Going to Canada eh ?

The begining of October saw the first snow fall and we thought Oh Dear here we go again. However after only 2 or 3 days the temperatures rose and the snow melted. It was a timely reminder to top up the screen washer bottles and clear up the garden. On reflection tomatoes were a waste  of time as very few ripened. Nest year we try them in th eseats under out bathroom window. It is a South facing bed  which should help them ripen but we dont walk past it every day so they may not get watered often enough.

Pete has started reading books by Beverly Connor. The stories are good but there are some remarkable similarities to the Kathy Reichs series. Both heroines are forensic anthropologists, divorced with a boyfriend in the police. They keep getting over involved in the investigations when they only supposed to be gathering the evidence. Beverly’s heroine runs a museum with a crime lab attached, in the TV version Kathy’s heroine works in crime lab attached to the Jeffersonian Institute.

Lin has been suffering with what she thought was an earache. The first Doctor she saw suggested it was an allergy and he prescribed and anti histomine. The second one said take muscle relaxant. Third try she went to the Dentist and spent 5 hours in the chair being treated for an absys. Then last Friday night the temporary crown fell out. Fortunately she was able to call an emergency number and the Dentist opened up specially to re fit it. Today the permanent one was fitted and hopefully that is the end of that saga.

We are passing the one year mark of living at this address but cannot seem to shake off the old one.

Last week while David and his friend were playing in the garden, they somehow managed to let Penny escape. Lin knew nothing of this until she got a call from the animal shelter in Red Deer. Apparently Penny was found wandering in the childrens play park that is in the middle of the  park we live in. She has an animal licence tag so the man who found her contacted the Civic Centre (Town Hall) to ask where she came from. They gave him the old address and when he went there, there was no one home.  So he took her to the shelter, it then cost $81.50 to get her back.

Had the Civic Centre given the finder the correct address, all that trouble would have been saved. Not to mention the aggravation of having to drive quickly into the city to reclaim a cat.  Both of us trying to get there before closing time, otherwise further $20 charges made for overnight stay.

Unsurprisingly, Pete dropped them a line asking them among other things, how they could reconcile having Penny at 101 Silver Drive while her owners were paying property taxes on 1 Broadway Village.

The authorities are now considering a refund.  Lin says, wouldn’t you, if you had Pete on the warpath after you ?  He can be soooo scary. Our 22 year old cat is now the only member of the family, to ever hold a criminal record.  The fine we paid to get her back was only part of the problem.  She now has a first offence against her, and a second would cost us $100, but a third is by far the worst.  She could lose her life.

Last week we upgraded the thermostat on the central heating. The old one had no timer and kept the heating on all the time, and we didn’t dare turn it off for fear of pipes freezing during the night. Unlike the ones we were used to in the UK, this one has 4 different periods so we can save heat during the day when we are out and at night when we are in bed. It also has different settings for weekends. I guess technology has moved on since the place was first built.

The first frost has hit and killed off the remaining  flowers and vegetables and put ice on the windscreen for the first time. Pete got the usual blank looks when he said that at work. Windscreen ? Yes its that piece of glass next to the bonnet.

WE have joined a mail order video rental club which works by you choosing a list of DVDs you want to borrow. They send you the first one that is available, you watch it and post it back. When you post it, you can also tick a box on their website and they send you the next disk before the other one gets back to them. So far this worked well and we are averaging about 1 disk a week for about $11 per month ie half the price of the store in town and much better selection. Pete and Dave like TV and Films, but Lin is not like the rest of us.  She doesn’t like fiction or films and thinks adverts are brainwashing everyone, and says “bring on the BBC”.