that Nicky had given me last year. A session on the flight simulator near Calgary Airport. An amazing experience as the thing is so life like, it moves around & you actually fly over Calgary, or Canmore or in this case sit on the runway at Vancouver having just landed. I really enjoyed it, great fun at the end when the kids came & joined me - they thought they were actually flying. I had taken a single real flying lesson back in about 1999 in London & loved it, even thought about getting my pilot's license. We ended up taking Tabby for Sushi at the Sushi boat restaurant in Calgary because let's not forget, it was her sixth birthday today!! Tabby had spent the morning in a private pottery making class, i think she enjoyed that as much as I did my aviation experience.

November 5th

 

8pm: Guy Fawkes goes up in flames much to the astonishment of the kids & if truth be told our neighbours Chuck & Wendy. I was determined to celebrate a British cultural event & although fireworks are banned & the fire had to be managed very carefully so as not to set the forest a few yards away at the end of our garden ablaze - I got the message home. Chuck & Wendy joined us for a bonfire night meal of Bangers & Mash, the kids had sparklers & for a while we were back in the old country.....



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 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 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 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 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.

September 28th

8pm: Spent this evening with Tabby & Charlie making mixes for their new CD player. They have got the music bug big time, wonder how long they will be listening to my taste in music before peer pressure takes over.

September 25th

4pm: We enjoyed a day out in Calgary today, fabulous sunny weather at last. After lunch in Kensington, at a really nice Vietnamese (what else in YYC) restaurant - we made our way over to Inglewood. Inglewood is a developing neighbourhood with funky little arty shops & a Harley Davidson dealership where a glamour photo shoot was going on in the parking lot where we had left our car. It involved gleaming bikes &  a scantily dressed young lady! The kids were a bit bemused by it all..........not something you see every day.

September 24th

5pm: Finally a chance to see young Gavin, George & Lesley's new son. We missed the dramatic birth as we were in Oregon & then the new family headed off to Rosland in BC for a month. So today it was great to meet him. He is off course, super cute & was impeccably behaved. Looking forward to watching him grow up...

September 18th

4pm: Driving back from Banff to Canmore, the recent snow evident on the Three Sisters. We were in Banff for Tabby's climbing lessons today - she seemed to enjoy it. I have to say by the age of nearly 6, she has participated in -  by a comparative stage - a load more things than I probably ever did. Climbing, skiing, XC skiing, skating, minor soccer, mountain biking, hiking - the list is endless. I wonder what I had done by the time I was 6 years old & living in sleepy old Bradford-on-Avon back in the UK.

September 6th

1pm: Finally the weather warmed up a smidgen & we had a nice little Bank Holiday hike up to Heart Creek near Lac des Arcs. Negotiating our way round large, meandering groups of Chinese day-trippers from Calgary - we eventually had the trail to ourselves. The kids enjoyed going off trail & hiking up some steep inclines. On the way back I snapped this beautiful Astarte Fritillary enjoying some rare sun.

September 4th

12.15pm: We headed up to Kananaskis country today, I wanted to do a bit of fishing & we have a favourite spot on Mud Lake . Well the day started off quite fine, but about an hour into the trip the skies predictably darkened, the thunder rang out around the mountains ( much to the discomfort of poor Charlie) and the rain poured down with a vengeance. End of trip!

August 30th

8.20am: Big day today, Tabby's first day at full time school. Here she is with some of her friends as the excitement builds waiting for the yellow school bus to arrive. Cameras & video cams everywhere as the next batch of kids was dispatched off for all the joys that school brings. Only seems like yesterday that she was learing to crawl, toddle & all the rest..........

August 28th

4pm: Calgary Farmers Market - the last stop on a day out in Calgary which took in Good Earth at Aspen Landing for breakfast, Fatburger for lunch & a few stops in between. Kids enjoyed themselves & came back with a few treats - Tabby received her first little CD player. A nice family day out, even if mummy wasn't there.

August 27th

4pm: Tabby on the final day of her art camp - looks like she enjoyed herself creating pictures & the like. We had a little show with the kids at the end - very sweet. Charlie refused daycare & was rewarded with a day in front of TV.

August 26th

6pm: Huge drama this afternoon, as we sat down for supper a monumental gust of wind blew through the neighbourhood - uprooting this big old Spruce tree in front of Tabby's eyes. Extremely lucky that it fell away from us, shudder to think what would have happened if it had fallen on us. Further down the road, trees had fallen onto houses causing damage & the local fire department spent the rest of the evening on our street chopping & sawing down dangerous trees. Tabby was distraught, as this was her favourite tree. Wendy next door was really helpful in trying to clam her down - Charlie was still shell shocked from his traumatic first day in Daycare - Nicky missed all the fun!!

August 25th

11pm: Nicky has headed back across the Atlantic for her dad's 70th birthday. I am going to attempt to work around the kids - Tabby is at an art camp, Charlie is heading for the first time to daycare - not sure he is going to like it. We will find out tomorrow, as you can see Nicky is somewhere between Canada & Greenland as we speak...