Got me a job!

Quick update - got a phonecall this morning from the manager of Fernie Sports to tell me that I have a job there if I'd like it. YES PLEASE!


The shopping facilities in Fernie are more than a match for London, Paris or New York

All my BBC buddies will be highly amused by this as they purchased me a gift voucher for the very same store as my leaving present... so now I get a staff discount! (see, Bridget! You told me that maybe I should get a job there, and I did!)

Spooky goings on!

Apologies for not updating le blog for a wee while - we've been out making/finding those elusive friends that were hiding from us last week! (which has led to drinking and late nights, which is all well and good when you've got no job to go to! Sorry... we'll stop rubbing it in...)

We went out on Friday night and watched the Fernie Ghostriders play a thrilling game of ice hockey against local rivals Kimberley. How a country as peaceful and smiley as Canada can invent such a violent game is totally beyond me, but boy, they've managed it! Lots of fistycuffs and he-bitch manslappery ensued but it was a brilliant game with a draw of 4-4... The entire town seems to turn out for the games and there's a brilliant family atmosphere, particularly in The Pub beforehand where they do cheap tickets if you eat there before the game (tickets are usually $8, but we got some for $4 - £2 equivalent. Pretty bargainous.) We took Mike, one of our carpenters, along with us as he's only just arrived in Fernie and is yet another Aussie. Having never seen a game of hockey before, he was super excited about the whole thing and was highly amused by the old gentleman sitting next to us who kept yelling "hit 'im!" whenever a Fernie player was in earshot...

The game finished at about 9.30pm so we sauntered along to The Royal Hotel where they were showing a great new snowboard film called "Shrediquette" and hosting a teeny fashion show with a few giveaways and a DJ. It was a top night out and we met our old buddies Mark, Tony and Hammo who were all on great form. Jethro and Mark proceeded to shark everyone at the pool table whilst Mike introduced us to Rye and Ginger - a rather nice tipple that warmed the cockles for the ten minute walk home in the freezing cold at 2am!

Saturday was a slow-starter, but Ralph and Mike were still working on the stairs so yet another day with dust everywhere! We've decamped to the basement with a heater as there's very little point sitting upstairs at the moment - all the furniture is in the dining room for storage while the work continues. But we're very content down here - Jethro got a new PS2 game so he's happy as larry playing with that.

Saturday night was Halloween and we'd been invited down to the Raging Elk hostel for a 'kegger' - our first ever! We were warned that we had to dress up as everyone takes the spooky festivities very seriously here, so we popped downtown to ransack the shops for some cheap costumes. I picked up a witchey hat and jethro got some fake blood and makeup, having decided that he could go to the party as a dead mountain biker - nice! Picture evidence below... The keg party was fun (even if the little homebrew was a tad 'interesting') and we got chatting to some more nice folk. We carried on til the early hours at The Fernie Hotel and bumped into our bank manager, Jaason, and all his lovely cashiers including our favourite lady Joanne who looked fab in a 70s catsuit!

With slightly sore heads, we decided to go for a long hike up the mountain and try to make it to the snowline. The mountains have been shrouded in cloud for the past couple of days and the temperature has dropped considerably. When the cloud cleared, we could see that a lot of snow had been falling which was pretty exciting. Tony and Hammo popped round and decided to join us, so we swung by their new pad in the van and a bleary-eyed Mark joined us too, so we had a proper little walking tour.

We went a bit further than we did last week and it was great to be stepping on fresh snow and feeling the crunch and squeaks underfoot. It was particularly fun for Hammo as he's never been in snow before - hard to believe, but true. He was so excited that he built his first snowman and we photographed the moment for posterity. We managed to hike about halfway up the main ski hill which was a pretty good achievement - I can tell all this walking is paying dividends - I was less puffed out than last Sunday and we walked further today. Must be the clean mountain air, eh! We finished with a snack and a hot chocolate at Kelseys, hoping to see our buddy Jenn who works there, but she was off. We had bumped into her at the Halloween party the night before and met her husband who was hiding under a huge wig so we wanted to check that she'd had a great night and keep her company as it's so quiet there.

