Skywatch Friday - Commuter Heaven

Picture taken at about 5.15pm one afternoon this week.

The silhouettes had just been dropped off by the commuter bus.

Time to go home.

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Scenic Sunday

No more snow please ...

Let's have one day off and go back to the summertime instead.

Follow me ... feel the warmth of the sunshine on your shoulders .... and breathe ....

Let's head back to "Going to the Sun" Road just south of the Alberta/Montana border in Glacier National Park

Fancy a dip of your toes ?

Crane your neck in the hazy sunshine ...

Fields of Beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax) - I just love this flower ...and it is also called other names such as: soap grass, elk grass, fire lily as well as squaw and Indian basket grass. It is found in very high altitudes of the northwestern United States and Canada. The leaves are strong enough for weaving, hence the name Indian basket grass. Native Americans used all of this plant for head dress as well as foot wear.

Glacial waters melting, trickling or gushing, with the hordes of visitors trundling by ...

And I think this one is Mountain Harebell (campanula rotundifolia) ... growing up, along and inside the crevices of rocks ...

And the colour green .... ahhhhhh.

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A little snow shower ...

Who needs to put a dog in a bath

when they can take their very own snow shower?

The shuffle phenomenon ...

People of a certain age will appreciate the ability to "shuffle". People of a certain age will recall listening to the Top 40 on a Sunday evening, with their enormous cassette player and index finger poised, to record their favourite songs and trying to hit the Stop button before the DJ talked all over the end of it.

The beauty of hitting the shuffle button on your ipod is the pleasure of hearing a random song from your past - perhaps something you haven't heard for years. The downside, in our case, is being subjected to some hideous noise that you have never heard before, nor want to hear again.

Now it's fair to say our ipod is a rather bizarre amalgamation of era's, styles and preferences - my husband had the mistaken belief that it would remain his own property and contain his choices. Wrong!

Due to somewhat lazy administration, and since our UK trip in December, the "family" ipod still contains virtually everything we (all) own in one collection - and until someone ruthlessly goes through the menu, it will remain a hotchpotch. But I kinda like this.

So this morning, while I was having a "god, this house is a digraceful pig-sty, you will clear it up" moment, the beleaguered ipod was plugged in and the volume set high so we could all tune in as we cleaned our allotted rooms (well, I call them rooms, you would never have known at the beginning of the cleaning session that we even owned "rooms". Walls and carpets could barely be seen, work tops and tables were covered in layers (and layers) of crap - toys, colouring, socks - well, one sock - paperwork, ear-rings, coins, hairbands, half eaten dog chews - I could go on but don't want to disgust you any more than you already are).

We kicked off this workout session with some Kings of Leon, some Robbie Williams and a bit of Neil Diamond. Throw in some Avril Lavigne and The Sound of Music and you can see where I'm coming from. I now know the whole Taylor Swift repertoire and my current guilty pleasure is Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus. I know - there is little hope for me now. Put your hands up, playing my song ....

But the best song to come out of the vacuuming and polishing today was by the Beautiful South. I am in love with Paul Heaton as a lyricist. One of the most under-rated bands ever I think. The man is a modern-day poet.

And anyone that can write a song called "36D" needs a pat on the back and a large beer. (Or maybe he'd already had the beer - let's make him a coffee).

My favourite lines of his

"... gotta a Phd in I told you so, and a Knighthood in I'm not listening"

This link is the song that came up today but I love all of theirs. Enjoy.

Skywatch Friday - in the pink

Sunrise in Calgary on Wednesday morning.

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Poor old UK ... that snow stuff.

I've been quietly sniggering to myself these past few mornings. Empathetic smugness, we'll call it. It's 'cos I is such a hard nut now, innit. A winter hard nut.

Whilst battling through my new commute (which I have not yet been doing long enough to get bored), I listen to my Sirius radio in the car.

I am currently tuned in to Chris Moyles on the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show - got to keep up with all that new-fangled music somehow, and the UK is still a hotbed of some good bands. Canadian offerings of Death-by-Nickleback wear a bit thin, very quickly.

And as much as I'm enjoying the music and the general silly banter of the studio crew, it's the road and weather reports that have me smiling right now. There is something quite bizarre about being in one continent thousands of miles away from a weather report in another land, but which is also very familiar to you.

Being a Brit who used to live in a house at the top of a steep drive, situated down a sloping road, in a village at the top of a hill 5 miles from anywhere, I truly understand what a snow fall means to the dear peeps in the UK. Simply put, it's chaos, nicely documented in Rob's blog here. I can recall many a snow day there and I used to miss school and work days every so often - maybe one day every other year or so. So I do understand.

Ignore "Miss Pretty in Pink" in the foreground and you can see the angle of my old driveway - that is no fun in the ice. Well, actually, it is great fun on a go-cart if you have no fear for life nor limb, but not when serious matters are calling - like work and school and beer.

Old photo of Daughters Number One and Two - taken in about 2005 - so I know this snow phenomenon does happen.

The UK, I think, is currently enduring it's third week of snow falls and the country is slipping and sliding to a painful halt. I hear of panic food buying, transit routes gridlocked and even the co-host of the breakfast show was reporting the issues of no baby milk in the village. This really is quite serious!

I am now, of course, a veteran in Alberta - entering my third winter here, I know a thing or three about snow. A veritable expert no less. Yeah - OK, I'm a novice by Canadian standards, but give me a break.

But the British Isles are generally not able to cope. Really. No-one has ever heard of snow tyres - I know I hadn't when I lived there; each council (municipality) probably proudly owns about two snow ploughs, and stores of salt (no grit over there) are only hoarded for a 4-day period, with barely enough gritting lorries to distribute it anyway (funny how they are still called gritting lorries, but they don't really throw out grit). The investment into "winter" is not top of the agenda in order to deal with, what might normally be, about 2 days of snow a year.

During Week One of The Great British Winter of 2010, I was driving down a highway in Calgary, Alberta listening to Chris and the breakfast gang reading out messages from the listeners about the various locations around the UK. My highway was at -19 degrees, and we were knee-deep in the white stuff. Pah - come on you British wusses - you call that snow?

By this morning, three weeks later, Calgary has been basking for five days in almost tropical temperatures of 7 degrees and we are over the pristine Christmas card good looks - we are awash in grit and dirt but little snow. We are warm, relatively speaking. And warmer than the UK which is funny - and a first! It won't last of course, but I take my glee where I can.

Friends in the UK, in the meantime, are emailing me wondrous photos of their home towns - which look more like Canada than Canada!

I should get their permission for posting these, but it's currently 2.30am in London so I won't wake them up, and I'm too impatient to await a reply to an email. So thanks Mr K - I'll pay your royalties later.

This one is a pretty country lane near Merstham in Surrey. Cute, huh? Until you have to go out for baby milk I guess.

Real purdy !

So, to any of my readers in the UK considering emigrating to the Great White North - how are you feeling?!

My World Tuesday ...

I like patterns in the snow. Some are the obvious foot, paw or hoof prints.

Some patterns are supplied by Mother Nature. We usually have quite dry, gritty snow here. It's useless for snowmen and snowball fights! It seems to evaporate rather than melt.

It's also quite windy here too and the grains of snow billow around. I can walk a pathway several times in a week, and the snow changes location and "moves" around in the breezes. Little drifts sneak 5 feet to the left, or hide under a tree, or snuggle up to a wagon wheel.

Sometimes I think it just looks like a rippled, sandy beach. Somewhat chillier but you still need your sunglasses.

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