Wednesday 26 September 2007

Fall in Ralston

Our wonderful Canadian summer is slowly coming to an end, the trees have erupted into a spectacular display of colour and the prairie wildlife have started to venture into the village seeking some cover from the increasingly vocal coyotes!

Last night at about 8pm I was stopped in my tracks by two magnificent stags strolling into the village about 100 yards from our house. They were enormous! As the leaves come off the trees there have also been more sightings of Ralston's famous pair of Great Horned Owls. They average 2 foot tall and have been known to help themselves to cats for supper. I'll feel like I've really arrived when I finally see one in the flesh!

Sunday 16 September 2007

Dinosaur Park

About an hour's drive from our home in Ralston is a place called Dinosaur Provinicial Park. We hadn't really realised but it's quite a big deal if you are into fossils, as it's where the most fossils and dinosaurs have ever been found. They've uncovered the remains of something like 6 different species of Dinosaur alone.

Driving up to the park is fascinating as you watch the landscape change first from the flat grasses of the prairie, to green wooded pastures like the UK and then eventually without much warning to something resembling the Grand Canyon!

Unfortunately unless you are into trekking across barren terrain, Dinosaur Park doesn't have much to offer other than a couple of impressive views and one large dinosaur skeleton. They didn't even have a place to get a drink and a sandwich! So it was a little bit of a disappointment, but we did get some good photos which we thought we'd share with you!

Wednesday 5 September 2007

Skate School

Every night this week I'm attending the Ralston Devils skate school. Ice hockey is a massive sport in Canada and there are several teams who play every seaeson at BATUS. The Ralston Devils isthe ladies team.

Anyone can have a go at joining the team and most of us who took to the ice on Monday were complete novices. This week is all about learning how to skate, which for a lot of people means just learning how to stay upright! Fortunately you wear so much padding, falling over doesn't hurt!

Talking of which, I've got so much kit on you'd be forgiven for not recognising me in these photos! I'm the one with the stripey socks on!

Monday 3 September 2007

Skate school starts tonight!


Although we are still enjoying a hot Canadian summer, this week sees the start of the ice hockey season. I've signed up to join the Ralston Devils and having spent much of last week buying and borrowing the necessary equipment, tonight we'll be hitting the ice for the first time.

Every evening this week we'll be attending skate school, then at the end of the month (once we've stopped falling over!) we'll all be going to hockey school.

It's fair to say that ice hockey gear is not the most attractive of outfits and I feel obliged to point out I have not put on 6 stone since I arrived, there is a normal size me under all that padding!