Show me the thermometer

Hi all... a busy weekend coupled with a somewhat vapid previous week have made for scant postings in the past nine days. So here's bringing you up to date with the land that is Canadia - although there is a serious photograph deficiency which I truly hope to remedy next weekend as I intend to take the camera out to the hills and actually use the damn thing.

Last week was parent teacher interview days - meet the parents, assure them that their children are little darlings and don't really get on your nerves that often - then all is good. For the few kids who you just can't help but let loose on and deliver a tirade of negative abuse to the parents because little Johnny really is a "little shit", then these fellers make for somewhat heated discussions - but it makes the day interesting. But enough of that work nonsense...

The weekend brought the avalanche course which I went on with Brad. A day at the Uni on Saturday going through the theory with the guide sowing the seed of terror and blind panic about avalanches, followed by a day up at Bow Summit on Sunday (along the Icefield's Parkway). A super setting to spend the day getting involved with understanding the big white slides - and rather apt seeing as though two guys got caught in an avalanche there the weekend previous - grim! It was a useful day to hear the expert run through the drills and show us the ropes - a good refresher before heading out in earnest to find some good powder and get some turns in - The guide was from over in B.C. where he informed us of days with metres of powder and in some cases a place over in B.C. which had a minimum height limit on cat skiers because people were sinking so deep into the snow they'd be getting lost from view!!!! Roll on next weekend!

The excitement of winter play has really hit home now - and the weather has co-operated with fuelling the excitement as the snow has been falling in town all day - and in the mountains big time. Cochrane was snowed in and my usual 30 minute commute was a whopping 2 hour commute this morning because of the snow. The temps are toying with us as today's high was somewhere around minus 14, although as I was on outside bus duty at work yesterday the wind chill had temps down to about minus 26 - nice! (shovelling the drive is back in fashion too).

Other than that, the bike is seeing a bit of action in the week - but purely on the trainer (may be set there for a few months if this weather keeps up), Brina's latte skills are honed ever finer each day, and the cable t.v. which we had installed sucks us in like you wouldn't believe - the joys of watching the NFL and the NHL have never been appreciated so much by a Brit mid-week. I just can't wait for baseball to crank up again next year.

I'll be sure to get some up to date piccies posted this coming weekend.

I trust you all have a good set of long johns,

Enormous snowboard shaped smiles,

S&S.

We have the technology

Just a quickie for Sunday morning, but thought it prudent to make people aware that we have stepped into the 21st century in the Williams household by getting our t.v. hooked up to cable. Now, those of you already in the space age who have never known television without cable, this was a big step here. Not having had cable granted us time to do other stuff, but now it's going to be a real test of willpower to see if I can drag my sorry ass from in front of the box to do more than just make a cuppa when the commercials are on - which incidentally, seem to be on all of the time. I quickly realised yesterday that cable means 60 plus channels of commercials interspersed with tantalising snippets of t.v. shows. You end up never seeing a complete program if you have my limited attention span (or maybe it's a lack of patience) as when the third set of adverts comes on within ten minutes you can't help but flick channels and get sucked into some other show/lingerie commercial, and by the time you remember you were watching something else, you've lost it in the myriad of channels. There are some shows which can keep my attention for the entire duration though - as cable now delivers shows that I never knew existed but which transfix me, mouth wide open, as I ask why is this on tele? Shows such as a French Canadian show where smartly dressed men play Jenga; A show with woodcutting lumberjacks stood on a chunk of log racing to cut it in half between their legs with very fine axe wielding skills; and a show dedicated to airing camera footage from police cars, of horrendous car crashes as villains attempt to flee from the law. And I've only had cable for a day, so just imagine what I've yet to find; what delights of useless broadcasting are going to hypnotise me into a drooling puddle on the couch this Sunday afternoon! All these shows that I never knew I needed. You've gotta love the space age!

Asides from that, my bike has gained the technology of a cadence computer (a little clock that counts how fast your feet are pushing the pedals around). It seemed like a good idea at first, but it's an evil little bugger that I'm convinced is trying to kill me as it constantly sends me a guilt trip suggesting that I could be pedalling a bit faster, no a bit more, just a little bit faster - I was close to ripping the bloody thing off my handlebars yesterday as I rode (rather quickly) along Horse Creek - but fortunately for the cadence killer, my seat fell off (not for the first time) and my attention became more focused on not kebabing myself onto my seatpost.

Work is still what it is (not happy holiday time), the weather is becoming a little more November like - highs of 1 and 0 forecast this week with snow late on, and I'm off on the avalanche course with Brad next weekend which should be good - then into the wilds.....

Hope all you techno geeks are well,

Now where's the remote?