It's supposed to snow in town tonight and continue tomorrow - they're expecting about 5cm so we'll see what happens. We were thinking of driving over to Montana next week but our friend Matt kindly pointed out that they only let you in for a 90 day period and that starts from when you set foot inside the US border. So we need to investigate that further as if we went next week, that would only take us up til February, even though we would be coming and going for a day or two at a time. It might be worthwhile for us to wait until the ski season starts and our guests have arrived... we'll see.


The freaky boys and their halloween outfits!

White caps on the mountain - good sign!

It's like a Walkers crisps advert, innit?

This amused us greatly... not your everyday safety sign, really!

Lookee see! That white stuff is snow!

Piccies of us for the parentals - just to prove that we're fit, healthy and eating our greens!

Hammo and his snowman - it may be small, but it's perfectly formed! (or so he says!)

Lazy Sunday...

Saturday night in Fernie was pretty rockin'... not! Although we did hear about a party down at the Royal Hotel, which we missed by about an hour - doh! But we went down to our favourite haunt, The Pub, which is a mere stroll away from the house (important when it's -3 degrees and you're not wearing enough clothes!). There was an auction going on when we arrived so we sat and observed the locals bidding huge wads of cash for Fernie Ghostriders tickets (hockey) and trips to the local spa hotel. We sat there open mouthed as a golf bag went for $400 (£200) and a couple of T-shirts went for $160 (£80). We thought it must be for a pretty worthy charity, but when we got chatting with the auction guy afterwards he told us they were only bidding Monopoly money! Apparently, all the locals get these money vouchers with meals at The Pub over the summer, and they do this auction every autumn. So really, they weren't throwing down vast sums of money at all! This amused us greatly, as you can imagine!

We had a relatively early night and a nice lie-in on Sunday morning. I'm still waking up at 6am, but I can pretty much fall asleep again now. I decided to make pancakes, which were a relative sucess (if you put enough syrup on them). I gave Jethro the burnt one and he didn't seem to mind...

The weather was beautiful again today - it started out misty but soon cleared to brilliant blue without a cloud in the sky. Jethro gave the van a little clean - it's a tad dusty and dirty, and no doubt soon will be again! And I did a little bit of spring cleaning in the kitchen and got to grips with what's in the cupboards. It turns out the kitchen is extremely well stocked with everything you could ever need - thanks Wendy!

Seeing as it was such a nice day, we took a drive up to the mountain base and thought a little hike would be a good idea. Ten minutes later, I was bent double, puffing my little heart out. Oh dear... going to need a few more of these walks to get fit methinks! Jethro and I kept looking at each other as we walked up one of the grassy slopes, and both commented that we didn't remember it being this steep when we were boarding down it on the snow! I stood at the halfway point and breathed in a large amount of fresh mountain air and thought to myself that I am a very lucky individual indeed as I took in the fantastic views around me. We walked back down at a slow pace, using the moutain bike trails to guide us and trying not to think about grumpy grizzly bears jumping out on two unsuspecting British tourists. Some of the bike trails go through the trees and there are some seriously HUGE jumps - I can't imagine tearing down the mountain on a bike and hurling myself over such huge mounds of earth but some people obviously do! Nutters!

We retired to Kelseys (a restaurant at the base which serves nice grub) for some quick rehydration and met a nice Canadian girl called Jenn who was telling us that she was soooo bored working at the mountain, as it was so quiet. It really is very, very quiet. I know we keep saying that, but we can't stress it enough! Imagine having a whole mountain to yourself - pretty cool!

It's Sunday night, and I've just discovered that Monarch Of The Glen is on the telly! It's just like being at home!


Snow Valley Lodge - our new home for six months


The view from our front door - nice eh!


Hard to believe we were snowboarding on this very site in March!


The view up the mountain


Alex looks for some snow and doesn't find any!


