Expedition Canada

Rain Stops Play Starts Hopkins Landing - Morning Walk Sun Oct 17th The thrashing took place in the City of Bath when the home team were given a rugby lesson by Saracens in a palindromic 17-71 drubbing.  Bath have now lost all of the opening games in the Premiership and are bottom of the league.  The Sarries game was a great game to watch, even for Bath supporters.  Bath probably learnt more today from the opposition than their own coaching staff.    My fellow Brit dog-walker with the Rhodesian Ridgeback, is a Gloucester supporter.  They drew 25-25 to London Irish in Brentford.  Much less embarrassing!  On the plus side, at least we're not paying subs to Bath now we're in Canada! By Sunday afternoon the rain of the last few days finally stopped and we got out to play without wet weather gear.  In the local area we'd had 154mm of rain over Friday and Saturday and a modest 15.4mm Sunday.  Roads, creeks and trails have been running...

Foraging Course cancelled Sat Oct 16th We are gripped by an 'atmospheric river' according to a report on Friday's CBC news for BC.  Perhaps shrouded might be more accurate. Not some euphemistic term to describe the collective mood in bad weather or a mystic meaning aligned with one's inner-self.  They   are a like ' rivers in the sky '  according to a CBC report, 'that transport large volumes of water vapour from the equator', before dumping it down on us.  Canada gets several a year and the volume of rain can apparently, 'exceed the volume of water flowing into the ocean from the Amazon'.  It feels like it.  The rain started Friday morning and is due to continue until Sunday evening when 75mm to 150mm of rain is forecast to have fallen. We'd had 40mm by the end of Friday.  Roads are awash and running with waves of surface water, the small stream that usually trickles across the front of our property alongside the road is a torrent....

Running Creeks Sat Sept 18th Compared to Friday, Saturday was a beautiful morning Sun Sept 19th  Friday night's rain which took out our power, also took out the scheduled 18:55 ferry, which was cancelled.  So just as well Nick and Lizzie postponed coming over - it would have been a long wait at the ferry terminal.  With news reports during Thursday suggesting there could be power cuts, Fred bought a camping gas-lamp (the last one in the shop) and candles during her shopping trip on Friday morning.  Just as well.  At 5pm on Friday there was a loud bang outside and we lost power. We didn't anticipate needing them quite so soon. It felt quite cosy without electric lighting.  Fortunately the gas hob and gas log fire still worked.  We were comfortable, but turned in early not wanting to drain phone batteries.  BC Hydro engineers turned up just after 01:00 driving up and down the lane in the heavy rain using powerful lights to check the overhead ca...

Coyotes and Bears  Mon Aug 13 - Wed Aug 15 Looking across to what we think is Mt Windsor There is a saying in Manchester if you can't see the Pennines it's raining, if you can see them it's going to rain.  It is about to get like that here.   Small falls on Roberts Creek in Cliff Gilker Park This morning's red sky sunrise proceeded the rain alert from Gov.Ca for Thursday through to Friday and should have been sufficient warning.  It was the most vivid red sky I think I've ever seen.  In fact the incoming frontal system is bringing rain through to Tuesday.  We'll know if we can't see the mainland mountains it's raining, and if we can it's going to rain. The good news is that it will give the parched forests a much needed drenching. More importantly it is forecast to fall as snow above 1400m in Whistler.  I wonder if the mountain opposite  us  (Mt Windsor?)  will see snow before the residual patch from last winter final melts....

It's Back! Thu Sep 9 Fri Sep 10 It may not seem a significant event in UK terms, but internationally it's monumental.  It has been on the shopping list for five months and has only just reappeared in our local supermarket.  Its absence is due apparently, to a shortage of brewers yeast, a staple ingredient in its production. UK lovers will already know this, haters probably couldn't give a damn.   It hasn't yet been covered in the Canadian press!  So a message to all UK friends - please drink more beer! Tomorrow's breakfast will be a pleasant reminder of breakfasts in Blighty.   Any more shortages and pleas will be going out for supplies to be shipped from the UK! Do you love it or hate it? An email popped pinged in my inbox Thursday morning with details of some workshop machinery up for sale in Sechelt. A few hours and a visit later, the deal was done.  In addition to a very decent lathe, I have now added a router table, table saw, band saw (need...