Monday, April 27, 2009

Home again home again...

Well, we made it back to the UK. The spud and I flew out on Thursday afternoon and he even slept, if you can believe it. Not all the way, of course, but enough to matter.


The end of the visit was a little eventful - after having spent three days in beautiful sunshine drinking gin on my parent's deck and generally messing about at the zoo and other sunny spots, Wednesday dawned dark and cold. We set off to go swimming and by the time we left, the sun had been replaced by snow. A foot of it over the day, to be precise. We had to dig out the driveway and make a snow train engine, it was completely nutso.

My parents live out in the Canadian wilds in the foothills between Alberta and British Columbia. Being avid birdwatchers, their place is surrounded by massive bird tables on which, outside of bear season (they've had bear and cougar on their back deck so removal of edible substances during wakey-uppy season is a Good Thing) they liberally sprinkle seeds and fat logs. One of the results of this is that they've built up a community of woodpeckers both Downy and, er, the other one... anyway, at any given moment one can see between one and five woodpeckers just sort of hanging about in the trees off the deck. In the snow they were brilliant, sometimes the only thing moving (or in this case, flirting) in the white. Charlie of course ignored this natural spectacle as all he wanted to do was to read about, talk about or build trains of varying descriptions, snowy, downy or just plain trainy.
Anyway, it was a wonderful visit and here are a few choice shots to prove it.
The Easter Egg Hunt with Uncle Hoto and Auntie Shell:

Out walking the dog

Loving his playhouse with Nori ("Lolly, wait!")


Avoiding the elephants


Now if we can just get him to stop waking up at 1am we'll be fine...



9 comments:

Lisa @ Boondock Ramblings said...

Welcome back! Looks like your weather was unusual as ours has been the last couple of days. Global warming, I've decided. Of course I'm a paranoid individual with an anxiety disorder (probably anyhow) so what do I know.

Love the photos!

(Reclus was the word for the word verification. One more letter and it describes me some days! Har! :-)

Sue said...

Oi, I need to mail you. Can I have an email id or better yet, will you please drop me a line at sunayanaroy@gmail.com?

BTW, I want a playhouse like that. It's not fair kids have all the fun. :(

Mum said...

Promised comments:
1. It isn't really wild, just on the edges and there are hundreds of km between us and BC which includes Banff, Canmore most of Canada's world class ski hills etc.
2. Cougars don't hibernate and are more interested in our pets than seeds and fatlogs.
3.It's bloody snowing again.
Mum

Helen said...

So your folks get bears in their back yard too? We spent Easter week in Arkansas, and had quite a few nature experiences of our own. It's always interesting to head some place so far out from what we're used to. Sounds like you all had a great trip!

Anonymous said...

er - the other woodpecker is the Hairy...

Michelle said...

Loved seeing these wonderful pictures of all the fun that Spud had with your parents and friends in Canada!

Dorset Dispatches said...

Welcome back. Glad the plane ride wasn't too traumatic. I struggle with a 3 hour one, a trip from Canada is beyond my comprehension!

wakeupandsmellthecoffee said...

Looks like it's still pretty cold in Canada. But I think you all had a great visit nonetheless. He will learn to sleep through the night. It'll happen one night, then another night, then a whole bunch of nights at once. I can't tell you when though.

Mosey Jones said...

Hi there

I’ve tagged you on a 20 questions meme for the ‘mummy blogging’ community. It came via Alphamummy. Have a go if you think it might be interesting!

Morag

http://www.themumpreneurdiaries.com/1/post/2009/04/the-twenty-question-meme-from-alphamummyanswers.html