S&S.

p.s. Make sure you wrap up really well if you're camping in the cold...........

O Canada!!!

"Our home and Native Land, true patriot love... blah, blah blah blah blah blah". For those back in Blighty unsure of such a lyrical begining to this post, this is part of Canada's National Anthem - and alhtough my home and native land remains the dark side of Warrington, I feel some obligation to be aware of the "O Canada" tune, seeing as though I was handed my residency status here in the big white north last Thursday. It took a rather long time to get all of the papers processed - as like all government departments in any country, speed is not of the essence when it comes to filing immigrants - and also my medical after medical after medical tests put a spanner in the works for a while (forutnately they now see fit to let me and my testicle live here unobstructed by paperwork for the timebeing). After dashing around in the morning to get more photographs taken (I'd neglected to read the back of the sheet they sent me about "things to bring to the interview") Brina and I showed up at immigration central in downtown Calgary for a 1.00pm meeting. The immigration meeting (for the officer to make a final decision on whether I could stay here as a resident or be shipped back to the industrial wastelands of northern England) was scheduled from 1.00pm to 1.15pm. Only there were 50 other people with exactly the same time scheduled meeting to see one of three immigration officers. Luckily I was one of the first in, and Brina had to be there to prove she wasn't a mail order bride. The officer quizzed Brina quite hard about having sponsored other people into Canada - we both got a bit edgy, but it turned out that the officer was having a bit of a customs Canada wind up joke (the cad! - for "cad" read "tosser", but I can only print that now that they've handed over the papers!!!).

Apart from fighting off a killer bug last week (bug as in sickness and fever, not as in giant bumblebee) and writing lots of reports this weekend all is very steady here. It's still getting colder, although is really mild compared to this time last year (check out last years posts, it was bloody freezing last November). Had a couple of wee stints on the bike and am shackled to the windtrainer during the depressingly dark week nights. This month is just a blur and I'm not too sure where it has all gone to.

Shall leave you with the lovely news that Sunshine opens tomorrow (Lake Louise was open last week) - so here comes the good stuff of winter..... (struggled to post a webcam shot of Sunshine as it's dark there right now - so you just get the shot at the top, taken from Goatseye if my geography serves me correctly).

Keep fighting the authorities you anarchists,

Forever your illegal alien,

S&S.

TransRockies!!!!!

Hi all,
A summer shot to remind us how warm things can be (Moab for those lacking knowledge of Utah's geography).

As winter slowly creeps into Cochrane I already have my eye on next August, the 10th to the 16th to be precise. The big bro and I are entered into the TransRockies Challenge; a 580km mountain bike stage race with over 20,000 metres of climbing, from Panorama BC, to Fernie BC. It's going to be awesome and already I'm picking the training up as I feel I need to, seeing as through Big Willy has just won the overall yellow jersey in the 5 passes stage race (road) of NZ - good lad!!!!!!

Registering for the TransRockies was rather fun. Entries opened at 10am online on the 1st Nov, and I had it all dialed that I'd simply log on just before 10am, and register from work! However, it was a bugger when I realised I was in a conference in downtown Calgary on the day entries opened. Not to be detered by a world class speaker and 1000 onlookers at the conference, I brazenly kicked my shoes off in the conference hall at 9.25am, laced up my running shoes, and trotted out of the hall (to many a disgusted snort and scorn from the attendees to the conference) - to run like bloody hell through the streets of Calgary to find an internet cafe by 10am in order to make sure we were registered for the race! I made it and had all the details filled in and paid up by 10.07am!!! Not bad!!! Now it was time to run like Billio back to the conference clutching my printed off registration form, slip back into my poncey work shoes, and have a conversation with the Principle of the school during the intermission, acting like I knew exactly what the speaker had been talking about during the morning session.

All was going well until I was skimming through my registration for the TransRockies, and in my haste I'd entred me and Mark as being Albanian!!!! I duely fixed this after a wee bit of mockery to United Kingdom - although Lucy has since pointed out that neither of the competitors for team R and R NZ actually live in the UK (or have done so for a considerable while!!!!). Surely there's a tax break in there somewhere!

So the conference was a write off as I was as high as a kite with the excitment of the TransRockies, although the Henry Winkler speech (see Happy Days post a while back) on the Wednesday night was awesome.

The snow is coming, Lake Louise opens on Thursday, avalanche course with Brad in a couple of weekends and then hopefully we'll be out stomping in the deep stuff.

Brina is a cheery little soul and converted coffee princess.

Work for me is in the deepest recess of my mind, the only thing I'm thinking of is next August 10 - 16th!!!!!!

Hope you're all making dates on your calendars,

Is it the weekend yet?

S&S. p.s I thought I'd finish with a picture of the big lad.