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It’s seventy years since the Queen came to the throne. Her dad George VI died on 6th February 1952. So I’m having a problem wondering why they are celebrating 70 years later on 2nd June rather than 6th February. I was six at the time and remembered my older brother coming home and telling the family that the King had died. I know that they are actually celebrating my birthday. The coronation was on my eighth birthday on 2nd June 1953. I was eight then and got a lot of mileage out of it, and still do.

The streets of Rochester were decorated with banners and there were street parties all over the place. I was made to stand on a chair while everyone sang happy birthday. Each of the kids was presented with a mug full of candies. The mug had the royal coat of arms printed on it. I kept mine until a few years ago when it got lost in one of our many moves.

This was about a block away from our house

Also at that time, they made a miniature of the coronation coach. This was the first of many Matchbox Toys. I had one that I used to race on the pavement and I probably ended up wrecking it.

I met the queen a few times…no I didn’t. I’ve been close though. If the camera panned a little to the right in the following picture, you would see my best friend John and me.

The queen was visiting the Bishop of Rochester, my hometown. Later when she was leaving we rushed over to where they had the weekly market, beside the railway tracks, and waited for the royal train, The Royal Scot, to pass, not really expecting to see anything. There were about six or eight of us and as the train passed by we saw the queen; she saw us and waved. It was awesome. I also saw her on another visit to the Bishop and was only a few feet away.

Is the British royalty relevant today? Probably not to most of the world, but you have to be a Brit to understand our attachment to them. I personally can’t figure it out, even though I’m 99% Canadian I still have that same attachment. Perhaps it will all change when Elizabeth’s gone and Charles takes over; who knows? The rest of the Royals seem to be a bit blah, after her. But I think that it’s been the same throughout history, except that now the scandal-seeking press and social media bring it all to the forefront, exposing every little wrinkle. Fortunately, Elizabeth herself has been nearly spotless.

Back in the day, royalty, like Henry VIII, Richard III and the first Elisabeth would have had your head off, if you suggested they were doing anything wrong, Ah! Those were the days. Long may she reign!

Pizza wars are over with the egg being the clear winner, even Rosalie concedes defeat. So, the Big green egg won the pizza war and the Instant Pot won the rib war. I’m sure there will be more fights in the future. The upshot is that we will be eating some great food and having some fun and friendly fights.

Actually, Rosalie is leaving me alone a lot these days as she’s gotten heavily into baking bread and cakes and stuff. Not only do I have a little more freedom I get to eat some great creations. A few are not so great but they are rare.

We went to the local garden centre in Bowser and I managed to snag eight jalapeño plants before they sold out. We also picked up a few other plants to start our belated gardening season. So, it’s mostly planted now.

I took down all of the sunroom except for the roof. It looks a lot better now. After all the dust had settled I had a lot of crap to get rid of. I was going to take it to the dump myself but decided to call a long-time friend, John, to haul it away for me. He and his wife Lesley came to the trailer as well as Peter (yes, that Peter) and Suzie. I cooked some hamburgers on the egg and we all had a nice lunch.

After lunch Bob and Marleen, our neighbours showed up. Rosalie went over to invite them for dessert. Bob’s a dessert fiend so they couldn’t refuse. Rosalie had made an awesome Chocolate and Strawberry cake. But unbeknown to me she decided to celebrate my birthday a little early with a round of happy birthday. I was very touched even if the singing was a tad off key. Well, a tad might be an understatement but it was great anyway.

Now that I have my computer back I can inundate you all with useless blogs; well, it keeps me amused. Also thank you all for the very useful suggestions as to what I should do to prevent further mishaps with wine. The best so far came from Lesley who suggested a sippy cup. I may have to look into that.

With this cooler weather, we use about a 30 lb tank of propane a week. We’ve been going to Comox as it’s cheaper there at Costco. We were paying about $25 a tank. Jim came by one day and said he gets his from Bowser for under $30. I worked out that it cost us $15 to drive to Comox and back so now we get it locally without all the hassle of driving so far.

You may have noticed that I haven’t blogged for a while. Last year, just before we came back from Mexico, I spilled a glass of wine on my laptop and totally destroyed it. When we got home I bought another one and have been very careful not to repeat. But obviously not careful enough as I somehow managed to do it again. Of course it’s Rosalie’s fault as if she hadn’t asked me a question I wouldn’t have had to wave my arms about to answer. 

Then again it could be the Italian in me (according to my DNA). It seems that I dodged a bullet as they managed to repair it so I don’t have to buy another one. 

