"To Infinity And Beyond......"

This week we have made the most of the slightly cooler more over cast days by seeing some more sights with our European Correspondent, most notably the trip we took to Ainsworth Hot Springs which is just North of Nelson on the lake.

We enjoyed soaking in the pool and the caves but we avoided the cold plunge pool. It was a lovely journey along the lake and we managed to capture this picture for you of Kootenay Lake with the water so still it just looked like a mirror.

After enjoying three weeks of fun in Nelson our European Correspondent headed home. Not quite to infinity and beyond but Cranbrook, Calgary to Manchester and beyond. Here is his plane taking off from Cranbrook, if you look carefully you can see him waving from the back window.

The weather this week has been quite changeable with some showers but mainly keeping a temperature of about 20-22 degrees Celcius. We have noticed that the garden has now burst in to colour. Here are some of the tulips with the house leeks in the foreground still waiting to be planted.
This week we bring you a very short blog but we hope you have enjoyed your Bank Holiday weekend, we look forward to hearing about what you have been doing.

Rachael, Shaun, Harley and Phantom

Victoria Day Holiday

Here is the European Correspondent's report: "This week I have been introduced to the local ski hill which is located about 20 minutes drive from Nelson just off the main highway about 11km up the ski hill road and considerably higher than town. The summit behind the ski slopes is about 7oooft above sea level. There was still quite a bit of snow about even though the temperature in town was 27 degrees Celcius it was about 5 degrees at the car park. Here I am at the Silver King chair lift.

The ski lodge was a smaller version of the lodges found in the European ski areas and the facility had just two ski lifts. The head of the valley was much narrower than we have experienced in European resorts with the ski lifts being positioned at the top end of where the two sides of the valley come together, like a bowl. Unfortunately as the season here had finished the cafe was closed so no 'caffe und kuchen' again!

The celebration of May Days here in BC incorporated the May Public Holiday for Victoria Day, celebrating the birth of Queen Victoria which meant that the Editor and the Photo Editor had an extra day off work to take me to see the Kaslo May Days celebration. Kaslo is a pretty little village on the northern end of Kootenay Lake about 65km away from Nelson. The picture above is taken from the beach. We went to Kaslo for the Loggers Show and the old and custom car show called the 'show and shine'. The logging was very impressive to someone who hadn't seen this before although thoughts of Risk Assessment for their Health and Safety kept springing to mind. It looked very scary!

We saw a few heats in the competition which was divided into about 20 categories for the events for both men and women, novice, intermediate and experts.

Two of the most memorable were firstly the throwing of a two sided axe at the end of a log marked like a dart board and scoring similarly to darts (except no doubles) and secondly the tree climbing where we saw two guys run up tree trunks which must have been about 100ft tall using a belt and wearing spikes in their shoes. The competition was against the clock, up to the top of the trunks to ring a bell then down to the ground again. The two loggers must have gone up and down in no more than 20 seconds! They were super-fit athletes.

The car show was slightly different to UK car shows as there was a collection of all types of interesting vehicles including veterans, vintage, classics of the 50's, 60's and 70's together with several motor cycles, even a 1936 Francis Barnett.

It was interesting to see the North American approach to showing cars seemed to focus on polished vehicles rather than originality.

Both the logging competition and the car show were free to attend, there were no admission or parking charges which was a refreshing change from the UK. We had a chuckle at the BBQ Roast which was being manned by the Kaslo Fire Department as we were pretty sure that the Fire Chief was in charge of the BBQ."

The weather here has now reached 28-30 degrees Celcius and we have seen the creeks in town fill up with the snow melt from higher up the mountains. Here is a picture of the Big Orange Bridge and Lakeside Park taken from Gyro Park at the weekend.

It is so warm we are now into our summer work 'uniforms' of shorts and t'shirts along with SPF 45 and hats!

We have also got Harley and Phantom in to their new collars which Rachael found in a pet store in Victoria during her recent trip over there for work, they are now sporting rather fetching Harley Davidson collars. Here they are modelling them sat on top of our shed and a close up of the collar.

That is all our news for this week, catch up soon.

