Monday, July 25, 2005
It is with great regret and deep sorrow that this blog announces the death of Elizabeth Brown, who passed away peacefully this morning after a short illness. My grandmother will be intensely missed by all of our family, including her four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. All of our thanks and appreciation go to the staff of the Belfast City Hospital who eased her passing. We give thanks for her long and amazing life.
Gone to be with the Saviour
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Gone to be with the Saviour
Saturday, July 23, 2005
a garden in Calgary
Just a very very quick post here on yet another warm and sunny day. After some trepidation about container gardening on our deck way up in the sky, here are the results so far. Its all looking quite promising, and (fingers crossed for no frost in August), we might even get a tomato or two off the plants which are doing very well.
This is a large pot with two tomato plants and a courgette (or zucchini) - shows you how confident I was that we would have growth - I kind of figured one of the plants in this pot might do well, but they've all taken off...
Small trough of carrots - the seeds come on a kind of biodegradable tape - you put the tape in the soil, cover it with more soil and the tape dissolves, allowing the seeds to grow. Mind you, the trough is kind of shallow - I think I bought 'stumpy' carrot seeds, but time will tell...
A riot of yellow and orange...
This one didn't do too well - there were three courgette seeds planted in here, but only one took off. The pot is a good holder for oil lamps though...
Parsley - what more can I say?
Okay - that's it for now.... many more pictures and commentary to come from our trip to Jasper last weekend - stand by for bears, elk and two men in a boat!
P
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This is a large pot with two tomato plants and a courgette (or zucchini) - shows you how confident I was that we would have growth - I kind of figured one of the plants in this pot might do well, but they've all taken off...
Small trough of carrots - the seeds come on a kind of biodegradable tape - you put the tape in the soil, cover it with more soil and the tape dissolves, allowing the seeds to grow. Mind you, the trough is kind of shallow - I think I bought 'stumpy' carrot seeds, but time will tell...
A riot of yellow and orange...
This one didn't do too well - there were three courgette seeds planted in here, but only one took off. The pot is a good holder for oil lamps though...
Parsley - what more can I say?
Okay - that's it for now.... many more pictures and commentary to come from our trip to Jasper last weekend - stand by for bears, elk and two men in a boat!
P
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Jetlag Finally Abating (Homeward Bound)
Good news this morning - I actually slept long enough to be woken up by the alarm clock at 06:15! The last couple of mornings I've woken up at 2am and then 4am and it's quite miserable to lie awake at that time of the morning wishing you could be asleep. Then of course when tea-time comes, you feel a bit sick and ready to go to bed again, so jet lag stops you going out for dinner. But at last that feeling is starting to recede... I'll be fully acclimatised to the UK time zone just in time to go back to Canada again! The conference here in Dublin is excellent, plenty of Big Names talking, and also getting to catch up with some old friends and get an idea of the current/future job scene here in N.I. surgery. We had a free-ish afternoon yesterday and I took a walk from the Landsdowne Road into central Dublin. One thing that's very different from Calgary is that there are so many people crammed into such a small space here - almost no room to walk on the pavement just from the pressure of people. There are a million souls in Calgary, but the city itself is so big that the actual 'people density' is quite low. And if you go to hiking in Banff or Kananaskis you can be sure that you won't see another soul for hours at a time. Happy flying to Denise and Roy today, who are heading off to Calgary with Air Canada. Hopefully they won't be delayed just as long as I was... I'm just missing them as I'm arriving in Belfast Central Station about 9pm... Home again... it's gonna be a weird 72 hours, seeing Carrick again after 12 months away...
