Pictures from the Blackfalds Parade showing some sights you would never see in England. Dave had 2 invitations to take part one from the cubs/wolf pack and one from the boy girl club. He chose the boy girl club possibly because he didn’t want to walk.
Despite sleat and snow today and yesterday, the parade went ahead. As you can see it cleared up and was in the end, quite bright but cold. Unusual weather in June you might think, but not apparently here !
This 84 seater school bus has been nicknamed the Titanic by Lin and Dave. It is one of the buses Lin has driven recently while providing relief cover for one of the other drivers. It’s really huge with 9 escape hatches including 1 door halfway up the sides and is accessed by folding up the bench seat in front of it, and another 1 is the full width of the bus at the back, which is where the engine is. It also has very grabby air-brakes, Lin says it’s good for silencing over 80 screaming kids.
This week Lin attended a breakfast meeting for drivers from Red Deer and during a lull in the conversation was heard loudly to say “I have two very handsome bosses and one of them is here today” At this point the gentleman in question went bright red and tried to hide, difficult when you are 6 ft 7 tall.
The past couple of weeks has seen very changeable weather, we went to a garden centre the other week in bright sunshine and left it ten minutes later in a snow storm. By the time we got home it was raining and soon after it had stopped completely. Sometime during the day, we had 5 different types of weather including rain, hale, wind, snow and sun.
Dave went to another cub camp last week this time at Fort Edmonton. Fortunately another parent offered to take him which saved us a lot of driving. When Dave came back he was exhausted and very hungry. Apparently he didnt like the food served so preferred to go hungry. Next time he goes Lin is planning to send food parcels. He also had to do a fair amount of walking and other physical things wore him out. Revenue Canada gives a tax allowance for any physical activity that gives children exercise but for some reason that doesn’t include cubs. I think they are out of touch on this one.
Dave has also been on a couple of outings with the local youth club. The club which does not charge membership is able to provide transport to these events and has its own minibus. Cubs who do charge for membership, however, do not have a bus which seems a bit odd.
The council has been cleaning up all the debris from the gritting lorries that has accumulated over the winter. The sweeping machines spray water in front of them and then sweep up the stones as they pass over them. When full the top of sweeper raises up on hydraulic arms and tips all the stones into a waiting lorry. Presumably for re-use next year.
One worry has been the aftermath of disposing of Pete’s old car. He gave it to someone at work who said he wanted it for the kids to ride round the farm in. However he then gave it to someone else, who put it back on the road with another license plate on it. Neither of them had registered the car in their name, so it was Pete who got the phone call from the RCMP one Saturday night and subsequently received a letter from the local government office that dealt with abandoned cars. He sent a copy of the bill of sale to the office and is hoping that it will resolve the problem.
This is where the UK system is better because it allows the seller to register the transfer of the vehicle whereas here it is the buyer that does it. And an unscrupulous buyer can easily run-up trouble for the previous owner.
Also on the car front we had to renew the registration of the Plymouth this month. This happened not on the anniversary of when you first registered the number plate but spread throughout the year in alphabetical order of the drivers surname. Of course Lin’s surname is before Pete’s in the alphabet. The fee is only $70 and instead of a tax disc in the window you place a small coloured sticker on the number plate. (Remember there is only one and it is at the back).
When we got this “wagon” Lin had visions of wooden wheels, hoop and canvas top, pulled by something with a tail. Lin was pleasantly surprised it was like her english estate car, only they don’t call it that here.
I was not happy with the brakes, so Pete and Dave (the millwright from Pete’s work place) replaced the front discs and rear brake drums and rear wheel bearings. They also bled the brakes 2 or 3 times, and this gave a big improvement. It was fortunate that they were able to use the workshop at Pete’s work out of hours as this enabled them to work in the warm and dry.
We are still trying to find a spare key, we had one cut but didn’t realise they need to have an embedded chip otherwise they won’t start the car. The original spare key was posted to us from the dealer, but got lost in the post. Yet another feature of Canada Post ? How much of this can we believe ? No matter what you think of Royal Mail in UK, it’s never as bad as Canada Post.
Last Saturday was Dave’ s birthday party and then on the Sunday he took part in his first Mass as an altar server. He got to carry the cross in the procession mostly because he was the tallest of the three servers.
Oh yes and Penny got surrounded by balloons when she was asleep and wasn’t too sure what to do when she woke up. 
A few weeks ago we mentioned that Sylvan Lake was frozen over and the ice so thick we drove on it. Here are the pictures to prove it.
At The Bus company’s Christmas party Dave met Father Christmas
He also got involved in the traditional game of trying to burst open a paper monkey full of sweets. This turned out to be a Mexican tradition adopted over here.
Dave and this weeks best friend Donovan
Dave learning to ice skate with the aid of a frame. This was at a local open air pond where they play Abba and Neil Diamond over the PA (to drown the screams?) Pete said last time he went skating the music was hits from the 60’s (and they were current).
Back in the summer we posted a picture of this place and commented that the ski jump looked out of place with a lake below it. Now the lake is frozen as are most of the rivers, it looks just right.
This is the only surface water we have seen that is not frozen. Most of the rivers have thick layer of snow and ice and are covered in tyre tracks. One of the winter pass times is driving your ATV up and down them.
Several houses put on quite a light show for the holiday. These are two neighbours who really go to town on it. Unfortunately the night Pete remembered to take the camera one of them had parked his truck in the driveway and the best views were blocked.
With no sign of Reg Varney in sight. This particular bus Lin learnt to drive in, and is newer than the one she usually drives. It seats 72 children and has massive red and amber warning lights, which is apparently called 8-ways. They flash when children get on or off. Passing a bus with its red lights flashing is illegal, and will result in huge penalties and demerits, if not a complete ban. However, in Red Deer they have a bye law that prohibits the use of these lights inside the city. Apparently they are more interested in keeping the traffic flowing than protecting lives.
Houses reflected in the surface of a small Lake in Blackfalds
A beaver breaks the surface of the water. There were quite a few living in this lake but they wouldn’t pose for the camera. I bet they would if it had been David Attenborough. It was our David and his friend Donovan who brought all this to our attention.
Below are some other sights we saw whilst driving around.
The roads just go on forever. These nodding donkeys part of the oil extraction process are common in fields in Alberta.
At the end of farm lanes you often see a collection of these boxes for newspapers etc.
Durham Alberta nothing like Durham UK. Just a couple of signs and village hall
These last few show the wide range of buildings on farms.
The power company puts platforms on top of power distribution poles for eagles or osprey to nest on.
We stopped here on our first visit to Canada in 2002. On that occasion we ate in a cafe in the old board walk. A reconstruction of a western frontier town. It was only this time around that we realised how small the town was. There were very few shops and the economy revolved around the arrival of the steam train from Stettler.
The town seems to take its name from a large gorge a few miles away which the road crossed via an old bridge of cast iron hoops and wooden deck, a bit scary.
Hallowe’en is very big over here. Not as far as I know have they had any famous witch hunts or witch finders general, they just seen to like dressing up.
There are even orange bin bags with faces on them so that when full of leaves they look like pumpkins. Some folk even have inflatable garden decorations of pumpkins, ghosts etc.
We had stocked up on jumbo packs of chocolate and crisps for the Trick or Treat Callers but in the event we only had a few callers and had loads left over. Dave is now ransacking the place looking for them.
Dave dressed up as Death ( well Mort probably)and went out with his friend Thomas and family and came back with an enormous haul of goodies after only an hour and a half (see picture).