Bear tracks? We think more like large doggy tracks!


Jethro "King Of The Hill" standing atop one of the dirt jumps


Jethro modelling the Fernie piste map

Wait a minute, Mr Postman!

Just a quick note. We've realised that we've neglected to give everyone our post office box number within our address, so if anyone has sent any mail to us since we got here, it might not reach us. Sorry!

If you've sent us some mail can you email us to let us know? We'll send an email to everyone anyway with the new address.

If you put a return address on your letter, it'll just get sent back to you. We're going to pop down the post office on Monday and ask if there's anything we can do to ensure that any letters that may have been sent get to us!

We're in Fernie, eh!

Firstly, thanks to everyone for their comments and emails - it's nice to be in touch with you all back in Blighty, and we really appreciate it, so thanks all!

We're now happily ensconced in Fernie, having left Vancouver yesterday by plane. For those of you who read the blog back in March, you'll have an appreciation of how much I HATE flying in the little planes that they insist on using for travelling internally in Canada. Although yesterday's flight was decidedly less bumpy than we expected, I was very glad when we landed.

We were a little late into Cranbrook but our wonderful handyman, Frank, was there to meet us and drive us to Fernie. We couldn't help but bombard him with lots of touristy type questions, (Will we see Bears, Frank? Will we see Moose, Frank? When will the snow come, Frank?) but I don't think he minded too much, even though we think he finds it hard to understand what we are saying sometimes! You can REALLY tell the difference in the accents up here. Every sentence ends with "eh!" (pronounced "a"). Frank has an awesome truck, with a big tray in the back, so we loaded up our luggage in the back and piled into the front with him. We were a bit worried about the bags getting soaked as it was still raining hard here, but surprisingly, most of the luggage stayed remarkably dry. We couldn't help but giggle a little when he cranked on the radio and it was a non-stop mix of country music! There was a break from the wailing guitar for the news, and the second item in was regarding the Cranbrook Best In Bloom contest. The Mayor had given a press conference to inspire the townsfolk to make a bit more effort, and had suggested that every Thursday should be "weed-whacking" day. I kid ye not. Only in Canada, eh!

We got to the Lodge in the afternoon and set about settling in, finding our feet and unpacking. It's very odd to have a big old house all to ourselves, and the creaking and groaning can be a bit spooky at night, but we'll get used to it I'm sure. Challenges so far have been figuring out how to lock the front door, connecting the wireless internet, turning on the water heater, turning on the microwave and fixing the flush in the downstairs toilet! It's amazing what you can do when you use a bit of common sense and logic! (although after much sulking, Jethro eventually twigged that the best way to connect the internet was to connect the router to the telephone line... thickie!)

We had two phonecalls yesterday. Firstly from Wendy to check that we had arrived safely (thanks Wend!) and secondly from Alistair, a friend of ours who lives in Edmonton (most of the time) and wanted to welcome us. It was lovely to hear from him and he's promised to pop in sometime over the next few weeks. Today, we will be on the hunt for some phonecards so that we can call family and have a good natter!

I'm also planning on pootling down to the job fair in the town. Will let you know what happens!

More news soon. Keep those emails and comments coming, eh!

I hate flying...

Old Skool flying stylee - propellors and everything!

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto...

Outside our front door, Fernie mountain shrouded in mist

We are NOT Australian...

Hello!

Well, we made it. After a very long flight with Zoom airlines, we landed at Vancouver International yesterday at about 3pm local time. The journey was pretty uneventful, but saying goodbye to our families and Dave at Gatwick was pretty hard. Jethro was veh, veh brave, but I was a bit of a mess. (Sorry parents! I meant to be strong and not cry!) We got some photos taken of us just as we were about to go through to departures so we'll post one up later. Jethro's parents apparently got a ticking off by airport security for taking the photos but we needed some evidence to show everyone that yes, we've actually gone now!

