Brushed my hair with a stick of dynamite

This week we have collected our season passes for the Ski Hill. The photos may have been a little more flattering.
One of our friends over here said when he saw the picture on my ski pass "did you brush your hair with a stick of dynamite?" We think it may be the Canadian way of saying "a bad hair day" - Shaun was quite disappointed that he didn't say the same about his ski picture.

We have received some excellent entries for the summer photo competition remember the closing date is 5th October so you still have time to be included. The winner will be featured in next week's Nelson Weekly News.

Today we have been for a hike - in the rain - to Kokanee Creek Provincial Park which is about 8 miles up the lake from Nelson. It was a beautiful park set on the lake we have included a picture for you. As you can probably see from the mist in the pic the weather has turned a bit chilly and we have now fired up the furnace and put the heating on. We have forced-air heating which has so far proved to be very efficient at heating up the house very quickly and seems very good at keeping the house warm. The cats also seem to be very good at finding the heating vents to sit on!

So, what else have we been up to this week?

We met up with a couple of expats from Ireland who contacted us via the British Expats website who have just emigrated to Creston which is about an hour away from Nelson. They came over to Nelson on Saturday and we went for coffee and a chat, which was nice. To get from Creston to Nelson you have to drive over the Kootenay Pass (elevation: 1770 metre) which often gets blocked during the winter - well apparently there was snow up there already! You can see the BC Highway Cam here, which is always worth checking-out before heading this way from Calgary. If the pass is closed the preferred alternative is to take the ferry from the east shore of the lake at Kootenay Bay over to Balfour on the west side. It will add approximately an hour to your journey but it is always open!

On saturday evening we made a meal for a couple of friends and we introduced them to some recipes by Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver. In return they introduced us to the Turbo Edition of Cranium.

Rachael has also had a very interesting week at work - on Friday I met one of the original cast of Star Trek. He starred along side William Shatner and now lives here in Nelson. The only problem is that I have forgotten his name so will try to find out again and let you all know who it is.

This week we are embarking on our new evening classes as artisans - Shaun is taking a pottery course and I am taking an introduction to jewellery making, both at the Kootenay School of Art at Selkirk College.

Just to say that Harley & Phantom are very well and growing quickly. Harley is still catching mice and Phantom seems happy just bringing home yellow and orange leaves!

Hope to hear from you soon
Love Rachael, Shaun, Phantom and Harley xx

NWN Summer Photo Competition 2007

It is certainly getting cooler here now - we are down to about 2 degrees at night and 14 degrees during the day. Very different to three weeks ago when we were still getting temperatures of 30 degrees. It rains here in Canada too!
But before the summer comes to an end we would like to announce the Nelson Weekly News Photo Competition. We would like you to submit your favourite or funniest photo from your summer. The winner to be judged by our Photo Editor will win a box of Nelson Brewing Company Beer and their photograph published in the blog on Thanksgiving weekend - 7th October.
We know there are some budding photographers out there so show us your best pictures.

In preparation for the driving tests Rachael has been on a driving lesson around Nelson. It was quite an experience as my last lesson was in 1989. The driving in Canada has some differences to the UK, the most notable is they drive on the other side of the road and also the shoulder checks. Whenever you indicate to make a move or change lanes or turn you have to not only check your mirrors but also look over the shoulder as well. This is to double check the blind spot and also check for cyclists as apparently there are a lot of accidents with cyclists in BC when cars are turning right and don't look properly. You can also turn right at red lights if the junction is clear to do so, or even left on red into a one way street. They also expect you to point your tyres towards the curb when you have parked unless you are facing up hill in which case you point them away from the curb. The speed limit is 30km/h near schools, 8am to 5pm, during term times and 30km/h near any playgrounds at any time.
During the test you have to do a three point turn and also parallel parking - which hopefully will be ok as our car has parking sensors! Here is a picture of our car for those of you who haven't seen him yet - he is called Clive as the registration that Shaun chose is 701 CLV. Oh and by the way I haven't grown to ten feet tall - I am stood on the running boards! The photo was taken en-toute from Vancouver as we passed through the southern part of the Okanagan Valley which is British Columbia's wine-making region, the lake in the background is Osoyoos Lake and we travelled over the mountains via Highway 3 known locally as Crowsnest Highway.
Our driving tests aren't for a while yet so we are practising our driving but we shall let you know how we get along.

We made a great discovery whilst at the BC Liquor store this week that they actually stock Hendrick's Gin which is handcrafted, distilled and bottled in Glasgow. For those of you who enjoy a little tipple we first tried it at The Mill Bank in Triangle, Halifax and really enjoyed it but had been unable to find it in any stores locally - however, we moved 5000 miles away and found it. We also met another expat working in the store - they are everywhere it seems.