It’s hard to think that we are in the middle of May, when we got up the other day the temperature was 2C. We had tulips flowering when we got home five weeks ago and they still are. Very odd.

I planned to get the garden planted early this year but the weather has held that up too.

I have a lot of small chores to do around the place but need to wait for the weather to get better. I’ve made some modifications to the sun room. I took all the walls down and just left the roof. It opens up the place and now we can’t store junk in there. (Anyone got room for junk?) Also, we got a quote for a permanent roof for the trailer. 

Pizza Wars!

They say that pizza cooked on the big green egg is the best. However, I have a wife with an Instant Pot and now with an Air Fryer lid, who disagrees. So the battle is on! 

The ones that she has been cooking are okay but I know mine are better. As with all our cooking battles, we help each other out with an eye to sabotage. 

The first attempt on the BGE was great but Rosalie insisted on using parchment paper between the egg and the plate. Just as I took the pizza out there was a “whoosh” as the parchment paper ignited and I got away with just a few hairs on my arm burned off. 

The pizza was great but very burnt black on the bottom. I think the flavour came from the burnt parchment paper. 

I insisted that we needed a pizza stone and ordered one as well as a peel with Rosalie in the background saying what a woosy I was as she didn’t need one with the air fryer. 

She insists on actually making the pizza which is fine by me as if anything goes wrong I have someone to blame. She made it on the pizza peel and when the egg was hot enough I went to slide it on, but it wouldn’t move. Rosalie had no idea how much cornmeal to use to make the pizza transfer easily, so it wouldn’t slide off the peel. She hadn’t used enough so I folded it over and added more meal and eventually it slid onto the pizza stone. 

The recipe I was using said 500 deg for 10 minutes, but we needed closed to 20 minutes. After taking it off the egg and trying it we both agreed that although it was delicious the crust could have done with even more time, but it wasn’t burnt, a major victory. 

It’s hard to believe that this will be our eighth summer in Spider Lake Springs Resort.

Rosalie was looking back at some old photos the other day and was surprised by how many changes we’ve made.

After looking around we settled for the lot we’re in now, E02. The only thing on it was a storage shed, a fire pit and an old picnic table. We had just sold our other trailer so had to buy another much bigger one. A guy delivered it for us as our little car refused to tow it.

Just after the trailer was moved in

The first thing I had to do was to build a deck: you gotta have a deck. Then I built a new picnic table and a free-standing fence in the front yard. At about this time our friends and neighbours here said there should be a permanent roof on the trailer because if rain gets in, it can go undetected and cause severe damage. So I did that too.

I built a sunroom; not such a good idea at the time but now we live here half the year it’s that needed extra room. The Big Green Egg had to have a table so I built that too, and finally put up a metal roof gazebo.

The first few years we were invaded by Blue Jays but soon after, Alan the squirrel, showed up and the Blue Jays took a back seat. We were also guardians of a crop of baby robins for a while.

I put together a collection of photos which can be viewed here on YouTube.

Eventually ,it was decided to sell the condo and live here full time in the summer and Mexico in the winter. It was then that we bought a new modern, Park Model. It will need a protective aluminum roof, but this time, I’m not doing it. We’re getting quotes from the local roofing guy.

The picnic table top had to be replaced last year because it was starting to sag. I even planted a garden. I’ve had mixed success but have hopes that it will get better as the soil builds up.

What’s next? Who knows. We don’t let the daisies grow under our feet for long, so it could be anything. We’re just living an awesome life.

We were getting used to roosters crowing, dogs barking, cows mooing and bugles blowing that we find it very quiet here. I was waiting for the BBQ to warm up, so I stood listening, and for a long time could hear nothing, not even a breath of wind in the trees. It takes some getting used to, even the birds had quit for the day.

I can’t believe that we have been back for over three weeks already. The first few days were a bit cold but we snuggled up and got over it. Jim modified our chiminea and it burns a lot better now, so, we sit outside often and enjoy the fire. It’s great until that cold breeze starts up and then we head in and watch Netflix or read our books.

We went through 3 – 30 lb tanks of propane in those first three weeks so know it’s been a little chilly. The trailer has a great heating system so there is no discomfort. The furnace is turned off at night and back on again when I get up at about 5:30 in the morning. I think I might change the thermostat to one that will do this automatically. Then I creep back to bed and snuggle up to Rosalie for another hour.

I want to get outside and start to do the veggie garden and several other minor jobs that need to be done, but again, that cold breeze keeps me inside.

