First Snow of The Season

A heavy Pacific storm dumped 30 centimetres of snow on the top of the Whistler-Blackcomb ski resort in the last few days, raising the hopes of local skiers that weather climate patterns will bring plenty of snow this coming winter. The freezing level is expected to remain steady with more periods of snow forecast for this week on that mountain.

On Monday morning Environment Canada issued a weather warning for Vancouver, forecasting 50 millimetres of rain by Tuesday, this week. The heavy rain has already forced officials to close the popular Grouse Grind hiking trail on Vancouver's North Shore.

For me, I returned from Kelowna yesterday over the mountain pass and experienced my first snow of the season, which you can see in the photo.

English Bread & Butter Pudding - NO Tiramislop, thanks!

Today was cultural pot luck day at the office.... Yes, I hear you cry "what is cultural pot luck?". Well, it is where a bunch of people at work were invited to cook or bake a homemade dish from their cultural background (or a signature dish of their choice). The idea being that everyone could taste different foods from a variety of nationalities, especially as the office has people from at least ten different countries.

This presented me with a major dilemma due to my limited culinary skills, so I ended up resorting to the classic English desert of Bread and Butter pudding. One of two dishes that I learned on a cooking course two years ago with Nancy, Emily and Mr P. Apart from initially putting the pudding in the wrong glass bowl for the oven which would have created a disaster, all went well with the cooking part (as the photo proves). I was slightly worried how it was going to taste, but it seemed to be a big hit with everyone in the office and most of it was eaten with a number of compliments from the team. No reports of food poisoning yet, so an overall success.

Canadian Thanksgiving

This weekend is my second Canadian Thanksgiving in Canada, which is due to be spent enjoying the company of Wendy and Scott Marks on Vancouver Island. The plan is for turkey dinner on Saturday evening.

However, what are Canadians thankful for???? The American thanksgiving holiday is famous for the celebration of the Pilgrim Fathers and the Mayflower ship landing on the East coast of the USA. This was the much discussed question at the dinner table from the only Brit and the less than convincing answer seemed to be linked to harvest festival. On further research, i.e. a search on Wikipedia, I discovered that The history of Thanksgiving in Canada goes back to an explorer, Martin Frobisher, who had been trying to find a northern passage to the Pacific Ocean. Frobisher's Thanksgiving was not for harvest but homecoming. He had safely returned from a search for the Northwest Passage, avoiding the later fate of Henry Hudson and Sir John Franklin who died.

Hey, whatever.... the important thing to me was that I get an extra day-off work! Here's to Canada Thanksgiving.

In concert with Jack Johnson

Last night was a night with Jack Johnson at the Rogers Arena and we (Nancy, myself and Wendy) sat back in our seats and bobbed our heads to the beat, while a giant screen projected images of churning water and waves. For those audience members who weren’t hard-core fans, the show was a nice change of pace but nothing special. They mouthed along to the tunes heard on the radio, but otherwise many just kind of stared and hoped he’d do a jig or something.

The marijuana cloud hovering above Rogers Arena was big and fluffy by the time Jack pulled out onto the stage. If the haze didn’t make you yawn, Johnson’s lack of interaction did. He zipped through his repertoire with little banter in between songs. There were a couple of songs that took Nancy and I back to memories of Manchester, especially banana pancakes and better together. Upside Down was a cheery number that made us smile with his relaxing voice. Still, I wanted more than what I could hear on my ipod.