Birthday boys and girls

We had a weekend of birthdays starting on Friday, which has meant that we've been socialising like mad little social things, and meeting people that have been in Fernie over the winter but who we never met until now! Fernie's a small place, but it's amazing to find that there are whole groups of season workers that you never crossed paths with over the winter, mainly because you moved in different circles. It's really nice to meet new friends, and there are quite a few people staying over the summer so it should be a good crowd.

The most important birthday of the three that were being celebrated was, of course, our housemate Julian's. He's just turned 25 - he thinks this is old, but the rest of us told him that after 25, it just gets better and better. And it's true! So we had a little gathering for him in the form of a barbecue on Saturday night, and I baked him a hedgehog/beaver/porcupine cake, which was well-received. Lisa made Nanimo bars too which were rather epic. If you don't know what a Nanimo bar is, it's a confectionary masterpiece of biscuit, custard and chocolate and it's YUMMY!

We hear that there's a heatwave in the UK right now. Would you mind sending some of it over to us as it's been downright wierd weather in the last week! We keep forgetting that in Fernie, it's still Spring - hence we've been getting a lot of rain, but some great thunderstorms. The weather turned yesterday, and it got sunny and nice (but I was at work - great!) but it's supposed to be hot and dry for the rest of the week. Woke up this morning to more grey skies - fantastic! We hope things improve for Canada Day weekend as we have Michael and Anke visiting from Vancouver, and they're driving all the way here, bless them! That's a 22-hour round trip just for the weekend. They rock!

Anyway, onto the usual plethora of pictures:


Gloomy Fernie – the storms here are seriously good, with lots of scary lightening that hits the top of the mountains in proper dramatic style.


After the storms, we’ve seen some fantastic rainbows – this one was a double, but Jethro couldn’t get it all in the picture it was so big!


The birthday boy himself, young Jules!


The presenting of the cake – nobody had the foresight to take a picture of it before it got devoured! (doh!) but take my word for it, it looked great!


The barbecue in full swing – because of the weather, we had to erect a tarp over the garden in case we had another downpour. In typical sods law fashion, the evening stayed dry…


… and we ran out of gas half-way through the evening, meaning that we had to cook everything in the kitchen! Some of you who read this blog regularly may remember that the same thing happened over the winter. Moral of the story: before you invite a few people over for a barbecue, check the gas!


Nice weather at last! A bit of contrast to the last week.


Giving us a chance to work on our tans (in my case: what tan?)


Jules plays with his birthday present from us – a super soaker water pistol. Hence, his girlfriend Emma is looking a little worried. After this picture was taken, I’m ashamed to say that she got a good soaking, but soon managed to steal the gun and get her own back – go Emma!


Now that the snow on Mount Hosmer has melted, the Ghostrider legend can be seen in the evenings on a sunny day. The rocks form a shadow in the shape of a horse and rider, the ghost of an angry Indian chief and his jilted daughter pursuing William Fernie. As the legends tells it, William Fernie was courting an Indian Princess to learn the source of her sacred black stone necklace. It is said that after learning the secret location of the Morrissey Coal Seams, Fernie stopped seeing the Princess and the tribe's medicine woman placed a curse on the Elk Valley. A public ceremony in 1964 officially lifted the curse. Members of the Kootenay Tribes assembled in Fernie and Chief Red Eagle and Fernie Mayor James White smoked a pipe of peace. I swear to God, I'm not making this up!