Adventure update

No, it isn't that I have lost interest in maintaining a blog, passing on lots of useful information about our life in Canada or been kidnapped by irate Canucks, it is just that I have been very, very busy. Yes lame excuse, but life at Stantec Towers went into overdrive and the last two months have seen me plying my trade between Edmonton and Saskatoon. The long and the short of it has simply been that I've been too darn knackered to sit in front of a computer and keep this blog up to date. I have also mentioned that I will be starting a new blog soon and winding this one down. After two years, the adventure continues but has morphed into more like a stable way of life. I shall try to keep it interesting of course and keep you up to date with wonderful tales and ripping yarns, but the initial shock and awe associated with moving to a new country has dissipated.

So, a quick update. Charlotte has started grade 2 at school, Eleanor has started pre-school classes twice a week for two hours and Claire maintains and guards the fort. Our third winter approaches after a blistering hot September and my 52 birthday looms around the corner next week. Our basement is 95% complete on stage 1 and the next job is to install the home theatre system (yippee!). We have had both grannies visit and Claire's friend from the UK, Cathryn. No other radical news really, although I'm sure events will continue to unfold in their usual inimitable fashion. I'm about to leap into the Facebook fraternity with a host of useful information, including details of the new blog. So keep posted!

Eleanor

Although I have been running this blog for some time now, not too much of late I have to admit, I haven't spent a lot of time on the kids. I don't mean that I've been neglecting them at home - well not often anyway, but their presence within these literary walls has been somewhat peripheral. On the date of my youngest's third birthday, I felt it was a good time to comment on how she has been developing since our emigration. This was brought into some perspective by the arrival of my mum, who recently landed from the UK to spend three weeks with us and her accompanying friends. When we first came to Canada, Eleanor was 15 months old and now she has turned three has spent more time in Canada than in the country of her birth. This somewhat staggering fact illustrates, to me at any rate, how time flies when you're having fun.

To Eleanor's extreme credit, she has responded to my mum's arrival very positively. Thanks to the wonders of Skype, she had no trouble recognising her grandmother and has been acting as if she sees her every day. Without the Skype experience, Eleanor would not have had a clue as to who this woman picking her up and hugging her into the next century was. Screaming and running away would have ensued, followed by overwhelming feelings of rejection from aforementioned gran. Tomorrow, her other grandmother arrives from the UK, enacting a sort of 'granny tag' as she takes over the baton from my mum. Of course, being absent from growing children as they have, both grandmothers have undoubtedly noticed the changes in Eleanor far more suddenly than Claire and me, but we do see them quite distinctly.

The first thing that gets spotted is the accent. British pronounciations of words such as 'water' and 'want' have now disappeared and replaced with the North American equivalent. Certain words have been substituted for the previous British ones too, like 'garbage' 'candy' and 'cookie'. Claire and I have been using them on and off and Charlotte uses them all the time as a result of her interaction with Canadian kids, so it is inevitable that Eleanor will soon stop sounding British at all. She also has picked up on many facets of Canadian life. She knows all about Tim Hortons, hot tubs, her favourite cable tv shows and, following a recent trip to Jasper (fast becoming one of our favourite places to be), plenty about indigenous wildlife.
We are also currently planning a skiing trip to Silver Star in BC next year and Eleanor is already aware of the skiing to come and has started to pick up the most basic techniques. Needless to say, a child in the Palmer household who fails to appreciate the wondrous sport that is skiing is likely to be very promptly exchanged for one who does.
No pressure Nell, you just take your time. With her sister already zipping around the piste, I cannot help but feel it will not be long before Eleanor gets the hang of it.

Perhaps the most subtle change has been her outlook. Her previous reluctance to communicate has all but disappeared and she is happy to talk to anyone. Even though this could be undesirable in some cases, here I feel it is less of a problem, certainly within the confines of our residential close. She has enamoured her way into the gardens and garages of most of our neighbours and provided she behaves herself, we are happy to let her do it. This openness has a lot to do with her growing maturity that is certain, but I like to think that some of it is due to the close proximity of local Canadians and their open and friendly demeanour. Surely and not so slowly, our youngest daughter is becoming a Canuck and I for one, am very happy that she is.