One job we do want to get done this year is to put a roof on the trailer. We have a contact that I have to phone for prices. I told Rosalie that I would do it myself but she pointed out that I’m nearly 77 years old and she’s not going to let me scramble around on roofs anymore. I sadly agreed with her but said that maybe I could go up on the roof and supervise: She said NO! I stand defeated and totally whipped.

It’s so nice to have someone as crazy as I am to share the kind of life we have. The money is available to rent a condo but we prefer living in our trailer for the summer months and then going to Mexico for the winter. When the time comes we have enough equity to live either permanently in Canada or Mexico quite comfortably. I think it will be Canada but who knows?

The biggest problem we have here is that the internet is crappy. Telus is our carrier and it’s been very spotty. There is a new antenna coming soon, so hopefully that will take care of the problem.

It didn’t, the cable was damaged when it arrived. As it turns out I have another antenna coming. They sent the first one by Canada Post so I emailed the vendor and told them that Canada Post doesn’t deliver here so they sent one to our mail box in Nanaimo. As it turned out Canada Post left a pick-up notice in the RV Resort’s mail box so we collected it.

Rosalie has been growing some sourdough starter, and it’s scaring me a little. She says that it’s bubbling and she has to keep feeding it. Why? Is it alive? She has it growing in her Instant Pot and I’m afraid to look in case it attacks me. I’m going to make sure the bedroom door is closed tightly tonight. I’ve seen the movie “The Blob” if she names it ,I’m gone!

Rosalie has had an air fryer for a few years now. It was originally my idea so that I could make some healthy French fries. I, as a former Brit am used to fries with everything. But, as most things related to cooking go, Rosalie ended up dominating it.

A while back we were in Best Buy trying to get Rosalie a new keypad for her iPad. They didn’t have what she wanted so, as we were too early for our next appointment (the pub) we decided to look around. Rosalie took one look at me and said “don’t you dare buy anything.”

We wandered the aisles until we came to an air fryer lid for her Instant Pot. I wasn’t allowed to buy anything but she walked out with a new cooking toy. I did give her some encouragement though.

When we got home she had to try it out and produced some delicious chicken wings. They weren’t as good as the ones I can do on the Big Green Egg but close enough for me to enjoy them.

We have a bit of a friendly rivalry going on between the Big Green Egg and anything Rosalie cooks. It started with bbq ribs, she won that one, but I still had to brown them on the BBQ. She says she can use the air fryer to brown them now so I have to come up with a different strategy.

Now we’re into pizzas I did one the other day that was delicious so Rosalie had to try to outdo me. She tried and failed. It was okay but…you know, not as good. So now we move on to the next round. Whatever that may be. She can’t rival my breakfasts though. I got the new griddle and cook the best bacon, eggs, mushroom and tomato breakfast ever. She’s so envious. The rivalry isn’t getting too serious but I still look over my shoulder every now and then just to make sure.

So now we had two air fryers. We decided to put the old one on the Facebook marketplace for $40. Before we did so, Rosalie saw an article saying that our old air fryer was recalled. I dove into it with dollar signs in my eyes and found that indeed the model we had was recalled. Never mind $40, now we could get the whole retail value back. All we had to do was register online and wait while they sent us the packaging and details of how to ship it back.

In the meantime, I have to put up with Rosalie trying every concoction she can think of on me to see if she can poison me or not. Apparently, you can cook not only french fries but cakes, roasts, pizza and even sheep’s testicles with a rhubarb glaze on them. I cringe at the last suggestion.

I have to admit that the fries she makes are really good, however, the testicles are a bit chewy. Probably be better if they had been done on the egg.

When Barb and Dave dropped us at home, the first thing I had to do was hook up the propane and water. The water was no problem but the propane was a bit of a challenge.

One of the thirty-pound tanks was full and the other was half full, or so I thought. I hooked them up and turned them on and…nothing. Two factors caused me problems: One: the half-empty tank was actually empty and two: the regulator was not working on one side. Of course, the full tank was hooked up to the bad side of the regulator and the empty tank to the good side, so: no gas. I eventually got it sorted out and we had heat.

It appeared that a few rodents visited while we were gone but did no damage except they ate a few of the Keurig hot chocolate containers.

I had deliberately planned to get home at this time of day so that I could get to the pub for our weekly meeting. Man, am I ever devoted? Rosalie, in the meantime, stayed with Suzie and had a nap as she was still hurting from her fall. When we arrived home the first thing I did was to get the chiminea working and we enjoyed a nice evening by the fire.

