Birthday Special

As a special addition to this weeks blog we just had to add a bit more about todays adventures. Well, as you know it was Rachael's 21st birthday and for her birthday she got 27 cm (11") of fresh snow at the ski hill. Needless to say we have spent all day cruising in the deep powder on our snowboards. Here is a picture of Shaun carving a wave in the trees on Bonanza.

Shaun also took part in the Season Pass Holders Race. To win a season pass for next year you need to match as closely as possible your time down a course for two runs. Here he is with our ski buddy John.

Next weekend is the famous beach party so we are busy trying to find some summer clothes to wear, on top of our nice warm ski gear obviously!

Catch up soon.

R&S&H&P

Maybe We Should Stop The Snowdance?

No way!
This week we have had even more snow. There has been 15cm at the ski hill over the past three days and whilst we were there today it snowed all day.
Locals keep telling us that this is unusual to have so much snow now we are almost into April but they seem to be blaming us for doing our Snowdance to the Snowgods! This season has been great for skiing and boarding, Rachael has just reached her 50th day on the hill and we still have a week left.

This photo was taken after the Avalanche Team had bombed the ridge this week after discovering a dangerous section in the basin. The Team bomb the area so that they can control where and when the slides happen to keep us safe.

There has been more baking activities this week. Here are Rachael's loaves (notice the Yorkshire Tea tea towel) and also her apple and raspberry crumble.

We are only submitting a short blog this week as it is Rachael's birthday and we are off out on the town this evening then having another day out at the ski hill tomorrow (Sunday) for Retro Ski Day where you have to wear something retro - we wonder if anyone has got a spare fluorescent all-in-one ski rompersuit from the 80's ?

We shall write more next week and also share with you the winners of the caption competition from last weeks blog.

Have a good one!

Harley, Phantom, Shaun & Rachael

Springtime Revoked

This week we have been in the midst of Springtime. Our clocks changed to daylight saving two weekends ago and we have enjoyed longer evenings and even more sunshine. Here is Phantom on the front deck.

Both the picture above and the one below were taken on Good Friday at 6pm in the evening. Here we are having a relaxing drink on the deck, having been snapped by the self timer on the camera before we were ready! We wondered if anyone could come up with a funny caption for this photo and we would publish the winning caption next week?

Here is our entry "Snow on Easter Sunday - get away!"

However, just 48 hours later we had the biggest snow storm ever. Sunday morning we awoke to a light dusting of 1cm in town which could only mean one thing a POWDER ALERT at the ski hill. We weren't disappointed either there was easily 15cm (6") of fresh snow on the pistes. We had a great Whitewater day enjoying the snow. On the way home we managed to get a photo of the snow plough going back in to town. This is on the road from Salmo to Nelson which goes along the valley bottom from the ski hill road.
We have had some catastrophic Easter Monday holiday bad news - here in Canada they don't get the Bank Holiday which means it is a normal working day. We couldn't believe it! But don't feel too sorry for us as we do get other Bank Holidays instead and don't worry we shall certainly let you know when they are!

Going back to the theme of Phantom my little household helper we caught a photo of him sat in our recycle box, we can only assume that he had been down to the garage to sort the recycling items ready for the trip to the depot.

We understand from our reporters in Yorkshire that you have also had some snow over Easter.

Well that is all for this week, we hope you had a Happy Easter.

Love Rachael, Shaun, Harley and Phantom
xx

Daddies Favourite

This week we have seen the snow melt continue in town. We can now see our garden and all the plants that disappeared around November time reappearing as if by magic. There are daffodils and crocuses in folks' gardens and we are just awaiting our tulips to pop out.
It is almost one whole year since we came over to Nelson to check out a few properties and first saw our home and it had the most colourful tulips in the garden so we are looking forward to seeing them again this year.
On the topic of spring flowers, if anyone manages to snap a photo of the crocuses, daffs or tulips in any of our old haunts please send them through to us.