J
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J
Monday, July 04, 2005
Dateline Dublin
5:30am British Summertime, Ballsbridge, Dublin, Free State, Tuesday July 05 The Year of Our Lord 2005 (10:30pm Rocky Mountain Time, yesterday)
Up with the sun this morning, still not quite sure what timezone I'm in. Had a late dinner on my own last night and hit the sack at 10pm or so. Managed to sleep through to about 5am or so, and then got up to try a webchat with Calgary. Managed to make the connection but seemingly the 'high-speed access' isn't quite high-speed enough to manage either a videochat or an audiochat. I'll try another chat with the Folks in the North later on to test the connection again, but I can't say I'm surprised that what you get for your 10€ a day internet access isn't exactly what it says on the tin. We ended up having to give up on the Internet option and use a Canadian phonecard instead. If you use an Irish phonecard to ring out, the hotel charges you 2€ a minute for the pleasure. This is Dublin after all, home of the shyster. "Eight chocolate bars for a pound" as we used to hear them cry on O'Connell Street.
Dublin is dirtier than I remember, sort of an off-shade of gray. They're digging up the middle of O'Connell Street and there are construction sidings everywhere. The Liffey looks dark and sluggish and what green there is is a dark, drab colour. It's overcast this morning, but it might brighten up a bit later on.
I think I'm a 5-minute walk from the RDS, which is where the conference is and it kicks off at 7:30am with registration, so I'd better get moving soon. At this rate, I'll be running out of steam again in the later afternoon, so I don't think I'll be going too far for dinner.
More later on...
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Up with the sun this morning, still not quite sure what timezone I'm in. Had a late dinner on my own last night and hit the sack at 10pm or so. Managed to sleep through to about 5am or so, and then got up to try a webchat with Calgary. Managed to make the connection but seemingly the 'high-speed access' isn't quite high-speed enough to manage either a videochat or an audiochat. I'll try another chat with the Folks in the North later on to test the connection again, but I can't say I'm surprised that what you get for your 10€ a day internet access isn't exactly what it says on the tin. We ended up having to give up on the Internet option and use a Canadian phonecard instead. If you use an Irish phonecard to ring out, the hotel charges you 2€ a minute for the pleasure. This is Dublin after all, home of the shyster. "Eight chocolate bars for a pound" as we used to hear them cry on O'Connell Street.
Dublin is dirtier than I remember, sort of an off-shade of gray. They're digging up the middle of O'Connell Street and there are construction sidings everywhere. The Liffey looks dark and sluggish and what green there is is a dark, drab colour. It's overcast this morning, but it might brighten up a bit later on.
I think I'm a 5-minute walk from the RDS, which is where the conference is and it kicks off at 7:30am with registration, so I'd better get moving soon. At this rate, I'll be running out of steam again in the later afternoon, so I don't think I'll be going too far for dinner.
More later on...
Gatwick Airport SpeedBlog
2:25pm British Summertime 4th July 2005, London Gatwick Airport
This is a bit of a speed-blog, as I have put a pound coin into this terminal and I have exactly 6 minutes left before the connection is terminated. So here goes...
Happy 4th of July for our American readers!
Arrived safely in Gatwick, only 23 hours late. The airline staff (Canadian Affair) were constantly cringing about the delay and were extremely apologetic about the whole thing. I set my watch to UK time as soon as I got on the plane (2 am or so) and spent much of the nine-hour flight dozing off. I didn't watch a single movie, and I didn't eat any of the airline food, as I'm trying to get onto UK time as soon as possible and I don't usually watch movies and eat a full meal at 4am!
Gatwick is busy as expected and it's raining outside. The Rockies seem a long way away and P is just waking up. I'd forgotten how funny pound coins are. And the bank notes look strange to me after a year away. And the place is full of Russians. Maybe it's just me...
So the last leg of my trip is the 16:35 flight to Dublin, then a quick coach to the hotel, then dinner and bed. Hopefully I can get my head down early and knock the jet-lag on the head...
I'll be in touch, blogging from Dublin,
J
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This is a bit of a speed-blog, as I have put a pound coin into this terminal and I have exactly 6 minutes left before the connection is terminated. So here goes...
Happy 4th of July for our American readers!
Arrived safely in Gatwick, only 23 hours late. The airline staff (Canadian Affair) were constantly cringing about the delay and were extremely apologetic about the whole thing. I set my watch to UK time as soon as I got on the plane (2 am or so) and spent much of the nine-hour flight dozing off. I didn't watch a single movie, and I didn't eat any of the airline food, as I'm trying to get onto UK time as soon as possible and I don't usually watch movies and eat a full meal at 4am!
