Ant Wars

This year we have gained three anthills and I have decided enough is
enough! So I have been franticly scouring the interweb to find ways
to get rid of them. We have black ants out here about a centimetre
long and I get a damn itchy bite when they attack me for no reason

My search found a couple of ways to remove them, these involved
boiling water, digging, acid mixes and cinnamon. I tried the boiling
water which seemed to help a bit. Then I tried standing there for a
hose for ten mins, this looks like it's giving results, it looks
like one hill is gone and I'm now working on the other two, partial
victory.

And so far I have suffered one bite, but it is a very annoying bite
and it will be with me for a week. That's why I smell like TCP most
of the time, and there's nothing sexier than the smell of TCP.

Tomorrow my war with the lawn mower, just like Denholm I find that I
like declaring war on things.

Mini update

Things are still going well. I am now getting into a routine with some
of the things that need to be done, I don't feel like a complete
dosser now and the exercise is happening.

Jacqui is a busy bunny with work and her parents are arriving tomorrow
so that's exciting! And of course the world cup is just around the
corner wooooo, just in case you missed it.

Do the walk

Damn you exercise, DAMN YOU. Ok that's out of the way, this morning I was striding along the leafy roads and paths of St. Albert. Jacqui dropped me off on the other side of town and I walked back.
The weather was a bit chilly, around 6 degrees I reckon, but the walk was refreshing and warmed me up a bit. The walk would not have been quite has long but my sense of direction was a bit challenged and I ended up in places I was not expecting.

But I managed to make it back, obviously, and I've cleaned a couple of bathrooms, my life is as exciting as it sounds :)

Thanks to those people taking the time to comment here and on Facebook, nice to know we're still remmebered!

Day one of early morning gym out of the way

I got up this morning with Jacqui at about 6:20 and she was good enough to drop me off at Servus Place at 7ish for an hour of exercise related shenanegans. 2000 metres rowing 20 mins of bike/track and a bunch of weights, then a lovely bus ride home with the rest of the weirdos.

And the rest of the day has been a mixture of cleaning, gardening and some R&R. Now I need to go and look at what I'm going to prepare for dinner, my money's on pasta.

Where to start.....

Ok then time to scrape the rust off and get the old girl up and running once more. Welcome back to a slice of our life in Canada.
'Has anything changed'? you may well ask, and the answer would be yes, yes indeed. I have joined the ranks of the unemployed, at least in the traditional sense. I will be staying at home to achieve some important things, both for me personally and to help us as a couple.

The biggest reason was, I need to lose weight, a big chunk of weight and it was not happening at work. To be honest I've probably been gaining weight since I started work 15 years ago, this has to stop.

So you can expect more entries here, along with information on my progress. It feels like my attitude is improving in some ways already. This can only be a good thing, anyone who knows me can attest to that. I'm already driving much more than I did before and although I have made some truly attrocious food buying decisions we're working on that.

Jasper

Two weekends ago we went to the mountains for the first time in about 6 months, to meet up with Ian, Lorn and Fin, and Tony and Angie. The weather in Edmonton had been getting fairly mild (above zero most days) but we drove through a huge snowstorm to get there. This meant that we didn't see much of the mountains when we first arrived, but Saturday morning was absolutely gorgeous. Here was the view from our breakfast table on the Saturday morning.

We spent quite a lazy weekend, wandering around Jasper and chilling in our B&B, but we all met up for dinner at Jasper Park Lodge on the Saturday night.

We saw loads of wildlife that weekend including mountain sheep, elk and our first sighting of a moose. There were two of them by the side of the highway on the way to Jasper.

We saw the elk in a huge herd, just outside Tony and Angie's cabin at Jasper Park Lodge. I even managed to capture a couple of the young males jousting, although they stopped fighting almost the minute I started filming. I bet David Attenborough never had that problem.

Fin also got to grips with a bear, with the help of Tony...

Still Here

I realise that it's been rather a long time since we updated the blog. The problem has been that life has been pretty ordinary for the last few months. Ok, there was Christmas, but otherwise, we have very much settled into a routine of work and sleep with little much else going on. However....