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....

Cold, yes I would say very cold

We went out yesterday to see some new friends and it wa a chilly -33 degrees. Brr we thought, until on the way home it hit -39, that is officially the lowest non-windchill temperature we have had out here. And I hear from dad that it's a balmy +9 in the land of wet and wind, you guys don't know you're born. Mumble grumble etc etc :)

Wishing a very early great Christmas to everyone, no doubt I'll do that again before the 25th.

After the wedding

Liz and Paul were spending their wedding night at Combe Abbey just outside Coventry, so invited everyone to come along for a walk the next morning in the adjacent country park. It was a beautiful morning and my parents brought along pink fizz and the left over wedding cup cakes to really help it swing.

So many thanks Liz and Paul for a fantastic couple of days, and we wish them a long and wonderful marriage.

Here comes the bride

So Friday October 9 was the day that my little sister Liz married her long time boyfriend Paul, and was the main reason for our trip to England. The wedding was held in the Guildhall in Coventry (one of the few old buildings the Germans missed), with the ceremony being held in the Crypt which was a wonderful room with vaulted ceilings.








Paul, awaiting the arrival of Liz.












Mr and Mrs Taylor signing the register













Liz, looking stunning. Shame the same couldn't be said about the weather.





My other sister Carolyn and I were bridesmaids, together with Liz's best friend Jo who she's known since they were both 3. And very lovely we looked in our hot pink dresses.















The meal and evening do in the Great Hall, also part of the Guildhall, and it was a fantastic venue with oak panelling, stained glass windows and high ceilings. In the evening a 7 piece 'Commitments' style band played loads of soul and 60s music which was fantastic to dance to.

The eyes have it

And here is the un-bearded fool complete with new eyes...

...doesn't he look young?

Fool with frikkin' laser beams .....

So the good news alluded to in a recent post, what was that all about? Well I have had a bad man slicing my eye up with lasers and sharp knives.
In a nutshell I had contact lenses inserted INTO my eyes in front of the natural lense.

You can see all about the exact process here:
http://www.gimbeleyecentre.com/visioncorrectionoptions/implantablelenses.html

Jacqui was brave and watched him slice and dice the second eye, she described it as the wife in her was horrified but the engineer was fascinated :)

The itineray for the process was fairly epic.

September
8th pre op stuff
9th iridotomy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaucoma_surgery#Iridotomy
This was pretty uncomfortable, bascially it's a laser drilling through part of your eye to help ensure even pressure post-op. It feels like some flicking your eye many many times, they do this twice in each eye.
15th Right eye get's done. Many, many drops then an intravenous injectiont to relax me and the fun begins. The doctor makes an incision into the side of the eye and injects the lense which unfurls. He then makes another couple of small cuts to enable him to get at the lense and position it correctly. The operation bit takes about 20 mins and job done. Come out of surgery, recover a bit and get driven home by wife.
15th - 21st Recovering, my eyes are sensitive to the drops which dilate the pupils so I have scary eyes until the weekend. Very uncomfortable week with headaches eyeaches and just general fun trying to focus on anything. Lots of wearing sunglasses indoors, I'm cool.
22nd Right eye checkup, left eye mutilated while the wife watches.
23rd Left eye checkup.
29th Left eye checkup.2
And aside from literally hundreds of eye drops I'm done!

And this all means:

After 33 years of needing them I no longer need glasses, full stop, underlined. I can also see better than I could before while wearing glasses. To give you an idea I had roughly 20-50 vision before, possibly 20-40 with the best prescription possible. The optician was aiming for 20-40 with my new eyes and achieved around 20-30. For everyone like me who does not really understand 20-40 20-20 etc this means an extra line and a half on the magic chart.
This also means I feel a lot more comfortable driving = more driving for me yayyy!

One negative point I was not expecting is a reduction in my close range vision, I need pretty good lighting to read books, computers are fine they light themselves.

But weighing it all up it's a huge plus for me.