Gatwick is busy as expected and it's raining outside. The Rockies seem a long way away and P is just waking up. I'd forgotten how funny pound coins are. And the bank notes look strange to me after a year away. And the place is full of Russians. Maybe it's just me...
So the last leg of my trip is the 16:35 flight to Dublin, then a quick coach to the hotel, then dinner and bed. Hopefully I can get my head down early and knock the jet-lag on the head...
I'll be in touch, blogging from Dublin,
J
Sunday, July 03, 2005
An Unexpected Sunday in Calgary
J here. Canadian Affair have really outdone themselves this time! I am now facing a monster 23-HOUR delay! At least it's not so bad as I am actually at home and got a good night's sleep in my own bed, rather than being stuck in some ratty hotel. The flight is scheduled to take off in a nice new airplane, not the one that broke down in Vancouver, leaving Calgary at about 7pm. This will get in to Gatwick at about 11am UK time which is too late to get the morning Easyjet flight to Belfast. The next flight to Belfast only gets in at 5pm, which is too late to get my train to to Dublin. I have looked at FlyBe flights too, but the best one of these gets into Belfast after 2pm, which only gives me 2 or 3 hours before it's time to go again! At the end of the day, the only option that makes any sense is to cut out the Belfast leg entirely, cancel my Enterprise ticket, fly straight into Dublin airport and get to my hotel (which is non-refundable anyway) in time for the meeting which starts at 8am on Tuesday. I will then be home (well, at Central Station) definitely (unless the Enterprise breaks down!) on Thursday night at about 9pm! I will have the webcam with me in Dublin though, so I should be able to keep in touch. I'm sorry that I won't get to see any of you (and especially Granny B) for a couple more days, but hopefully our re-union will keep for a bit longer yet.
See you soon (but not as soon as I thought!)
J
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See you soon (but not as soon as I thought!)
J
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Canadian Affair are pants...
Just a very quick post to express my disgust at Canadian Affair's inability to act like a proper airline. Mr White was supposed to be leaving Calgary this evening, to connect with an Easyjet flight tomorrow to get to Belfast by Sunday tea-time - giving him enough time to visit an ill granny in hospital, see some relatives, and then get a train on Monday evening to a conference in Dublin. However, true to form, Canadian Affair have a broken plane sitting in Vancouver which means that their flight will be delayed by at least 12 hours (they think)... that means the cost of the flight connection to Belfast is lost (Canadian Affair take no responsibility for connecting flights), pre-booked train tickets from Belfast to Dublin are lost, opportunity to see friends and family is lost... all on top of the hassle involved in trying to make and pay for new arrangements... simply because Canadian Affair are a totally incompetent bunch of *******s - yes, I AM CROSS!
If this had been the first time that there had been any trouble, we would have put it down to chance - however, last summer, J's mum and dad were delayed by 14 hours going home; a couple of weeks ago, Canadian Affair lost the car seat that Simon and Sandy had brought with them; and a year ago, when we were due to leave home, Canadian Affair phoned to say that our flight to Canada was cancelled.... so we ended up leaving home 2 days earlier than planned, having to stay overnight in a crappy hotel in Manchester, and losing the premium seats that we had paid for.
Okay - so the flights are a little cheaper than with Air Canada, but I'm just not very sure that it is worth the bother.....
More later
P
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If this had been the first time that there had been any trouble, we would have put it down to chance - however, last summer, J's mum and dad were delayed by 14 hours going home; a couple of weeks ago, Canadian Affair lost the car seat that Simon and Sandy had brought with them; and a year ago, when we were due to leave home, Canadian Affair phoned to say that our flight to Canada was cancelled.... so we ended up leaving home 2 days earlier than planned, having to stay overnight in a crappy hotel in Manchester, and losing the premium seats that we had paid for.
Okay - so the flights are a little cheaper than with Air Canada, but I'm just not very sure that it is worth the bother.....
More later
P
Beam me up to Vulcan!
