Expedition Canada

Now Fred Not content with having to manage Jack's broken leg, Fred comes out in sympathy, goes A over T at tennis and fractured the radial bone (top/neck end) of her left elbow.  I always thought tennis was a rough game.   No plaster-cast or brace, just a sling for a few weeks and no driving for four weeks. More importantly, no skiing at Christmas.  Still on the positive side we now have a built-in dogsitter while I go skiing! Jack on the other hand is now walking and playing normally, no limp, which disappeared a couple of weeks after he hit the car.  If we had not seen the x-ray we would have him labelled as a complete fraud. Fred managed to arrange the 'incident' a week before we hosted Sebby for five days while Nick and Lizzie jetted off to NYC to celebrate her birthday.  The same weekend (Dec 8 & 9) that I had two concerts with the A Cappella Strait choir I belong to.  It was, to say the least, a full-on weekend.  After dropping him back ...

Wine Capital of BC Sunday June 30th Tantalus Winery Kelowna is the wine growing capital of BC, so as well as taking in the scenery we have been checking out some of the local wineries.  Be rude not to really.  As we found travelling around France (and other bits of Europe), it is so much more informative to learn about a wine region as you actually taste the wines at the winery.  We have been slowly developing our knowledge of the wines over the last few years (we first visited about six years ago).  Not something that can be done easily in the UK as so little BC wine leaves Canada as the volumes are relatively small compared to major wine producing countries.  The Good Wine Shop in Chiswick, does stock some.  Not cheap due to volumes and shipping costs. The Okanagan wine region stretches along the 111km of Lake Okanagan.  The area is classified as a desert, defined by the low rainfall, though it happens to be chucking it down as I write this.  ...

At Last Fri Jan 19th Owning a Land Rover is no guarantee you know how to drive it On my Tuesday (Jan 16th) morning dog walk along Bonniebrook, I said to a fellow walker whose view was that we were about to be buried in snow, 'I'll believe it when I see it'.   Driveway cleared The next morning we awoke to 200mm of snow and by the time I'd finished clearing the drive down to the road it was nearer 300mm (1ft in old money).   Of course the good news in all this, is that Whistler, which has had an abysmal start to the season, now has a decent amount of snow.   We hope it lasts until the end of the month when we head back up there for five days and it is not as soggy as our Christmas excursion.  Although conditions were 'moist', Fred did manage to get some skiing in with Nick.  The new hip passed the test with flying colors, even if they did come back soaked! Back from the Whistler Christmas expedition, I'd still not shaken off the post ...

Marlborough Wed Nov 29th Two of the family of otters on the shoreline On my morning ambles with Jack I've got chatting to a fellow dog walker who has a bouncy Irish Terrier, eight months old and paws the size of snowshoes.  Well I never...she is from the UK and lived near Bristol.  Her husband comes from Marlborough and he and his three brothers, all went to the same school as Nick and Ros. One brother in the same year and friends group as Ros.   I suspect one of the masters from the school and occasional reader of this blog, might might know the four Loosemore lads.  It's Tom who is out here and living a few hundred yards away, as the Bald Eagle flies.   This is the second person from Marlborough (Pop. 9129) we know living on the Coast (100km long and Pop. 32,000), though the first one moved from Marlborough when the population was probably half what it is now!  I am going to have to start reading up on 'probability' though I suspect the rug...