May 9th

3pm: So here we are at a surprisingly quiet Rogers Pass, high up in the mountains on our way back from Kelowna - its been a nice drive, kids well behaved & conditions good. Rogers Pass is a treacherous thoroughfare during the snowy months as avalanches tear down the steep slopes either side of the road - in the summer it is home to hordes of ground squirrels like the chap above, posing for photos, basking in the sun & eating food offered by the coachloads of tourists who pass this way.

April 28th

8.30pm: I stopped in the swirling snowstorm at the PetroCanada service station near Cochrane, the weather has been appalling all day - heavy snow, 90mph winds, generally miserable. I don't want to turn this into a weather blog, but we get such extremes here. Just a week before I was playing football in balmy conditions & now this. I had been for dinner in Calgary with a colleague over from Toronto - he was lucky (in a sense) to get to Calgary given the hurricane force winds that all but closed down the airport.

April 26th

6pm: Out on my bike ride tonight, 35kms or so in the end, I stopped in about the same spot as the photo on this blog from January 6th. Somewhat warmer tonight, I mean like 40 degree centigrade warmer!! A very pleasant ride but one tempered by the knowledge that the storm clouds are gathering & we are in for a spell of weather more like January 6th!!

March 31st

4pm: The stormy snow clouds that have been hanging over the mountains are very evident in this shot that I took on my way home from a day's work in Calgary. Calgary was warmish & clear, Chinook conditions even but as I got closer to Canmore the temperature dropped. Love these views you get on the Trans Canada, something different in the sky or on the ground every time you make that journey. One sure sign of spring is the melting lakes & the arrival of lots of waterfowl migrating north - the freshly arrived black beaked Trumpeter Swans in particular mean that summer is not too horribly far away.