Immigration wasn't as scary as we had envisaged once we'd landed. The only slightly annoying thing is that we had to queue for two hours to see a very stern lady who gave us our working visas with very little grilling (which was a relief). But it was a bit like the first day at University. You can imagine that all the season workers are descending on Vancouver this week to work at Whistler mountain so there were lots of skiers and snowboarders on the plane and the bus from the airport, all very excited about the months ahead, and all trying to get work for the coming season. Jethro and I were in the minority as we're headed further afield to Fernie, and we admitted to each other that we were a little glad about it.

After settling into the YWCA in Downtown Vancouver, we unpacked and then went for a stroll in the pouring rain - it hasn't stopped raining here since we landed but it reminds us of home (so we're not complaining.) After a hot meal and a pale ale at White Spot (a bog standard chain diner here) we hit the sack at 8.30pm! Rock and roll!

Up with the lark at 6am (body clocks are a bit of a mess) we watched a bit of Canadian TV and found - to our utter delight - that they show our favourite cartoon here, Jaegers featuring Fernie the cow, Pigley the pig and a sheep played by Mel Brooks. It's a very cool little cartoon and we used to catch it before we went to work every morning in London, so it's just like being back in Battersea... without the work part! ;-)

We eventually got up, then caught the bus over to Kitslano and went to our favourite place in the world for breakfast - Sophie's Cosmic Cafe. We had gut-busting portions of omlettes, pancakes, bacon and home fries and wobbled down 4th Avenue to visit the snowboard shops to see if we could pick up a new board for Jethro. We got some great advice from one guy in a small shop on the corner and then proceeded to Pacific Boarder where we used all his advice to prove to the sales guy in there that we knew our stuff. He was great (shout out to Tory! Thanks man!) and spent a lot of time with us explaining all the different boards. He didnt push too hard for one brand and left Jethro to read all the blurb and make his mind up, so he now has a spanky new Rome Flag 163 board (and it's sooooooooooooooo pretty!).

On the way back, we had another one of those Vancouver moments which make us love this city. Standing at the bus stop with Jethro's new board, a middle-aged, very smartly-dressed lady comes up and says "ooooooh, that's a nice one" and points to J's board. Cue a very pleasant bus journey where she had a good old natter with us about what we up to, and where we were headed. Super nice lady!

There is one thing that has slightly vexed us since we got here. People keep thinking we're Australian. So, we've taken to saying "G'day Ripper!" and "No worries, mate."

This afternoon we're going to wander around Gastown, which is a little suburb of Vancouver with some nice bars and shops. Then some more beer and unhealthy food this evening at the Libary bar, where we will no doubt watch a bit of ice hockey on the telly. Tomorrow we have to go and attend our talk on how to integrate ourselves into the Canadian way of life, and then get our SiN numbers (social security numbers so we can pay taxes). Then we have dinner plans with a fellow powderoomie called Sarah, who lives out here and has very kindly agreed to meet up with us.

More soon!



A fond fairwell at Gatwick.

Choccy in Gatwick Departures.

The soothing touch of a moose.

Vancouver library in the rain.

My new board, a 'Rome - Flag', very sweeet!

The Littlest Hobos...

"Until tomorrow, I'll just keep moving on..."

Yes, J and I moved out of the stinky granny flat, known as Condray Place, this weekend. It's nice to know that all my worldly possessions fit into the back of a Peugeot Estate... (just)

I want to use this little bit of cyberspace to send a message of thanks to mine and Jethro's parents for being so bloomin' wonderful with this move. You don't expect your kids to come back home, bring mountains of stuff to cram in the loft, and generally be a pain in the butt when they're nearly 30 years of age. So hats off to you, Mothers and Fathers. You're all brilliant and we love you lots.

Dad kept cracking jokes about building a new wing of our house to keep all my stuff in (and calling it "The Canada Wing") and Mum asked nervously if I was coming back in a year. Yes, Mum. I promise. The CD crates/gubbins/clothes/books etc will be out of the loft within 12 months. Honest.

Two weeks to go...