Beans Means Heinz

Thu Oct 19th

But which ones? An excursion to our local supermarket the other day left me curious about the difference between the original Heinz Baked Beans sold in Canada and the British Style sold alongside. After a bit of research it appears it is not limited to just to basic styles and the original baked beans in Canada may be different again to those sold in the USA.

One video I stumbled across Original v British Baked beans suggested the British Style had less sugar. It went on to say that the British Style were different to the original beans sold in the UK. Commentators in the USA indicated their 'original beans' were darker, sweeter and had a more smoky flavour through the addition of pork. By this stage I decided I'd bean dwelling on this far too long, and gave up!

Turnstone

In the last blog I posted a picture of what I thought was a Least Sandpiper. My personal birding advisor (PBA), who I worked alongside in BBC days, (he lectures, give talks and leads birdwatching tours around the world and knows the difference between a farmyard goose and something more exotic) dropped me an email and gently suggested he thought it might be a Turnstone, similar to those in the UK. Further research leads me to believe he is right. So the fella on the right is a Turnstone, not a Least Sandpiper.

It is not the first time he has corrected my errors or that of our former boss of some years ago, who proudly came into the office touting a picture of an unusual bird. My PBA had to advise him even more gently, that it was in fact .... a farmyard goose! I think even I might have spotted that!

Go England

Monday Oct 9th was Thanksgiving and Nick, Lizzie and Seb came over from Lynn Valley (North Vancouver) for the long weekend. It was a weekend of walks, rugby, Seb and Jack entertainment and a visit to the local pumpkin patch.

Seb came ready to support his favourite international team in the tournament, Canada didn't make it though to the RWC, carrying the household fly-swat around, perhaps in the hope it would be indicative of the way the England team might deal with the opposition. On that he was to be dissapointed, even if they managed not to lose.

Aside from Jack, the highlight for Seb was probably the pumpkin patch, where he got in amongst the piglets, checked out the pumpkins and got to sit on a real tractor. I hope the tractor owner had a reset switch somewhere on board when he came to start it as Seb pressed, turned and pushed every button, knob and lever.

At around 0830 of Thanksgiving Saturday as we were getting into gear for the day we heard a fire truck coming up into Bonniebrook, something they rarely do. Peering out past our front deck it appeared to be snowing ash and a trail of smoke was heading out to sea.

The house behind this one

A peak out of our rear deck and a house fire was raging to the rear of the house directly/diagonally behind us.

The sirens of emergency vehicles continued for the next half hour by which time we learnt the house was no longer! Fire crews spent most of their time damping down the three adjoining properties, a boat and three cars (one a classic corvette) all of which were destroyed by the heat.

The family who lived there got out just in time, alerted by their smoke alarm, but without any possessions. We have not been up to take a look, but it was a sobering experience nevertheless.

The Friday after Thanksgiving an old friend and colleague arrived. He'd spent two days on the Rocky Mountaineer from Banff following the completion of his photography trip around New England. We have known each other for some 35 years and always enjoy our get-togethers.

We spent a day exploring Vancouver, before heading to the Coast. On the Sunday another Brit who we know from the Coast and our dog walking routes, also a fellow rugby fanatic, came over to watch the England V Fiji game. He lives on Hopkins Landing, one of our favourite walks when we lived in Langdale.

Rugby spectators... Ridgeback not amused

I don't know if any reader can work out the probability of this, but it turned out they played rugby together, including a BBC Rugby Club tour to Guernsey some 40 years ago. One was a fly half the other in the scrum. I'll leave you to work out which was which.

We all come across unusual coincidences but this has to be one of the most amazing I have encountered.

A week of strolls along the Coast, the odd brewery, an occasional glass of wine (!) and much reminiscing, it was great. I am sure some readers will recognise the visitor!

The last few days of his visit it rained. In fact the first of the season's Atmospheric Rivers passed through on Tuesday night Wednesday morning, dumping between 150mm and 233mm of rain in various parts of the province's south coast and Vancouver Island, which caught the worst of it. Our local creek was in full flood, many parks have been closed and local flood warnings are in place. Only today have we seen hints of blue sky.

A few more pics of the last couple of weeks: