Still Hot Hot Hot

This week has continued to show us the Kootenay Heat with temperatures between 28 and 32 degrees Celcius. The City of Nelson has imposed our watering restriction meaning that we can have our auto sprinklers on alternate days but only between 10pm and 6am. Before the restrictions Shaun got our tall windows washed and cleaned. We had managed for a whole year without doing them! You can see Elephant Mountain behind him.

Oscar has been settling into life with his new family and especially getting used to his new brothers. There does seem to be a bit of boundary setting going on with Phantom. Here is a picture of them having a serious chat the other day.Phantom won the 'staring out contest' paws down. Then Oscar decided to sniff his bum which Phantom took a dislike to and ran straight up our fly screen on the back door.
Harley on the other hand has been quite chilled and just puffs himself up when he doesn't want anything to do with Oscar.

On Friday evening one of our local Banks hosted a community event at the Lakeside Park where a company came in with a huge screen that was erected in the park along with very large speakers ready for dusk when they showed ET. The whole evening was free and donations were collected for the Nelson Food Cupboard which supports local charities for the homeless.
Although we didn't attend the event we could see part of the screen from our deck, it was a really sureal experience sat out relaxing having a few beers and hearing the theme tune to ET coming up the hill. Would you believe it was first released in 1982? Anyhow, moving on swiftly!

Saturday evening was our neighbours Annual Pig Roast which we went to for the first time last year. This year we were well prepared and arrived 20 minutes earlier than the invitation to find that the roast was just being served. It was the nicest pork we had ever tasted. There were about 100 folks there this year and we all took either a pudding or a salad, something the Canadians call a 'Pot Luck' as it is pot luck what folks bring! Shaun made a really tasty apple, lime and cinnamon pudding which was eaten up very quickly!

Other than that we have been working, working, working and trying to keep cool. This was a bit difficult for Shaun at the start of the week as the office air conditioning unit had stopped working. The guys who came to fix it found that it had totally frozen up the pipes and it took two whole days to defrost. His office was about 28 degrees Celcius for most of that time. As in the UK there are unfortunatley no maximum working temperatures here in Canada - so it was icecreams and popsicles all round!

We have taken Oscar on a more difficult hike today which is on Elephant Mountain opposite our house. It is called Pulpit Rock and locals use it as a quick hours workout to the top and back but it really is a bit of a lung buster! He managed really well and we even managed to get a group shot at the top! Also from the top we took a picture back across to Nelson and highlighted View Street and our house for you.

Finally a picture of a speed boat leaving the marina in Nelson with the airport behind the boat sheds.

That is all for this weeks blog, hope you are enjoying your Summer. Remember to let us know what you are doing with your vacation time.

Love Rachael, Shaun, Harley, Phantom & Oscar

xx

Cedar Grove

This week has been one of many changes for all our NWN staff or the Pack as we now like to call them. Harley and Phantom have been taking things slowly around Oscar, we even caught Phantom doing a Michael Jackson 'moon walk' around the dog which was very funny!

Although the funniest encounters seem to be when Oscar is asleep and the cats sneak up secretly to sniff him.

To give you some of Oscar's background as far as we know, he is a 10 month old Labrador / Airedale Terrier mix. He was rescued from a dog pound in Montana USA where he and his sister were going to be put to sleep. He went to a Foster Mum who lived in Idaho then came to us last week. This is why he speaks with an American accent! We have been out and about around town with him meeting other doggy friends and he has even been to Doggy Daycare for a couple of afternoons whilst Rachael has been at work. This has certainly helped with his socialisation with other dogs and he comes home from the afternoon fully tired out!

We have been quite surprised at how many folks have stopped to ask us about him. One couple from Alberta stopped their truck in the middle of the road even to ask. We have toyed with the idea of not admitting that he is a Heinz 57 but instead make up a new breed "Yes, he is a fine dog - he is a Granville Terrier - his father was Hungarian you know" Anyone recognise where this comes from? Answer at the end of this blog!

We are going to do some obedience lessons to get a better idea of walking nicely on the leash. Other than that he is good in the car, is house broken, is crate trained and does no indoor voices.

He did have some initial separation anxiety for the first week had to sleep in his crate in our bedroom but now we have him sleeping at the bottom of our bedroom stairs quite happily and he will stay quiet from 11pm to 6.45am when we go for a W-A-L-K.

We took him for his first hike yesterday to the Kokanee Glacier Park - Old Growth Cedar Trail.

The trail is well know for the size of the old and very large Western Red Cedar trees.

On Saturday we had a great day out at Nelson's 2008 Flight Festival and took some photos for you to see. The best part of this years show was the flying display by The Fraser Blues who showed excellent flying skills. Shaun also liked the Tiger Moth (oh, and also the old fire engine).

This week is going to be a busy one with work, work , work and animal control. Just a quick thank you to Adam for the pictures of Forge Dam - we really enjoyed looking at them.

Catch up soon

Rachael, Shaun, Harley, Phantom & Oscar

xx

PS Answer: Open All Hours

PPS Weather here is 36 degrees Celcius - bit too hot - nicer at night when we get about 17 degrees.

Our New Sports Reporter

We have a new member of the Nelson Weekly News Team. Here is our Sports Reporter - Oscar Davidson being welcomed by The Editor.
Catch up soon
Rachael, Shaun, Harley, Phantom and Oscar xx

Vancouver & Whistler Photos

Here is a selection of pictures from our adventures over in Vancouver and Whistler. Some favourite photos from Vancouver Aquarium. Fishy, scaly and jelly things.



