One Year and Counting

Woo Hoo!!! We made it! May 27th 2006 has been a massive landmark for me, considering the testicle tumour terrors of last May 27th! To celebrate we went down to Waterton Lakes National Park, which borders Montana in the US and Glacier National Park (the same place where I had a little difficulty gaining access earlier this year - see previous posting). It was awesome just to get away and take a good deep breath of fresh air and raise a glass to the future. The only thing that wasn't on our side was the sun. So much for my posting "the sun has a very big hat" - well we found out this weekend that the sun doesn't have a hat at all, or if he (she?) does, it wasn't being worn in Alberta. It didn't stop *issing it down all weekend. As you can see below, the torrential rain made for a very busy high street in Waterton on Saturday afternoon.

Not to be deterred, we fought our way through the none existent crowds and made the most of the very few coffee shops and tea houses that were open. Waterton is an amazing place. Absolutely beautiful mountains at the southern end of the Canadian Rockies, but the town only has a permenent population of about 35 people. The summer season is really short there - from end of May through to Sept. It's a UNESCO World Herritage Site and has a whole load of other accolades. The wilderness makes for a rather dense population of bears, Grizzly and Black - although we saw neither on this trip.

We stayed in a cosy little lodge called Kilmorey Hotel (It is one of only two places that is open all year round and dates back to 1911 - remember Brits reading this, that's old for Canadians! Most of the decor hasn't changed since 1911, and in that sense it really fits in with the whole feel of Waterton - like stepping back in time).

Braving the weather on Sunday (it still hadn't stopped raining), we headed up to Redearth creek to hike. No rain up there!! ha ha. Just snow - and plenty of it falling for the end of May. We plodded through the snowy trails for a few hours, shouting and a hollering just to make sure any critters knew we were there. As you can see, some of the wildflowers were out, foolishly thinking that Spring had arrived sometime last week in Waterton, only to be inundated with snow now;

These purple flowers must have got the shock of their lives when the snows began again this weekend.

Now I know what they mean when they say; "If you don't like the weather, just hang on five minutes and it'll have changed".

Here's Brina all ready for action with the Bear spray just in case there's a big old hungry Grizz creeping up behind me whilst I take the photo!

(Just keep that safety cap on for now Brina!)

So despite the weather, all was good and we're just looking forward to celebrating every May 27th from now on! Only two check ups per month from next month onwards...

As for other things.. I keep promising more animal photos (beavers etc..), they'll be up soon, hopefully with the Osprey pictures. We have an Osprey nesting out in the field in the front - which is quite unusual as it is not that close to water - although the Bow River is just across the way. We sit out on the deck viewing it and are hoping to see it's chicks pretty soon!!!

Work is still work for us both (although everybody keep your fingers crossed that my Visa papers still come through in time).

Hope everyone is fit and well,

Live Strong,

S & S.

The sun has a big hat

How do,
(thought a northern greeting was appropriate today). The summer rolls on now, and the climbing season seems to be getting underway. I'm still adjusting to being able to clip to bolts on each route - but it sure beats my dodgy gear placements (to which I am sure many of you can attest!). The big deal at the moment is that it is nearly May 27th (one year since being diagnosed with cancer) and all is looking well! The Tom Baker Cancer hospital here has been superb (I'm actually due there later today for my monthly bollock squeezing, eye watering, blood taking, x-ray fun...) Once we hit the year mark I only have to visit once every two months and will need only four CT scans in the entire next year!!!!! Woo Hoo!!!! So May 27th is going to be a big party day in Cochrane (hopefully it'll involve a hut somewhere with climbing gear and a keg of Canada's finest gnats piss) - although it wont be quite as big a day as May 20 - Happy birthday in advance mum (21 again no doubt).
The photo of Brina is from the day I landed back in the land of Canucks - rather than head off to Tony Roma's for spicey ribs and greasy chips, she'd packed up a Japanese style picnic that we went to the mountains for - all very nice!!
Just for the heck of it, the first site had the front of the house, so here's the back garden (yawn);


The lower floor is the walkout basement which I have been claiming to be renovating - which is such laborious work. My plastering and tiling skills are testing my patience, but it may be finished by 2010.











Anyway, that's as brief as it can be for now but there'll be a few piccies of beavers (the big water rat variety that is) next time.
Hope everyone is fit and well,
Live Strong,
S & S. p.s. As you can see, it's nice when you have the road all to yourself

Nine months in one paragraph

Well folks, making this blog just goes to show that my geekiness has reached a new level. It has only taken since last September for me to get around to doing this - so my idea of documenting our life through our first Canadian winter is now a little flawed as it is May and super sunny, all the real snow has gone and it is well into hiking, climbing and biking season (for that, also read Bear season - but I'm sure there'll be more about those critters at some other time).
For those of you who may have missed it, we did land in Alberta last August, had a super wedding in Banff, bought a house in the foothills of the Rockies and began teaching in Calgary. Well, Sabrina is teaching full time, the authorities are a little reluctant to give me full teaching status yet...
Winter was full of of ski-ing and playing in the snow and ice - the end of the season was completed with the arrival of Browny and Nic who visited for ten days and had their first taste of ski-ing (photos to follow).
I'm still waiting for my work visa extension - not quite sure when it will arrive, but hopefully it gets here before the deportation papers do. (I've already had trouble getting into the States this year - apparently I had been an illegal alien in the US for the past 244 days!!!! - I knew nothing about it, but their computers certainly did and the alarm bells rang and lights flashed when we tried to drive into Montana a few weeks back).
Having just returned from a great few days back in Blighty (seeing family and new members of the Tate family) we are picking up with summer fun now - having had a good weekend climbing at Grassi Lakes in Canmore, we're off this evening for more of the same (good old long summer nights...).
Future postings will be rather specific to keep you all up to speed with Canadian antics, this garbled posting is just to check that this blog actually works...
Cheerio for now.

S & S
Here's a quick snap of the house.
The Piccie at the top is at a crag called Wasootch where we spent a lazy afternoon last week - we did manage to climb a few routes but were more interested in testing out how bear spray works (note to all, ensure any bear spray, no matter how little, does not blow back into your face - unless you desire burning throat and streaming eyes for a good few minutes - take it from me, it's not very nice).

Just one more thing, I couldn't resist putting up a photo of Browny trapped in a tree, into which he crashed going backwards on his first ever ski run - obviously I promised never to show anyone this shot to maintain his macho ego, so publishing it online seems the only thing to do.