We have been contacted by a couple from Southern Ireland who have moved to Creston which is about an hour away from Nelson via the British Expat website, they wanted to meet up to chat about the area as they have only been here two weeks and guess they fancied some UK chat. So we are meeting up next saturday for a coffee and a muffin at our favourite coffee house Oso Negro here in town, where they also roast their own coffee. Our favourite roast is called the Princess of Darkness.

And that is all we have been doing this week, Rachael has started decorating the spare bedroom from a cold pale blue colour to a warmer linen colour, whilst enjoying half time work at the Optometrist's office. We are buying our season passes for the ski hill this week and looking forward to our first whole season on snow which will start on 1st December. Our local ski hill is called Whitewater which is 20 minutes from the house to the ski lift. Check out their website here, they have some of the best snow in BC.

We look forward to your photo competition entries before the closing date of 5th October,
Take care
Rachael, Shaun, Phantom & Harley
xx

Street Car 23

Here is a picture of Car #23 that I took whilst out running around the Lakeside park. According to the tourist info 'Go and Do Magazine' it is one of the unique features of the City of Nelson - it was among the first communities in Western Canada to have a public transport system. In 1899 electric street cars started running. There were 3 street cars on the five mile long line numbered 1,2 and 3. However, in the 1930s the street cars were renumbered 21, 22 and 23 in an attempt to make the tramway system seem larger than it was!

Car #23 seen here was built in 1906 and first saw service in Cleveland, Ohio. It came to Nelson in 1924 and served the city until 1949. Then the tramway was replaced by buses and the street car was used as many different things including a dog kennel, storage shed and chicken coop. In the 1980s the old street car was rescued and restored. The Nelson Electric Tramway Society was formed and the street car #23 made its return in 1992 carrying over 20 000 people in its first four months. The tramway is maintained by 71 volunteers and runs from Lakeside Park to the Prestige Inn 2km of track during the summer months.

Well thats the history lesson for this week - straight up to date with Rachael's trip to Spokane for shopping. We set off at 7.30am and didn't get back until after midnight - the funniest part was when we crossed the border back into Canada the guard actually looked at what we had brought back and said "Are you sure you have only been there today - is there anything left in Spokane?" Guess we had a good shop!

The prices of clothes, shoes and handbags were much cheaper than either Canada or the UK but we needed to factor into the prices that we would be charged PST (provincial sales tax) at 6% and GST (general sales tax) at 7% when coming back to Canada.

I managed to stock up my wardrobe ready for winter but as you will remember my love of shoes and handbags I also managed to buy two pairs of shoes for about £20 each pair and also a handbag (they call them purses over here which is just wrong!) a Tommy Hilfiger for just £7 - how I managed to restrain from buying more bags I really don't know!

By the time we had finished we had a trunk full of goodies and the great thing is that my current green card lasts for 3 months so I can go as many times as I want until I need to buy a new one - Shaun doesn't seem very excited though so it may be another girls trip.

The best thing was that at lunch time we had cocktails in a bar and got asked for ID !! For a while we tried to convince ourselves it was because we looked under 21 but then the bubble was burst when the server said she asked everyone ordering alcohol - oh well!

Shaun spent the day at home having a DIY day - he managed to finish off staining the decks which turned out to be a 6 hour job - well done that man!

We have learnt more about local wildlife this week - bugs - we have some bugs here that look a bit like crickets but have a shiney black shell but when they fly they look a bit like a wasp - they are called Cedar Bugs and like to hang around wood especially cedar. These bugs aren't harmful to the house or humans but they are very funny as their common name is Stinkie Bugs as when threatened they let out a really bad smell. We had a good chuckle at Phantom as he decided to sniff one that was hanging on to our screen doors. The look on his face was just like if we had a whiff of rotten eggs - he spent about ten minutes trying to run away from the smell poor thing.

And finally, yesterday we headed up Kootenay Lake about 70km to a pretty town called Kaslo where there is a beach and a beautiful mountain view. We had a picnic and relaxed on the beach for the afternoon. Here is a picture that we took when we were here in March - at this time of year all the snow on the mountains has gone. We think that this part of the area has a feel of the Italian Lakes.

Isn't it pretty ?

Well, thats all for this weeks blog but we hope you are still enjoying reading our adventure.

This next week promises some excitement on the driving front as Rachael has a driving lesson booked with a school in town.

The weather is also turning - although its still 25 during the day its quite chilly at night - so who decided to move to a cold country - oopps!! Must remember to test the heating system this week!

Bye for now

Love Rachael, Shaun, Phantom, Harley and the Stinkie Bugs

xx

The Road Kings Cruise

This week has been quite busy in Nelson as the city has hosted the annual Road Kings Queen City Cruise. We had heard about it before but never realised how big it would be. The friday night events started off with a drive through town from the orange bridge along Baker Street and along to the airfield. We got a great view on Baker Street to watch around 100 vintage, classic and various hot rod type vehicles cruise. To learn more click this link to the official website.

