And now for something completely different...

Guess what? It snowed overnight here and, even though I'd already had about a month of it before I left the UK, I was (am) still so excited!! There's not a huge amount and it's melting fast, but it was snow and that's what counts.

There was even more snow yesterday evening when we visited Cypress Mountain for the Jackrabbit's annual Lantern Ski night - cross country skiing on the night time trails with some additional ones lit by candle lanterns. Very beautiful if the conditions are right, but also very icy and hard work if they're not. Last year was the latter but this year was almost perfect. There'd been fresh snow and the trails were newly groomed, the night was clear and dry and while there were quite a few people out, it wasn't too busy.

And even better, I only fell over once and managed to get down (in one place and upright) the Roller Coaster slope that completely flummoxed me last year!

Earlier in the day we introduced our house guest (I consider myself a regular enough visitor to claim partial ownership of the houseguests by now!) another couple of the obligatory PoMo traditions - bottling wine and a quick walk on the Inlet Trail.

Of such things are relaxing family holidays made - and I love it. Thanks big sis xxx

Earth Hour, flying solo

I'm all ready for tonight's Earth Hour when it comes at 8.30 pm.
 Are you?

UPDATE: As you can see I spent Earth Hour with the lights off, plenty of candles on and a very nice glass of Shiraz Rose. I cheated a bit by watching a DVD (Notes on a Scandal, a virtuoso performance by Dame Judi Dench in an uncharacteristically nasty role for her, and Cate Blanchett looking pale, interesting and delicate as ever) but there were no lights on in the flat whatsoever and even the heating was off in favour of the log burner.

What a hardship - candle light, a roaring fire and a glass of fine wine!!


And whilst the act of turning off one's lights is not of itself going to make a difference, it does signify support for more concerted action to prevent further climate change through all of us taking small, yet significant actions to reduce our carbon emissions. In my case I now drive less and walk more, very rarely take plastic bags when out shopping and eat much less meat than I used to. I've not quite cracked the buying less stuff bit yet, but I'm working on it!!