Expedition Canada

Vancouver Excursion Mon Jul 25th Gambier Island from the ferry This last week has flown by with an afternoon excursion to Vancouver, an early evening cleaning of Mandala for the Gibsons Regatta at the weekend and two days of exhausting but exhilarating racing. That look of concentration Tuesday I popped over to Vancouver on the lunchtime ferry to pick up a canoe.  It's been on the list for awhile and suddenly a good deal arose, too good to miss.   I stopped off in Kitsilano to drop something off for Nick and Lizzie and had two lovely hours with young Seb who was on great form and even decided to read me a bedtime story! Holding the book on his own and happily chortling away in between the cutest of smiles! He is a delight and at the weekend completed his first BCMC hill climb (strapped to Lizzie) in a pretty commendable 40 mins (3.46km and 800m elevation). The boy did good.  His mum is pretty awesome too!  I'm not sure I'd complete it in the estimated 1.5hrs let alone with

Chips With Everything Sun Jul 17th  First batch of machine mixed sour dough The power in question was for our UK appliances which operate at 220v-240v/50Hz and needed a more specialist (and much more expensive) type of transformer, that also changes the power frequency from the North American 60Hz, as well as the voltage.  It now means we can use our beloved Kenwood as well as my Denon TV/Audio amp, record deck (very frequency sensitive) and Fred's sewing machine - just not all at once.  It was cheaper than the cost of replacing the kit it was purchased to power.   Chips with everything! The chips were for mulching the garden beds.  We had bought several bags of the stuff when we had to modify one of the veg beds and needed to make good, but it was expensive.  In the end we managed to track down a tree surgeon who offered to drop a FREE load off from his 'mulchinator' machine.  I was expecting a cubic metre or so.  We got the whole truck load.  The smell of cedar wafts roun

Six Years On Thu July 7 Blocked Sechelt-Dakota Forest Service Road - Granite! He's getting big! It was a little over six years ago that the Burbage Cronks were last all together.  Nick had travelled  over from Canada to the UK for a big birthday.  Rosalind was the UK .  Last weekend when Nick and Lizzie arrived with young Seb was a grand reunion.    Local walks, baby bonding and our first baby sitting duty while Lizzie went to the gym with Ros.  Great fun.  He is going to be a lad of great taste as he already smiles at my singing.  The Kits team were here until Tuesday with Nick taking over the office to work.   Sunday afternoon Nick and I headed up the Sechelt-Dakota Forest Service Road (FSR) to check out a huge Douglas Fir.  We first came across the tree last year when we walked up to the waterless Dakota Falls.  My interest was because of the Uinversity of British Columbia  Tree Registry , which records particularly old and large Old Growth trees.   UBC has a large and renowned

Family Reunion Sat Jul 2 Sunset over Van Island from the deck I am rather a fan of BC Ferries.  They ply 25 routes with 39 ships around some of the most stunning scenery, moving 22m passengers and 8m vehicles a year according to their website ‘ about us’ .  All three HorseshoeBay berths in use Their staff are friendly, vessels are kept in pretty good order and if they sail past a pod of Orca or the occasional Humpback Whale, they will announce it to passengers, even at the risk of all on board converging to one side of the ship!  But.  You can’t use a debit card or Canada’s Interac system to pay for a booking online, but they both work on a ferry.  The website is clunky, far from intuitive and not mobile friendly.  There is no mobile app to buy or show tickets and their scheduling and crisis management ripples through the fleet when a problem arises.   I popped over to Vancouver on Wednesday.  On my morning journey to Vancouver a former Smith Road neighbour working on food service came