After the cruise everyone headed to the airfield for the 'Burn Out' which was really good to watch especially as one guy had put special tyres on his truck which burnt red smoke when they were hot - check the picture.



Saturday started early for Shaun as he was back into town at 8.30am ready for the 'Show and Shine' event which saw Baker Street closed off to traffic and there were some 400 cars on show. It was a brilliant day and we saw some beautifully kept and restored cars and trucks ranging from 1930's through to now. We think that most of Nelson's residents were there along with lots of car buffs from America. I think George would have fitted in well now that Dad has finished renovating him and he is back on the road - although I think he would have needed his own category - 'small and now perfectly formed' !
Shaun took about 500 pictures! There are a few pictures if you click here on his flickr site. Hope you get a feel for the day.

We have enrolled for evening classes - we are going to be attending Kootenay Art School starting in October - Shaun is taking Pottery and Rachael is taking Jewellery Making, we shall let you know how we get on.

For the next two weeks we are house sitting for our next door neighbours as they have headed away to the Maritimes for a holiday. We also had a visit from another neighbour this week who brought us some home produce - peaches, pears and tomatoes - they were very tasty!

Rachael is off to America on saturday to a place called Spokane which is 2 hours away by car - its the place to go to do serious shopping. My friend from work invited me and I am afraid the temptation of a bit of a spend is just too much to resist!
The weird thing is that I will need to take out travel insurance for the day to cover any medical costs if I have an accident whilst there - it will be $16 (£7) for the day - this will be covered by my work policy when I have been in post 3 months as my boss picks up the additional medical cover costs annually on top of our BC medical services plan (like the nhs).

Rachael has started to do some vision testing at work on real life patients, I now do the visual field tests in the office which is quite fun.

We have now been in the house for almost 3 months and have only just discovered something very strange about our oven / microwave - it has a built in voice messaging system!!?
You can press a button to record a voice message to save then at a specified time get the message played - weird! Another strange thing we have found is that when we receive telephone calls the callers name and number are displayed across the TV!!

The kittens are well, Phantom's latest habit is to bring leaves into the house from the garden - he only brings yellow or red ones so I guess that as Fall is on its way we may end up with a house full of autumn coloured leaves. Much easier to deal with than mices.

The weather here is still warm during the day - about 23 degrees but is getting quite cool at night. Think we might need to think about testing the heating system before we actually need it in case we need to get someone in.

That's it for this week - as always we hope you enjoy reading our news - and we love getting yours in return.

Catch up soon
Love Harley, Phantom, Shaun & Rachaelxx

Writing the theory driving test

Its been a busy week here in Nelson with a stressful event that took place for us both on wednesday - we took the theory part of our BC drivers licence test and luckily we both passed.

There wasn't such a thing as a written test when we did our lessons many years ago so it was a bit of a worry really. There are a couple of example online tests click here to have a go. The only problem seems to occur with the 'red herring' type questions that seem to have at least two correct answers! See how you do. So we have passed the first step and now need to wait for our practical which isn't booked until late october - hopefully before the real snow arrives.

It was our 10th wedding anniversary on thursday and we went in to town to a lovely restaurant called Cafe Kas. This cafe has a different slant on the whole eating experience and instead of choosing what you fancy from a set menu the chef asks you 'what don't you like' and then prepares a starter, main and pudding to suit your tastes - all for just $30 each (£14).

It's the first time we have ever had cooked romaine lettuce in a caesar sauce but it was really nice, along with warm brie and garlic bread cubes for starter. Then we had a platter of chicken, duck and lamb with veggies and rice with a delicious white chocolate icecream and chocolate brownie for pudding - yum!

The weather report here we are still having hot weather although it is now a more manageable 25 degrees during the day but we had the most tremendous lightening storm on friday which was great to see from the house - and we remembered to turn off our wireless router as last time we had a lightening storm at Offley Place the house was struck and the router got fried down the telephone lines!

Today has been a Bank Holiday here - its called Labour Day - BC gives a holiday to all workers to say thank you for all the hard work we do, so we have spent the day relaxing and whilst Rachael has done some gardening Shaun has been trying to catalogue all his stock photos on the PC.

You may be interested to hear that this week Shaun has been contacted by a publishing company in America who are doing a travel guide on Sheffield to ask if they can use one of his pictures in the publication - he has ok'd it and we shall await more news and attach you a link.

Well finally I was wondering what photo I could attach to this weeks blog - didn't really think you would want to see a picture of Rachael jet washing the decks - got vibration white finger it took so long to do - so I headed off down to the supermarket to take a picture of the view from their parking lot for you to enjoy - see above.

Looking forward to hearing your news and we especially love receiving your pictures too.

Catch up next week

Rachael, Shaun, Phantom & Harley

xx