Bugs and bikes

For those brave few of you that follow this intermittent blog, I have been rather neglecting it of late. It is not that I'm tiring of the concept, but merely that Stantec Towers has kept me rather busy of late and therefore my window of opportunity to blog whilst still awake has somewhat narrowed. It is not as if there has been little to write about. I could wax lyrical about the invading army of carpenter ants that have taken over our house, terrorised the children and turned my wife into a foot stomping dervish. It seems these little blighters like to hunker down in some damp or rotten wood and then spread out, like Germans at a swimming pool. In actuality, we have had a few foraging ants in the house and it is likely that we have a colony either in the wall or outside in the near vicinity. The appropriate exterminators have been contacted and we await their advice. Let us hope that we can get rid of the little buggers before my sanity disappears completely.

Or, I could talk about the 'Night of the Exploding Hot Tub'. OK, it wasn't that dramatic, but when a pump seal fails as you are enjoying a leisurely soak, it takes a while for you to realise what the hell is going on. By the time we had got to the basement, 1000 litres of water was making its way across the floor and soaking nicely into the newly placed dry wall that is transforming our bare space into a third floor. Not so much dry wall then, more like sodding damp wall. Luckily, little damage had actually been done and order was soon restored. The reaction from the hot tub experts was fairly typical of consulting specialist contractors the world over. A shake of the head, a hissing intake of breath and a "well of course I did advise the previous occupants not to put the pump equipment in the basement", sort of reaction. Anyway, the damage was fixed, spare parts were obtained and normal service has been resumed.

The latest occupation to enliven the Palmer household is the ever popular cycling. Claire brought her bike over from the UK and has started riding again. Charlotte has niftily mastered her new machine and is currently engaged in a bit of bike rodeo at school. I'm seriously contemplating getting a bike from the Evil Empire so that we can all go cycling along the many trails that St. Albert is generously endowed with. As for Eleanor, well she resolutely refuses to try her bike at the moment, so some friends have kindly lent us a child trailer that attaches to one of the parent bikes. Now this is a great little thing. It looks like a rickshaw, with room inside for two small ones and once attached is fairly easy to tow along - as long as you don't go uphill very much. Eleanor sits inside and watches the world go by, occasionally waving to her subjects and yelling at her mother to go faster. Claire is getting quite a lot of exercise as a result of this, with the unfortunate side effect of falling asleep at around 9.30pm, half-way through an episode of 'Fringe'.

Soon the first of our many visitors from the UK descends upon us, starting with my Mum and her friends Ken and Pauline arriving on the 23rd June. There is much to be done. The basement has been painted, plumbed, wired and walled and with the carpet arriving next week. The house has to be cleaned and cleared of buiding dust and the girls toys tidied away, which in itself is a weekends work. At least the weather seems to have sorted itself out, so if the basement is not finished, my mum can always camp out on the lawn.....

Mmmm, barbeque..

It is a well known fact here in Canada, that life just isn't the same without a certain piece of outdoor equipment. Every living establishment here has one, from the largest acreage to the smallest 15th floor condo. No man is without one, no weekend is complete unless it is used at least once. Yes, the barbeque.
In fact, it may even be law that every family must have a barbeque on the premises. I would not be surprised to read that the RCMP had raided a home, searched the house and arrested the owners for 'failing to own a barbeque and thus uphold the Canadian way of life'. How Claire and I managed to get through an entire Albertan summer without owning one is a complete mystery, at least now it is. We took the plunge a week ago, after much ruminating, nipped off to Canadian Tire and splashed out on a gas model complete with rotisserie and side burner - woo hoo! Of course choosing a barbeque is a major task here. There are squillions to choose from, each one slightly different, each one describing it's attributes with strange sounding terms like 'sear plate', 'btu capacity' and such like. The price range can be anything from less than a hundred bucks for a small circular tripod mounted thing up to several thousand (yes, that is thousand) dollars for a complete outdoor kitchen, complete with fridge, oven, larder and full plumbing. We opted for something between the two, with lots of optional cooking facilities and a pleasant design. Well, if it is going to sit on your deck for the next several years, it might as well look good. We fired it up for the first time, easily hooking it onto our outdoor gas supply and we haven't looked back. So pleased are we with it, that we even cooked breakfast on it yesterday. It was like being on vacation - marvellous.

The basement continues apace (I really must put some photos up) as the basic room arrangement has been set out, the cabling and plumbing installed and the dry wall put up. It already looks completely different and once the rooms are finished off, it will look more like another floor of the house than a soulless cavity. The TV and the home theatre equipment is purchased and waiting to be installed (except for the PS3 player, but that will come later) as are the recessed lights. There was some debate over priorities. I wanted to get the PS3 first, arguing that we needed to play the dvd's on something. Claire arguing that we needed furniture on which to watch said dvd's. It was neck and neck until our friend Kelly pitched in and kindly offered to lend us her brand new, unused Blu-Ray player in the short term, thus forcing me into retreat and reluctant acceptance of their logic. Next, in the basement improvement programme comes the really dusty bit - sanding and moulding all the crude drywalling. Claire is already steeling herself for the inevitable invasion of dust in to places we didn't know we had places and the next few weeks will be spent continuously vacuuming no doubt.
It will be worth it though, oh yes. Watch this space.