Despite a weather forecast saying it would rain all weekend long, Saturday turned out to be a better day than expected and we decided to head off on the first of our summer road trips to see what Alberta has to offer. Last summer we went east to Drumheller, north to Airdrie and south to Okotoks and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, and we're always going west to Banff/Canmore/K-Country, so we decided to strike out south-east to the little prairie communities of Nanton and Vulcan. We had been through Nanton before when we took Highway 2 further south, and wanted to go back to take a look at its antique shops and aviation museum. We had also heard a lot about Vulcan, a little farming community 40 kms east of Nanton, as the town had capitalised on its name and had "gone a bit Star Trek". It was home to an annual Galaxyfest convention for Canadian Trekkies in early June, and had also had some 'Spock Days' as part of the Alberta's 100-anniversary celebration, so we thought it was worth a look.
It took us almost an hour to take the Jeep from the north-western city limits in Tuscany to the southern limits of town, which just shows you what a big city Calgary is. We passed the site of the new South hospital, which is being built to be opened in 2009 or so. It's right on the edge of the city, with rolling farmlands beyond, lots of room for expansion. We passed through High River (where all the flooding was last week) and made it to Nanton in about 40 minutes out of Calgary.
Nanton is another tiny town, really just a few streets that the highway goes through. Every second shop seems to be an antiques shop, though, and the town's main claim to fame is its big Lancaster bomber museum. It's located in a hangar, with one big Lancaster and a number of smaller craft, along with tons of Canadian WWII memorabilia, bits of planes and bombs, pictures and letters from airmen and a small art gallery.
Lancaster from the tail
You can go right under the Lancaster and stand in the bomb bay, and then go inside (wearing a hard-hat) to see what it was like to be a crewman.
In the Bomb Bay
The inside reminded me of the USS Pampanito, the US submarine which is docked in San Francisco harbour, really cramped conditions, easy to bang your head on the ceiling all the time - it was really just a large flying metal bread-box stuffed with men and a really big bomb slung underneath. You can climb up to the cockpit, also get into the 'fish-bowl' in the middle of the plane and climb right back to the back where the tail-gunner lived. Wow!
Inside the Lancaster
Posing with Sugar
The Fish Bowl
Up at the Nose
There's also a small gallery of logos painted on the sides of WWII Canadian planes:
Outside there are a couple of WWII aircraft on display too:
And so to Vulcan!
Okay - this is where P takes over the story. For those of you who know us well, you might have assumed that it was Mr White who thought we should trek to Vulcan, but no ... somebody at work had told me that it was worth seeing, and so off we went. Vulcan itself turns out to be a very very small town on the western edge of the true prairies, with not a lot to offer to the casual visitor except a lot of grain elevators and some buildings sporting a slightly run down star trek theme. I can just imagine the talk around the town council table one night when somebody suggested that they could capitalise on the name, and develop a wee bit of a Star Trek theme- "that would bring people off the highway, eh?"; "oh fer sure...".... Having said all that, it is tacky enough to be quite entertaining...!
A sightseeing alien lands in V ulcan... but there are lots of signs to tell him where he is (just in case his starship was confused on the way in...)
Round by the grain elevators, it got a bit mosquito-ish - strangely enough I didn't get chomped but poor J got 4 or 5 huge bites on his arms, which swelled up rather dramatically later on...
The offending mossie site...
Mind you, I suppose we could have called into the pharmacy for some medication - spot the theme on the wall - all of the Star Trek doctors must have found gainful employment in the town...
A Vulcan in Federation uniform surveys the prairie landscape...
The 'famous' starship Enterprise - landed in Vulcan, mysteriously shrunk and mounted on a pedestal to draw in passing traffic...
Hmmm... hard to know what to say about this one... except that Mr White wasn't available to stick his head through one of the holes to have his picture taken. He was busy trying to buy petrol from a petrol station that appeared only to cater to farmers... first of all, he had to find a pump that did normal petrol (not 'dyed petrol', or 'dyed diesel', or 'regular diesel') and then he couldn't get the pump that he did find to actually dispense any fuel. Turns out, he needed to have a 'farmers' association' card to insert into the pump...
