Lots of Lovely Mountains

On the Friday of Carolyn's stay, we spent the morning packing and then picked up Richard from his work and then drove to Jasper for the weekend. We saw and adult male elk within about five minutes of entering the national park which was a first for me. I had found a B&B which had a suite of two bedrooms, bathroom, and kitchen/living room/dining room to rent which was perfect. Alun was there already when we arrived, so we went out for a meal and a couple of beers. As we walked back to our B&B, we passed three elk grazing by the side of the road. Amazing.

The next day, we wandered into town for a proper canadian breakfast and then spent the morning doing a circular walk to the Old Fort, just on the south west side of Jasper. Spectacular views from the top as always.


















We had a picnic by the river for lunch before going back to the B&B.

Botanical Gardens

It's a well known fact that when you live somewhere you see less of the place than a tourist would. I've been here two years and I had not yet visited the Botanical Gardens at Devon, a town half an hour's drive south west of Edmonton. So I took Carolyn there on her last day in Edmonton. It was a beautiful sunny day and the gardens were spectacular, despite the recent drought we've been having.

We particularly liked the Japanese Garden and the tropical green house which had butterflies in it. Enjoy the pics.

Still No Will

Just as a side note, I rearranged with Helen and Marlis that we would try again for the Shakespeare last Monday night, this time with Marlis' sister Miriam. However, we got there to find the car park empty and no show. Duh, I should have read the website more carefully. There's no performance on Monday nights. Apparently the actors want a night off. So we rearranged again for Wednesday, and finally got to see it. It was a slightly too farcical and slapstick for my taste, but was nevertheless good fun and a great night out. Finally.

Canada Day, or Where's Willie?

Oh, the best laid plans. On July 1 it was Canada Day so in the evening I'd arranged to go with Carolyn and two friends to see the first night of the annual Free Will Shakespeare Festival which runs through July. They were doing an open air performance of a Comedy of Errors in Hawrelak Park, which started at 8pm. We were then going on to see the Canada Day Fireworks which started about 11pm in downtown Edmonton.

We were queueing to get into the amphitheatre at Hawrelak Park when we were told that the show had been cancelled that night as one of the actors had inconsiderately broken his hand earlier that day. That was disappointing in itself as there was no other opportunity for Carolyn to see it, However, it also meant we had three hours to kill before the fireworks. A walk around the lake at Hawrelak Park took care of about half an hour, and then a cup of tea in Starbucks another half hour. Then we wandered to the Legislature grounds where we could watch the fireworks and killed the last couple of hours chatting and people watching. The fireworks were excellent and worth the wait. However, it then took us an hour to get out of the car park to get home.

Richard in the meantime, wandered down all by himself to see the St Albert fireworks and said they were very good, so we'll probably stay closer to home next year.

Shoes

Monday was a little bit wet, so Carolyn and I hit the Mall. And not just any old mall. This was West Edmonton Mall, the largest mall in North America/the northen hemisphere/the world. It boasts a hotel, a pirate ship, submarines, a theatre, a skating rink, a hotel, a cinema, a go karting track, crazy golf, a theme park, a water park, a sea life cente, a sea lion display and a few shops.

Our mission was to find me some cream shoes to go with my bridesmaids dress for Elisabeth's wedding. Piece of cake - there are around 30 shoe shops in the mall so one of them must have some suitable shoes. Oh no. After a couple of hours of fruitless searching, we found one or maybe two pairs which were just about met the criteria, except with a price tag over $150, they were decidedly unsuitable.

So on the Tuesday we hit the thrift (charity) stores in Edmonton. Now if you're thinking of your usual high street Oxfam or Cancer Research shop think again. This is Canada, baby, where everything is BIG. Our thrift stores are probably the size of your average Sainsburys with racks and racks of clothes, books, brick-a-brack, electrical goods, furniture and...shoes. The first store I didn't find any suitable ones (but came out with a rather fetching cherry raincoat instead) but in the second one and there were about twenty odd pairs of cream shoes, several of which were in my size and two of which fitted well and were ideal. So I bought them both at the extortionate sums of $4.99 and $5.99. Bargain.

Tea for two

You'll notice that most of these posts will involve mention of food or eating. This always happens where two or more Brabys and former Brabys are gathered.

I took Carolyn for afternoon tea on the Sunday to afternoon tea at the Fairmont MacDonald Hotel in Edmonton. Nice.

No breakfast, Markets and Jazz

Carolyn's first day here was a Saturday, so in time honoured tradition, we decided to take her for a slap up Canadian breakfast of eggs, bacon and pancakes at Socrates, our local diner. There's always a bit of a queue, but we were finally next in line to sit down, when the lights all went out. Huge power cut, also taking out some of the traffic lights on the adjacent road. So we got seated, and had a cup of coffee, but electricity was not forthcoming. So we decided to save it for another day and instead were forced to have large danish pastries from our local bakery instead.

We spent the morning wandering round St Albert Farmer's Market, buying up lots of goodies there, and then had a relaxing afternoon at home. In the evening, we went to a jazz concert in Edmonton. It was the start of the anual Jazz Festival and for the first time this year, they put on a free open air concert in one of the parks. We got there in time for the last set which was a guy called Alfie Zapacosta and the Edmonton Jazz Orchestra. They were excellent, playing big band type stuff, and we had a wonderful time sitting in our deck chairs, eating smoked salmon sandwiches and raspberries, listening to the great music. I hope they do it again next year.

















After all that we had drinks over the road with John and Sonja. A great day.