It’s been a busy few weeks, so firstly apologies for not updating this sooner.  We’ve moved into our quarter, taken delivery of both shipments of our belongings and started immersing ourselves in all that BATUS, Ralston and Alberta have to offer.

Without cowboy hats, or boots we braved the Professional Chuckwagon Racing tour when it came to Medicine Hat in June.  It was a lovely sunny evening and all three of us sat in the ‘bleachers’ of the stadium and thoroughly enjoyed watching the wagons thunder past.  There were twelve heats, with three wagons in each heat.  At the sound of the buzzer an outrider (a guy on a horse, there are two per chuckwagon team) has to load a barrel into the back of the wagon, the wagon then drives forward manoeuvres round an upright barrel and heads out around the track for “A Half Mile Of Hell”.  First past the post wins, so long as his two outriders are no more than 150ft behind him – if so a time penalty will be incurred, usually resulting in a last place finish.    http://www.wpca.com/

There was a great family atmosphere in the stadium and Jack loved every minute.  At the end of each race the wagons parade past to the cheers of the crowd and some of the drivers throw into the stands their marketing merchandise.  Jack was lucky to catch a packet of popcorn and was then given a T-Shirt caught by the woman in front of us, our son has a way with the ladies!

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The next time, with cowboy hats, we headed to Calgary for the world famous Stampede – “The greatest outdoor show on earth”.  Again, the atmosphere was thoroughly family orientated – check out www.calgarystampede.com.  You could compare it, ever so slightly, to the county shows back in England.  There are many different sections and we didn’t have time to get round them all.  Loved by all was the Agriculture area – we saw huge draft horses and miniature horses that came no higher than my thigh, bulls, cows and calves and even an alpaca.  Running alongside this was the Canadian Armed forces exhibit.  Jack and I got to climb in a tank (one of only 114 the Canadian Army has), he then went on to try the cockpit of a jet and a RIB and have our photo taken with a Mountie.  Lunch could have been poutine (chips, gravy and cheese), hot dogs or any selection of deep fried items including cheesecake – we eventually settled on a BBQ Burger before heading into the Grandstand to watch the rodeo.  We’d been able to get our hands on front row seats but they were to the far right of the action and the view wasn’t great – top tip for next year, get in early and book seats in the infield.  We watched all the action, saddle bronc, bareback, bull riding, tie-down roping, steer wrestling, ladies barrel racing and wild pony racing.  The last involved teams of three 8-12 year olds trying to tame a wild pony long enough to get a rider aboard for a two jump ride – so much fun to watch. We also took time out to explore the Midway fairground, riding the Westjet Skyride to get a birds eye view of the whole event.  We finished the day at about 4pm and headed back to Ralston with a very tired boy and a couple of officers from BATUS who’d had a wild 24 hours and needed a lift home!

From a family perspective, Jack and I are settling into the routine of Ralston.  He enjoyed his first few weeks at Kiddicare, the local Nursery, but come September will move up to Little Gophers pre-school.  We’re now in school holidays so to keep us busy Jack’s having swimming lessons at the local pool, and by local I mean a two minute walk up the road.  After the first couple of days of tears and shouting ‘Mummy’ through the observers glass window, he’s settled in really well and loving the water.  Unfortunately he’s insisting on trying out all the techniques he’s learning in the pool at home in the bath – most of them involve a whole lot of splashing!

Jonathan has settled in at work too.  Luckily he gets home most nights.  We do lose track of the days of the week with him working over the weekends – the days are now differentiated by ‘Prairie Day – long hours, ‘Office Day’ – regular hours and ‘Day Off’ as opposed to Monday through Friday and weekends.  In charge of running all of the Royal Engineer training that takes place on the prairie, he’s loving the fresh air and sun – it beats sitting behind a desk, that’s for sure.  

Our first stop after leaving Calgary was our Rocky Mountain getaway in Fernie.  We’ve decided not to let the basement suite in our house this summer and, when we have the time, use it ourselves.  It’s been an incredibly relaxing few days and there’s no better place to get over the inevitable jetlag that comes with the eight hour time difference.  We still had the usual 4am revile but lots of fresh air and sunshine certainly helped and after a few days we were back to a more reasonable hour of between six and seven.

Generally our days followed a similar pattern.  Mornings were spent walking the dog on the many trails around Fernie, with swimming in the lake, fetching sticks in the grass and exploring new smells in the woods.  We then headed back to the house for some DIY, cleaning and lunch, followed by an afternoon nap for Jack (and sometimes for Lucille).   Afternoons involved more cleaning and DIY and a run along the Elk river with Jack spotting the marks left by beavers from his buggy.  On one occasion our morning walk along the trail had to take a diversion through the neighbouring suburb.   Our first hurdle was a flooded path and with our wellies sitting somewhere in Calgary with customs, we had to negotiate an alternative route through the James White park.  Unfortunately, this route was out of bounds due to a dangerous animal in the area – we’re not sure what, but a bear seems the most likely!

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As you can tell, there’s been plenty to do in the basement suite and on the whole house.  Never have we seen so much dust and dirt in such a small place.  Needless to say, it is now sparkling clean and hopefully we’ll just have cobwebs to deal with when we return.  Jonathan has been as happy as a pig in, well – you know what I mean!  He’s been fitting skirting board, boarding out a cupboard ready for plastering, fixing the roof on the house and most excitingly, planning a deck for the outside area of the suite.  We’ve had numerous trips to Home Depot, Home Hardware and Canadian Tire for screws, tools, fixings, wood, plasterboard, a staple gun, ladder, drill and a book on deck design!

We were due to head to BATUS to take over our new quarter and home for the next two years on Monday, but after having such a great time in Fernie and discovering that our furniture won’t be arriving until a week later than planned we delayed the journey by a couple of days.  It’s now Wednesday 25^th May and we’re on the road to Ralston.