Basements and birthdays

For regular readers wondering where the hell I've got to recently, don't panic. Work here at Stantec Towers has been rather busy as of late and quite frankly, after all day perched in front of a computer, I just haven't felt like sitting down in front of one when I get home. I'm back though and in a fine spring mood. Not only have I moved to a new window seat in my office (allowing me uninterrupted views of the condos across the road) but winter's icy clasp has been finally broken by the definite arrival of spring and despite a last minute snow flurry yesterday, a snowless terrain abounds. Here in Canada, the arrival of spring brings two main thoughts into the minds of all men - barbecues and home improvement. For this particular male, it brings a little refinement to those two basic thoughts. Buying a barbecue and getting in somebody else for the home improvement. Previous blogs have mentioned our undeveloped basement and our grand plans for converting the space into a third floor complete with bedroom, bathroom, library/living room, fitness studio and a home theatre. Well, dear friends, brace yourselves. Work has started. We are fortunate in having, amongst our friends, an able fellow who has his own business in home conversion and renovation. He has bravely accepted the challenge to undertake our work for us and despite being allergic to cats, commenced operations a few days ago. Budget restrictions in the Palmer household mean that we are going to have to do the work in two main stages, but at least we are underway. I will endeavour to post progress reports, including photos, regularly and I will start off by eventually attaching a couple at the bottom of this blog to show what things look like at the moment.

At the end of last month, our eldest daughter, Charlotte, turned 7 years old and for some weeks now, Claire and I have been ruminating on what to do for her birthday. Children's birthday parties can be held almost anywhere these days and with an endless list of themes. You can have skating parties, bowling parties, movie parties and probably even a digging-a-utility-trench-down-the-St. Albert Trail party if you want, the options are infinite. Finally, after some negotiation with the birthday girl in question, we decided to go traditional - an at-home party complete with games and a party entertainer. Our particular victim was a chap calling himself 'Magic Mike' who promised an hour of magic and mirth, a gift pack for Charley and party bags for all her guests. Ah yes, the guest list. A right old minefield that one. Inviting everyone that Charlotte knows was too costly, inviting a select few risked her being ostracised by the excluded friends and Charlotte, being the sensitive type, would have gone into emotional melt down. Finally we adopted the airline method. Overbook and hope that some can't make it. This worked pretty well after we had whittled down the prospective guests into best friends, friends and 'I'd better invite them'cos they invited me to their party sort of friends'.
To cut a long story short, the day was a success, Magic Mike was very well received by the kids, they ate every bit of party food in sight, smashed the crap out of a pinata parrot and enjoyed a good old fashioned game of musical chairs. There were no tantrums, no fights, no sulking and a good time was had by all. The party queen ruled....

Cold comfort

Boy is it cold. Now I don't mean 'you had better put on a cardie cos' it's a bit chilly out' sort of cold, but more of a 'I'm going outside Captain Scott, I may be some time' sort of freezing. Temperatures have dropped to minus 40 this week and quite frankly, it is too cold to breathe. This makes my journey to work every day a bit of a challenge. The clothing required alone is substantial. In order to maintain a reasonable core body temperature I wear an assortment of gear. There are the long thermal leggings, thick trousers, a vest, shirt and thick jumper, a padded coat, woollen neck warmer pulled up over my mouth and nose, a Russian style hat with tie down ear flaps, substantial gloves and a pair of Arctic proof, all weather, extra grip boots. In fact, the only part of me exposed to the elements are my eyes and if I could cover those without losing all navigational ability, I would. When the wind blows at 40 degrees below, it is like having ice needles poked into your face. Wearing goggles of course is not an option. Nobody wears them, not if they wish to be taken at all seriously and in any case, you'll look like an idiot. By the time I stagger in to Stantec Towers after my short walk from the transit, my neck warmer has gone solid, my finger tips are losing the ability to move independently and I have to chip ice off of my eyelashes.

