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.

May 6th

2pm: I stopped in Revelstoke on the way down to Armstrong where i was meeting a customer, Revelstoke in bout 3 hours west of Canmore. It seems like a nice place, certainly in the sun & greenery it was more inviting than back home - which was cold & even a bit snowy when we left. Another 2 hours to Armstrong from here. It was election day back home I kept fully upto date with the dramatic events via twitter!!

May 5th

11pm: Off to BC tomorrow for work, it's a 5 hour drive over the Rockies & away from snow & frost - the weather forecast isn't great but compared to here it's positively tropical!!

May 4th

6.15pm: First Minor Soccer session & Tabby is playing yet again for the Squirrels - they hammered the poor old Marmots 4-0 in the opening game. Tabby definitely stronger & with more technique this season, although the attention span of a goldfish & like the rest of the kids suffering in the sub-zero temperatures. We had our first official training session later that evening, I think I have contracted frostbite - it was appalling weather - not very enjoyable to be honest but we had an incredible turnout of players - nationalities included Chilean, Brazilian, Japanese, Czech, German, Polish, Dutch, Jamaican, Scottish, English & the odd Canadian.

May 3rd

11.45am: Music Monday at Tabby's school - all the kids in the various grades performed to varying levels of accomplishment - Tabby & the gang performed a nice little song. It was a pleasure to see the hard work that went into the performances, some talented kids - not least a quartet of local Native Indians who performed an excellent number.

May 2nd

11pm: The partially zested skin of one of the lemons used in the mousse I knocked together earlier this evening. It really was a cooking kind of day - a bit too cold to really do anything, although I managed a 40km bike ride earlier that afternoon & got the kids out for a bit of a run around in the park.

May 1st

9pm: Catherine MacLellan & The Olympic Symphonium at the Communitea Cafe in Canmore. I quite enjoyed the opening act, maybe a touch too melancholy for my mood at the time but quite exceptionally gifted musicians. Catherine M. was different class as well, a kind of Laura Cantrell/Eillen Jewell hybrid (which is just about perfection in my book) she came with a neat repertoire of pretty frank songs about her life experiences. Her dad wrote Snowbird, one of the all time classic MOR songs - I didn't realise the family connection until afterwards, it might have explained the somewhat mature audience - probably reminiscing back to the days that particular song made it big in 1971!! Earlier we had George & Lesley round for a really nice Viertnamese flavoured lunch on the deck, al fresco as well..........