We have had a busy weekend hosting our first visitors to Nelson. We have skied both Saturday and Sunday and really enjoyed showing The Tooths our little ski hill, the sights of Nelson, more ski hill and lots of snow!

During the past week we have been praying to the snow gods for some fresh snow for when The Tooths arrived. Well, on Friday evening our prayers were answered and overnight and during Saturday we had 14 cm followed by 6 cm over night on Saturday.
We really enjoyed watching the look on their faces as our visitors floated down the slopes in powder snow with huge smiles - that is what the snow is all about here in BC!
Here is a photo of the happy (and we all agreed somewhat tired) gang finishing up on Sunday afternoon.

We must say a big thank you to them for bringing a second batch of emergency rations from England. This included shower gel for Rachael and shaving cream for Shaun that we had missed over the last 9 months as Shopper's Drug Mart just isn't the same as Boots the Chemist! Also a special thank you from Shaun for the perfect accompanyment to a bacon butty - the bottle of Daddies brown sauce! Hurrah!

Safe trip home guys, we look forward to seeing you again very soon.

Harley and Phantom have been enjoying the sights and sounds of their first Springtime. Here they are sat on the back deck watching the little birds in the garden. You will notice the red mouse in the foreground, don't worry this is not some weird Canadian mouse breed it is actually a felt material catnip mouse from the supermarket. Now the snow is melting we seem to have about a dozen of them in the garden!

Well that is all for this week and as always we look forward to hearing from you.

Love Harley, Phantom,Rachael and Shaun xx

Rock Star Parking

This week has been relatively quiet on the news front as our Photo Editor has unfortunately been very busy at his 'day job' having a system implementation meant that he worked about a 60 hour week whilst Rachael still managed to go to the ski hill to practice for 2010 Winter Olympics.
It was also Shaun's birthday this week which we celebrated with friends and folks from work at a local bar then moving on to a lovely restaurant called The Library at one of the hotels here in town called the Hume Hotel. They had a jazz duo playing Double Bass and Guitar which was quite groovy, they even played Happy Birthday for him!

The Hume Hotel comes with quite a local history which I have taken from their website:

"On March 17, 1898, the Hume Hotel opened with a grand celebration the likes of which had seldom been seen in Nelson. The fan-fair that accompanied the occasion underscored the sense of pride felt not only by J. Fred and Lydia Hume, original owners and one of Nelson's pioneer families, but also the local community in general. No consideration was left unchecked and the opening was a celebration of the skill, determination, and hard work that went in to the hotel's construction. It also heralded a new era for Nelson, which had been incorporated the year before, and provided a sense of hope and optimism for residents of the new city as they forged ahead into the 20th century.

Work on the Hume Hotel began on Saturday, June 12, 1897. At that time Nelson's landscape was considerably different from today. A deep ravine, created by Ward Creek, essentially divided the city in two, with the dirt roads of Vernon and Baker Streets passable only by way of wood frame bridges. The Hume Hotel, which sat on the corner of Ward and Vernon, was an impressive figure within this scene.

Following the revolutionary architectural standards of Frank Lloyd Wright, in May 1929 a massive interior and exterior renovation was completed. The Hume Hotel was so different in appearance that it was, as described in the Daily News, "hardly recognizable." He installed a telephone exchange and phone in every room, a dumb waiter, a French steel range, steam tables and electric dishwasher in the kitchen, and an icemaker capable of producing 600 pounds of ice daily. The level of service, sophistication, and general hospitality excellence, which were hallmarks of the Hume era.

"In this hotel Nelson possesses at once a structure of architectural beauty and imposing appearance, and a public Inn …which is equaled by few of the cities of British Columbia and certainly not in the interior."

-The Tribune, March 12, 1898

The hotel underwent a full renovation in the 1980s after falling into disrepair during the 1970s and almost being demolished having stood empty for a number of years".

The hotel today includes a restaurant, public bar, health spa, liquor store, the library lounge and spiritbar.

We managed to get out skiing on both Saturday and Sunday this weekend. Although there was no new snow we still have 254cm at the top of the Summit lift and the forecast for this week is 60% chance of flurries on Friday.

