Expedition Canada

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 ...

Merry Christmas Christmas 2023 A week after the pleasure of babysitting my sickly grandson I had the pleasure of my first experience of Covid.  I have managed to avoid it for four years.  I was feeling very smug in the summer when eight of the ten college reunion party went down with it, only me and the husband of the college mate who lives 30 minutes up the Coast in Half Moon Bay escaping the lurgy then.  The smug grin has gone, along with my voice and energy!  Little more than a bad cold, but it sure is hanging around. A local mystery was solved last week after several days of the hummingbird feeder being drained overnight. Some nights it dropped to half full, other nights completely emptied.  Locals suggested it could be bats, which are known to drink from hummingbird feeders, or possibly racoons.  We have both in abundance locally. Camera set up and culprit caught on the first night.  A racoon.  Climbing on to the top of a plant pot the racoon...

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...

Apparently Nov 13th 2023 I have never been a football fan.  It might be something to do with being taken to see Brentford play Southend or Southport or something South when I was a nipper.  The sleet flew horizontally across the ground, it was freezing cold, I was too young to swill beer, I could not see properly and Brentford lost 0-2 in that Boxing Day game.  It was a defining moment.  At school I used to ‘support’ Arsenal (or was it Chelsea) because everybody supported one team or another, but I never went to or watched a match and couldn’t name a player.  I only ever checked the scores so that it appeared I knew what I was talking about.  Others in my family supported West Ham or Brentford.  I tended to support the opposition but remained ignorant and indifferent of anything to do with the Beautiful Game even when England had a key World Cup match, which let’s face it, they usually lost! Move on a few years and I am now glued to the screen wat...

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 ...