Our last activity before leaving the thriving hub of Vulcan, was to find a fridge magnet that was in keeping with the tone of the place....and here it is! Think somebody drew a wee picture, coloured it in, colour photocopied a few, stuck them on to magnetic coated cardboard, and cut them out...brilliant! There can't be too many of these on fridges around the world...
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It took us almost an hour to take the Jeep from the north-western city limits in Tuscany to the southern limits of town, which just shows you what a big city Calgary is. We passed the site of the new South hospital, which is being built to be opened in 2009 or so. It's right on the edge of the city, with rolling farmlands beyond, lots of room for expansion. We passed through High River (where all the flooding was last week) and made it to Nanton in about 40 minutes out of Calgary.
Nanton is another tiny town, really just a few streets that the highway goes through. Every second shop seems to be an antiques shop, though, and the town's main claim to fame is its big Lancaster bomber museum. It's located in a hangar, with one big Lancaster and a number of smaller craft, along with tons of Canadian WWII memorabilia, bits of planes and bombs, pictures and letters from airmen and a small art gallery.
Lancaster from the tail
You can go right under the Lancaster and stand in the bomb bay, and then go inside (wearing a hard-hat) to see what it was like to be a crewman.
In the Bomb Bay
The inside reminded me of the USS Pampanito, the US submarine which is docked in San Francisco harbour, really cramped conditions, easy to bang your head on the ceiling all the time - it was really just a large flying metal bread-box stuffed with men and a really big bomb slung underneath. You can climb up to the cockpit, also get into the 'fish-bowl' in the middle of the plane and climb right back to the back where the tail-gunner lived. Wow!
Inside the Lancaster
Posing with Sugar
The Fish Bowl
Up at the Nose
There's also a small gallery of logos painted on the sides of WWII Canadian planes:
Outside there are a couple of WWII aircraft on display too:
And so to Vulcan!
Okay - this is where P takes over the story. For those of you who know us well, you might have assumed that it was Mr White who thought we should trek to Vulcan, but no ... somebody at work had told me that it was worth seeing, and so off we went. Vulcan itself turns out to be a very very small town on the western edge of the true prairies, with not a lot to offer to the casual visitor except a lot of grain elevators and some buildings sporting a slightly run down star trek theme. I can just imagine the talk around the town council table one night when somebody suggested that they could capitalise on the name, and develop a wee bit of a Star Trek theme- "that would bring people off the highway, eh?"; "oh fer sure...".... Having said all that, it is tacky enough to be quite entertaining...!
A sightseeing alien lands in V ulcan... but there are lots of signs to tell him where he is (just in case his starship was confused on the way in...)
Round by the grain elevators, it got a bit mosquito-ish - strangely enough I didn't get chomped but poor J got 4 or 5 huge bites on his arms, which swelled up rather dramatically later on...
The offending mossie site...
Mind you, I suppose we could have called into the pharmacy for some medication - spot the theme on the wall - all of the Star Trek doctors must have found gainful employment in the town...
A Vulcan in Federation uniform surveys the prairie landscape...
The 'famous' starship Enterprise - landed in Vulcan, mysteriously shrunk and mounted on a pedestal to draw in passing traffic...
Hmmm... hard to know what to say about this one... except that Mr White wasn't available to stick his head through one of the holes to have his picture taken. He was busy trying to buy petrol from a petrol station that appeared only to cater to farmers... first of all, he had to find a pump that did normal petrol (not 'dyed petrol', or 'dyed diesel', or 'regular diesel') and then he couldn't get the pump that he did find to actually dispense any fuel. Turns out, he needed to have a 'farmers' association' card to insert into the pump...
Our last activity before leaving the thriving hub of Vulcan, was to find a fridge magnet that was in keeping with the tone of the place....and here it is! Think somebody drew a wee picture, coloured it in, colour photocopied a few, stuck them on to magnetic coated cardboard, and cut them out...brilliant! There can't be too many of these on fridges around the world...
