A Fresh Start on a New Blog

Well, as they say out in pirate country, Ayr Laddies oim back  at the helm! 


In an effort to rid ourselves of small bugs that were creeping into our three year old blogs, we switched to a fresh blog page (same blogger program). Hopefully it will rid us of those things that were beyond our control.

With winter now well into the rearview mirror, it was time once more now the rain has gone, to get out and about and do some discovering but before we did that, we decided that it might be nice to grow some of own food this year.

In our last blog you saw that we had two raised garden beds which we planted up with all sorts of stuff and I also managed to get an allotment which is now full too.

Potatoes are up and we have had radishes and just harvested some beets and zucchini (courgettes in UK speak) and some lettuce.

I must say, keeping up with all that and looking after the yard, has taken up some a fair amount of time but there's still lots of time left to do other stuff thankfully.

May Long Weekend saw the arrival of Donna's daughter  (my stepdaughter) Katherine, husband Roddy and the two kids Adam and Amy.  

Kath, Roddy and the Kids arriving at Comox Airport, ten minutes from our house.

After settling in for that day and picking up the van the following morning, we headed south to Victoria, the capital city of BC and spent a night there.  During our time in Victoria we visited Beacon Hill Park, a lovely green area adjoining the Pacific Ocean and of course we could not resist the customary walk through the Empress Hotel. 

The weather was great.  The family was snickering a bit because back home in Calgary. They were getting snow which is often expected on the May Long Weekend.

We had a good time, Grandma making a big fuss of the kids and her daughter Kath too.

Grandma, Papa and Amy and Adam

 On the way back we stopped off at Donna's Cousin Barbara and husband Earls place in Parksville (sounds something like where Superman would live).  

They treated us to a wonderful Pizza lunch and then we headed for Cathedral Grove where we visited the giant Douglas Fir Trees, some of which are over 800 years old. They are truly magnificent as seen to the left. 

There's one in every crowd right! There are signs everywhere banning smoking of any kind around this park and at any other park for that matter because of the fire risk. But, it never fails. One Asian fellow was sauntering along with a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Yes he was from another country, probably on vacation but the pictures banning smoking are not that difficult to interpret and especially after the most recent Alberta fires in Fort McMurray which was all over the news.... I was tempted to say something but in the end let it go.

Yours Truly with Donna and Kath.

                               

It's that time of the year again. Time to stock up on Salmon so I am off with a friend of mine and his brother to a fishing lodge right on the Pacific Coast of West Vancouver Island.  

The guys are bringing up their boat from Cochrane Alberta, stopping overnight here with Donna and me, then the three of us will head out June 23rd for four days of fishing in the hope of reeling in some large Chinook Salmon and Halibut.

The rules are very strict for the fish we are going for. There are minimum and maximum size limits and quota limits too.

With the kitchen renovation now complete, we must save up some money for our next adventure which we would like to go on in 2018.

A happy moment, one of those you just cannot miss

We had a great day out with everyone on the occasion of celebrating Donna's Cousin Barbara's 80th birthday. Lots of us got together for an enjoyable afternoon's chat culminating in a wonderful supper and of course cake ceremony.

Barbara's brother Don, who is 85 years young, drove on his own all the way out from Alberta to be with his sister on this day.  We thoroughly enjoyed his company which gave us a great opportunity to touch base with him after maybe an eight year lapse. Barbara and husband Earl's kids Mike and Michelle also attended.

Well, that's a tough one. Our plan is to visit and circumnavigate Australia if we can. This would take place in late 2018 probably and would likely be a six month trip IF we can find a decent renter for our home in Courtenay who is willing to pay a reasonable rent for a lovely home and very private yard.

This will be a considerable undertaking for lots of reasons, not least of all that we would have to buy a vehicle there and re-sell it once we are done.

Our itinerary would look something like this:

• Fly to Sydney
• Travel North up along the Gold Coast to Brisbane
• North to Townsville and Cairns. 
• West to the Gulf of Carpentaria
• Up to Darwin in the Northern Territory. 
• Head southwest past the Timor Sea, through the Kimberley Plateau or maybe across the great Sandy Desert to the Indian Ocean
• South along the Western coastline to Perth, Western Australia, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn for a second time.

• From Perth east along the south coast of Australia to about the central point
• North inland to Uluru and Alice Springs taking in Ayers Rock
• South again to Adelaide through the Mungo National Park
• Onto Melbourne in Victoria and Canberra
• Back up to Sydney to finish.  

What a great trip that will be. We believe it would be approximately 11,000 kms right around. 

I hope we can save enough to afford this trip as it will likely be our final long trip. 

I am lucky enough to have a friends in Australia Phil Haskett and Doug Osbourne (a born and bred Calgarian).

Phil is an Aussie. He joined the British Army and we served together many years ago. I believe the last time I saw Phil was around 1976.  I am sure Phil will be a great help in fact, he's already told me to go the other way around if I go at a specific time to avoid the scorching weather and the rains up in the Northwest.  I will be relying on him for sure. 

Maybe (because I know he will read this) I could scrounge some free accommodation from him and his wife Heather for a while, test Phil's BBQ skills while we discuss our plans.   

I am sure he knows his way around to give us some advice. I believe he his wife Heather have completed the same trip or close to it previously. 

We also have Doug Osbourne who used to be the leasing manager for a Ford Dealership in Calgary before he emigrated to Australia.

Donna and Doug grew up on the same street in Calgary so we might even be able to pry a couple of nights out of them too

If our vehicle is not sold by the time we have to leave, I am sure either Doug or Phil would look after the sale for us as they are both car buffs.

Renting our house out would be an excellent opportunity for someone who might be thinking of moving to the Island to come and "try before they buy", so to speak. We would be looking at around $2,500 a month rent fully furnished.

We don't want to rent it out to just anybody so if any of you know someone trustworthy who is looking for that type of opportunity, please pass this on to them. Times and dates are a long way off and will have to be settled more closely to the time we believe we will be able to do this.

If our plan materializes, we will be posting lots of information on Facebook or in blogs as we go

I think it would be fair to say that we have been blessed so far with reasonable health but as I edge towards my 68th birthday, I can tell you, I am beginning to feel the aches and stiffness I never had before, but all in all, we are keeping well and trying to stay on track by keeping ourselves busy.  We have even taken up Yoga in order to stave off the stiffness


We would love to hear from you - our readers and as much as I enjoy the opportunity to do a blog and to keep you  updated, It would be nice to hear what you are doing too.

We can accomplish that via email or, by phone, or you can add a comment below.  If you don't have our number, email me and I will quickly return the email along with our number. I don't supply the number here as you get a lot of web crawlers on the internet harvest telephone numbers for marketing purposes and goodness knows, we have way to many of them already. As they say, "life's too short" and we would love to hear from you.

Until next time. Adios amigos y viajes seguros

PS. Congratulations to Mike and Shauna Lorincz, who just celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary at the Point and Feather in Calgary (one of our favourite watering holes) ......... did you leave it all in one piece you two?