These are the aquabuses which serve from downtown Vancouver across to Granville Island.

Some historical downtown buildings in Gastown.

A pink Hummer on 4th Ave, Kitsilano.

Sculpture at Vanier Park looking towards North Van.

Adventurers off on a canoe trip from Granville Island.

Land Rover owners get everywhere.

The house boats at Granville Island.

Rachael at Lost Lake, Whistler.

On the way home between Pemberton and Lillooet we came across a very pretty stretch of water on Hwy 99.

Here are some of the bike tracks at the bike park in Whistler Village where the ski lift takes you and your bike up the mountain.

And this is another one of our favourite photos - we agree that everyday is a great day for wine!

Well that was our quick tour in photos of our vacation and we hoped you enjoyed seeing what we had been doing. On a different note we saw an interesting article in our local newspaper this week reporting on the 2007 Nelson Economic Development Partnership survey. The headline read "More young people moving to Nelson" and they reported that last year 45% of newcomers to Nelson were aged 25 to 44.

It came as no surprise to us the reasons for moving to Nelson either. Folks often ask us why did we choose Nelson and we always tend to say it was Rachael's Mum & Dad who spotted the potential of this little hide away place just oozing outdoor activities, after they discovered it on their Canada road trip in 1997.

Here are some of the stats from the report - taken from Nelson Daily News Friday 4th July:

Where did you relocate from?
British Columbia (140), Alberta (61), Ontario (23), USA (13), Saskatchewan (8), Yukon (5), Manitoba (4), United Kingdom (3), Australia (2), Germany (2), PEI (2), Quebec (2).

How did you first hear about Nelson?
Family & Friends (112), Vacation (80), Lived here before (39), Lived nearby (30), Job opportunity (28), Selkirk College (9), Word of mouth (4), Internet & media (8), Schools (4).

Why did you decide to move to Nelson?
Lifestyle change (152), Job opportunity (63), Be near family (63), Scenery or weather (61), Attend college (40), Retire (24), Seek work (19), Start a business (13), Smaller community (7), Away from city (6), To ski (5), Bring up family (4), Art & culture (3), Activities for kids (3), Buy a business (2), Health care (2), Outdoor activities (2), The lake (2).

So seems like everyone is coming for the same reasons!

You can even find proper European style bacon here along with white sliced bread make an excellent Saturday luncheon.

Hope you have an improving week on the weather front - but guess some rain is to be expected whilst the Great Yorkshire Show is on - we watched Look North last night. Paul the weatherman is a star!

Bye for now Rachael, Shaun, Phantom & Harley xx

Happy Canada Day!

We are back from our vacation to Vancouver and Whistler. We had a fun time in the big city doing plenty of sight-seeing and shopping for essentials. We even managed to get out of Ikea without buying any candles or tea lights! In Whistler we had a more relaxing time enjoying the beautiful scenery and we even managed to get a fix of snow when we took the Village Gondola up to the summit of Whistler Mountain to do some hiking.
Our Photo Editor decided that the hiking wasn't really quite dangerous enough and managed to convince Rachael that it would be quite a good idea to do some downhill mountain biking.
We hired our downhill kit including big bikes, full face helmets, body protection and off we went on the chair lift again. This time the lift had been modified to enable 4 bikes to be put on to one of the chairs then you jumped on the following chair and there were two guys at the top of the lift to take off the bikes for you ready to be collected as you got off yourself. Quite clever apart from the weight of each of the bikes was about 20kg which is about twice the weight of Rachael's regular cross country mountain bike. Needless to say it was quite a challenge to get the bike on to the lift!

We enjoyed a couple of the green runs through the trees to warm up (although warm up is probably the wrong term as it was about 28 degrees Celcius even at 3.30pm). Then we tried some of the more intermediate blue trails which included jumps, ramps, berms and wooden bridges through the trees. The only jump Rachael couldn't do was what seemed to be a 30ft wall of mud that you were supposed to jump over - I am convinced it grew higher as I approached, so I went up the side of it. That may not seem too exciting to any of you who may have tried downhill biking before but if you add to that about 9 bears on the trails it certainly livens things up!
Travelling back through the Okanagan valley where most of the BC vineyards are the temperatures were noticably higher and at the highest we recorded 39 degrees Celcius on the thermometer in our SUV we were so pleased to have air conditioning! However, arriving back in Nelson we have discovered that we are full into the throws of summer and the regular temperatures are 35-38 degrees Celcius during the day dropping to about 18 degrees Celcius at night. We are seriously thinking of moving our bedroom down into the basement suite where the cats enjoy a cooler accommodation.

Today 1st July is Canada Day and we have a Bank Holiday to enjoy. The City of Nelson host an all day event at the Lakeside Park which started at 10am this morning with an opening ceremony and the cutting of the Canada Day Cake which is served to folks by the Mayor of Nelson! There has been live music and singing all day and the highlight for us is going to be this evening when we are going out on to the lake with a few friends in one of their boats to watch the firework display which is being hosted by the Nelson Fire Department.
Fireworks are quite an exciting thing for folks here in town as you are not allowed to have fireworks or even buy them unless you have a licence for display purposes - fireworks - wooden houses - high fire risk - bad idea!

Well, before we went on vacation we discovered that Harley and Phantom's catnip mice had been nesting under one of our sofas, here they are:when we got back from vacation we discovered that they had magically moved!



We have now been here a year and we have decided that we will do a photo round up of our favourite pictures to share with you for next week.

Happy Canada Day!

Rachael, Shaun, Harley and Phantom.