Rachael, Shaun, David, Harley & Phantom.

xx

Entertaining Europeans and Humming Birds

We have managed to entertain the European Correspondent with various Kootenay activities. Here is his report.
"This week has been fairly hectic for the geriatric journalist. The week commenced with a touch of gardening at the Editors house in restoring a very tired lawn in the rear yard. The Editor must have been pleased with the garden as we then headed out for a picnic lunch to the site of an inland lighthouse on the banks of the lake. The lighthouse is now disused but is left unlocked for visitors to access. At the lighthouse we met a group of local elderly hikers who soon realised we were not local. The first one of the group to speak to the Editor was originally from Somerset, she moved over to Nelson in 1964. The another lady piped up "I am meeting my sister in Whitby soon" she also moved over here about 40 years ago. As we walked back to the car an elderly man shouted up "my father was from Harrow-gate", what a small world!
It was quite an experience crossing the lake, to a Yorkshire Man it was wonderful - it was free.
Also I have visited two small towns about 20 and 30 miles away, fortunately it was necessary to pass a rather tempting cafe where I indulged in "caffe und kunchen", it was superb.
The weather in Nelson has been fairly good this week at 15 - 17 degrees Celcius but Sunday we have experienced rain and low cloud in the valley. Great weather for Mother's Day!
However, all the locals seem to think summer is here because loads of men are wearing shorts and t-shirts.
Saturday was the Nelson Garden Festival which consisted of closing the main road through town, Baker Street and having local hippies and organic growers selling their produce and wares. It was a relaxed, low-key affair but good to see the local interest and support. The Editor bought some House Leeks for the rockery."

Finally we would just like to introduce to you one of our new visitors to the garden, the humming bird. The humming bird feeder was left by the previous owners of our house and we have researched the ideal recipe for humming bird syrup which seems to work a treat.

Enjoy your week, Rachael, Shaun, Harley, Phantom and our European Correspondent.

High Jinx On Board

The NWN Editor arrived back in Nelson on Thursday having flown from Victoria to Vancouver which was a flight of 15 minutes followed by Vancouver to Castlegar which was a further 75 minutes. Everything was on time and relatively smooth in landings. On Friday we took a trip out to Cranbrook which is three hours East of Nelson to collect our European Correspondent who has flown in for three and a half weeks.

This is his report for the blog this week: "We have learned of an incident on the Thomas Cook flight in to Calgary on Friday 2nd May. On board were a party of rugby players who were on their way to commence a tour of Canada. The following was witnessed by our Correspondent on his way back to the Nelson Weekly News Head office. One of the rugby players who appeared older than the average had been drinking alcohol from the start of the flight became awkward and wouldn't do as instructed by the Cabin Crew who wanted him to return to his seat due to his state of inebriation. We do not know exactly what happened except one of the Cabin Crew was heard to say she was going to "report what had happened". Things then settled down as we approached Calgary. When we were about to land at Calgary the Captain came on the PA and told us that some Officials were boarding the plane as soon as we landed and we were not to leave our seats until we were directed to.
We thought it was possibly something to do with immigration due to the current climate of security. The plane landed and two men entered the plane and talked to the Captain and Head Steward for a couple of minutes then left, we were then allowed to leave and clear customs. However, on the way to customs our Correspondent witnessed the troublesome rugby team member being escorted through the airport by two KING SIZED Canadian policemen.
The interesting point of this saga it is alleged the rugby team was representing a group of Lawyers. We wondered if he had got himself a good Lawyer - certainly his friends didn't appear to be in a fit state to help him!"

After a day of rest yesterday we have today ventured out North along Kootenay Lake to Kokanee Provincial Park to walk along the beach and also across a short ferry to Harrop - Procter where we had a picnic in the sun. The weather here today has been 22 degrees Celcius and we have come to the conclusion that we have totally missed Spring and headed in to Summer already. Although things can change pretty quickly here with the weather - we have also just noticed that our Tulips are just about to open up in the garden guess they are confused about the weather too.

Here is the European Correspondent showing the Editor how to balance on the log on Kokanee Beach. Also a picture of the Kootenay Lake ferry arriving at the Balfour Landing taken from the shores of Procter.

Well that is all for this week but we shall certainly keep our European Correspondent busy whilst he is here ready for the blog next week.

Enjoy your week, Rachael, Shaun, Harley, Phantom and DMH

xx