Well, I can hear you all say, it was your choice, you moved to the freezing Province. You could have gone somewhere hot, like Australia but instead you chose Canada. The thing is, it may be cold, but it is dry. We don't get wet and that is far more preferable from a comfort point of view. Recently, a colleague of mine moved from Edmonton to Vancouver and was waxing lyrical about the mild temperatures experienced there compared to here. He also mentioned that it had rained 2 out of every 3 days and said that it reminded him of the UK. He preferred it, so did his wife. I cannot think of anything worse than moving across the Atlantic to live in a country where the weather was exactly the same as the country you had just left. One of the reasons we came here was to escape the damp, clammy climate so typical of a UK winter.

You see, my journey to work may be challenging from a cold point of view, but it is not a hardship. Once you dress accordingly, you are fine. I step out of my door in the early morning and the air is crisp and fresh. The sky is clear and the only company I have is a big, fat smiling moon and the occasional white jack rabbit mooching about. My sanguine walk to the transit stop takes me through quiet undisturbed residential roads covered in a blanket of white and flanked by trees sparkling in the early morning light. It is like walking into a Christmas card - every single day. The cold air charges the blood and banishes sleep, enabling me to get to work refreshed and ready. Would I change this for a mild morning, overcast with grey angry clouds and running desperately for the bus in a drizzle of rain, sitting uncomfortably in wet clothes and sneezing into my coat sleeve because my handkerchief is a wet, sodden lump? Go figure.

Road to Saskatoon

It is an infrequent requirement of my profession to travel to site for various reasons and one such opportunity required myself and two colleagues to venture over the border to Saskatchewan, to the town of Saskatoon. The name has a Looney Tunes feel to it I think, unintentionally finding yourself pronouncing it with an over emphasis on the 'toon bit, or maybe that's just me. Now such journeys are normally undertaken by air, the vast distances between major cities normally exclude the option of driving, particularly for a day trip. However, in this case, due to the late arrangements and the relative closeness to Edmonton (it is only 525 km, a mere hop away), my colleague decided we would be better off on the road. So it was that I found myself outside Stantec Towers at 5.00 am, semi awake and wishing that I worked in a bank. They have sensible hours, banks.

We set off on the ubiquitous Yellowhead Highway, heading east and settled in for the 5 1/2 hour journey to our neighbouring province. It was cold, it was dark, it was the middle of the bloody night, but we had coffee and hot muffins so all was well. Thank God for Tim Hortons. There was little traffic and so it was only a short time before we hit the border town of Lloydminster. The night was receding as we drove through and it wasn't long before the sun decided to put in an appearance. The sunrise was made all the more spectacular by the fact that Saskatchewan is flat. Really, really flat. It's so flat in Saskatchewan, they say, you can watch your dog run away from home for a week. This meant that you could see the sun, a huge orange blob, squeezing itself over the horizon and popping into view like the stuff you get in those lava lamps when they warm up. It was quite wonderful. Then everything went gray.

In what was a quite dramatic turn-around, our blue skied, orange splashed morning was suddenly obliterated by something I had not seen in Canada - dense fog. Now, I'm sure Saskatchewan is a pleasant enough province, wide sweeping prairies, open rivers etc. It's just that I didn't see a single thing, zilch. The odd nebulous structure by the side of the road and that's it, all the way to Saskatoon. It meant I could catch up on my sleep though. I ought to mention at this juncture that I was not driving. Our day passed fairly uneventfully, we came, we saw, we stood knee high in snow taking pictures and making notes and it wasn't too long before we had to head back. After a hearty meal we hit the road again, coffee supplies re-established and secure in the knowledge that the drive home could not be worse that the drive here. We were wrong. There is something worse than driving through fog. Driving through freezing fog - in the dark. My colleague, born and bred in Alberta and who was probably driving trucks before puberty, was an assured driver, negotiating the insane conditions with confidence and only raising his eyebrows above horizontal level when the visibility got so bad, I had trouble making him out from the passenger seat.



Ice build up on the truck aerial after driving though freezing fog. There is never a glass of whisky around when you need one....




There were others less fortunate than us, identified by the fact that they were upside down in a roadside ditch, or embedded in a bridge pillar, thankfully it would seem, unhurt but rather embarrassed. By the time we reached Lloydminster again, the fog had receded and the rest of the journey to Edmonton was clear. As it was here that the fog descended before, I have come to the conclusion that Saskatchewan isn't really flat, it's just that nobody has seen it and therefore assumes it is.

All in all it was a long day, the best part of 12 hours on the road and most of that covered in a cloak of fog. Our site visit met it's objectives however and the day was productive, although even my Albertan colleague was moved to say in the office the next morning, next time - we fly.