Some of the experienced local skiers like to enjoy the backcountry skiing at this time of year. This is all off piste and tends to be where there is untouched snow. One of the guys we know parks his truck half way up the ski hill approach road so he can ski backcountry back to his truck on the way home. As we were driving up the hill on Saturday we spotted him thumbing a lift up to the lodge. As we were approaching the back of the parking lot he radioed his ski buddy who was already on the lift to check if there was any 'Rock Star Parking'.
Well we didn't know what on earth he was talking about but he suggested that we headed to the very front of the parking lot where there it was, a space right on the front row! This is what the locals call Rock Star Parking as you are only a few steps away from the lift! Here is Clive our SUV proving that we actually 'ski to car'.

We have also been out to check out the DVD sales in one of our local stores. We have brought all our English DVDs with us but unfortunately we now don't have a multi-region DVD player so many of our discs we can't play unless it is through the computer.
As we were looking at the titles on sale we came across two excellent films for our new collection A Fish Called Wanda and also The Italian Job. So when Rachael is missing George the mini she can have a fix of mini adventures. Rachael's Dad has adopted George and has renovated him over the winter.

Here are a couple of shots in town this morning at about 8.30am when I was walking home after dropping Clive off at the Ford garage for his service. You will notice that all the snow has gone and the City of Nelson road crews were out hosing down the footpaths and roads to clean away the grit and salt.

You may notice that town look pretty quiet on these pictures - well at 8.30am we figure that folks are either still in bed (Kootenay time - early mornings are about a 10am start) or they are already heading up to the ski hill!

Finally we are looking forward to hosting our first visitors to Nelson, welcome to BC to The Tooths!

Love Rachael, Shaun, Phantom & Harley

xx

NWN Photographer Goes Moonlighting

You may remember this photograph appeared on last weeks blog from the Coldsmoke Powder Festival well this week our very own Photographer turned semi-pro had this spectacular picture accepted by our local newspaper for a story they were running. Not only was it accepted but it was featured on the front page - unlike the Nelson Weekly News Blog here - he was paid too!

It was very strange to see his work in print and when I went to the newspaper office to pick up our complimentary copies the lady on the desk asked if the photographer had taken a picture of me! Well I had to admit that it wasn't me - yellow is just not my colour and I can't ski either although I can do a very good 'snow-plough'. We saw the guy in this picture at the ski hill on Saturday he was with his friends doing more jumps and tricks, he can certainly ski very quickly going backwards too.

Here is a picture taken whilst we were having a rest at the top of the Summit lift. It was sunny and warm - perfect for a mid-day snooze!

The weather has been quite warm this week and we have seen temperatures in town reach about 10 degrees and about 2 degrees at the ski hill. The big melt is now on around town as almost all the snow has disappeared. The roads are still covered in salt and sand and it won't be long before the road cleaning wagons are out to take it away to recycle for next year.

We managed to get to the ski hill on Saturday and had an excellent time as there had been 11cm of snow overnight so it was back to surfing the snow again.

Those were the highlights of this week. Other than that we have been busy sorting out our tax returns which started out as a very tedious form filling exercise which then developed into a nightmare having only spent half the Canadian 2007 tax year in the country things started to get very complicated. However, we were rescued by a very nice lady at one of the local tax offices who went through all our information and has sent off our returns for us. Apparently next year we can file our returns on-line so it will be a whole lot easier!

The story of Phantom 'the household helper' continues, he was caught here having managed to hang out the washing on the clothes stand -

-whilst Harley, not to be out done by his little brother assessed the garden for avalanche risk following the recent thaw!

****NEWS FLASH****Monday 3rd March 09.10****NEWS FLASH****NEWS FLASH****

We have had 4 inches of snow in the last couple of hours in town so I am off to the ski hill to see how much has fallen there. Bye for now. Must dash. Off to practice for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Love Rachael, Shaun, Phantom & Harley

xx