Supplies were low after six months away so a few days later we went to Qualicum Beach to stock up. After another few days, we ventured out again to Nanaimo for other supplies. Those two trips cost a lot of money: welcome back to Canada.

One of the things that had to be part of our supplies was a pork roast. When the groceries were unpacked I fired up the Big Green Egg and that evening served up a delicious meal. I also cooked up some nice breakfasts on the griddle. Ahhh, we’re home!

There have been some other issues though, I spent half of one morning phoning around trying to sort out problems, most seemed to be overcharges on our MasterCard. For instance: Amazon had charged us three times for Amazon Prime. It eventually got all sorted out and I could finally sit and relax…then, the thirty-pound propane tank ran out of gas so I had to go out in the dark and the cold to change it. Such is the life we lead at Spider Lake Springs Resort.

Even though there is a bit of a problem with the temperature, we’re used to 30C after all, it’s still great to be back in Canada, we’re looking forward to catching up with all our friends. We’ve already had two drop-ins and a dinner invitation: great people, our friends.

Our last afternoon at Papa Gallo’s. We were going to meet Ron and Barb for the last couple of drinks before we left the next day. They had invited three other couples so everybody settled in for the afternoon. It was a great time and after everyone else left, we had our dinner. I had Mango Shrimp, absolutely delicious.

There was a lot to do when we got back to the casa so we poured another drink and started to plan. As we were sitting there, Rosalie watched a pickup truck pull up. Rosalie said, “Is that Gus?” The guy got out of the truck and indeed it was our amigo Gus, from Papa Gallo’s. He saw me, held out his arms and yelled “Mi amigo Chreees!” I yelled back “Mi amigo Goose!, (Gus, short for Gustavo.) We did the macho hug thing and as he had his whole family with him, we invited them in.

There was his wife Rogelia as well as his mother-in-law Maria del Carmen and his two kids Gustavo Junior and his daughter Renata who is very cute.

Gus took off to fulfill a commitment to take some stuff to storage for some Norteños who were our neighbours. When he came back, we invited the Norteños in too, for drinks with the rest of the family.

Gus speaks good English but at times we were alone with his wife and her mother. It was great as they stretched our Spanish to the limit. I managed to get most of what they were saying and was able to respond a few times. They saw my problem though and were very patient as they waited for my responses, they also corrected both Rosalie and me when we made mistakes.

I’m sure it’s a Mexican thing but was a little surprised when Rogelia asked Rosalie if we had any rum. She showed her into the house and Rogelia saw that we had Kahlua so she filled a glass with one-third and topped up the rest with milk. Later, she didn’t ask, just went in and helped herself. Gus did the same thing after I gave him a beer. We took no offence and the party progressed nicely.

In the middle of all this, we found 8 Million ants crossing the patio and trying to take over the party. I grabbed a can of Raid and the broom and proceeded to teach them a lesson. After the spider, ants seem to be a minor problem.

If there is a perfect conclusion to a perfect six-month stay, this was it. We had a fabulous time with these guys and I told Gus that he and his family were invited to our casa anytime.

The following morning, there was still a bit to do before the taxi arrived at 9:30. When he got there we had him take us to Restaurante El Patio for breakfast where the food is great and the whole place has an old-world Mexican feel to it. Then we dragged our cases a couple of hundred feet to the bus depot. The rest of the disaster was in a previous blog.

Rosalie woke in the morning with a few aches and pains so I hooked her up to the tens machine and that seemed to help. 

We had to kill time from 10 am until our flight at 4:25. We were able to leave our cases at the hotel so went for a walk to find a restaurant for some brunch. We found one in the marina not far from the hotel and enjoyed some good food. I had a few beers to calm me down as I get a bit nigley when travelling. It was afternoon by this time

We returned to the hotel and got our cases and the concierge ordered a taxi that took us to the airport. 

Puerta Vallarta airport was packed with people compared to the last two years. After getting our re-entry papers for coming back to Mexico, we went and checked in. The process was really easy and way better than in previous years. Because it was four hours before our flight, the process was really fast with no lineups. Same with security. Once our gate was located we managed to find two seats together.

We didn’t know if we could get food on the flight so I suggested that we get a Subway sandwich just in case.

As there was a lot of time I called the hotel in Vancouver to order the shuttle for the evening and then called Virgin Mobile to reactivate our phones. So far so good.

We found our seats on the plane. They were great, located right by an exit door, so there was lots of leg room. The plane was fairly new so it had all the latest technology for watching movies etc. Each passenger had their own screen to play with.

The flight was easy and landed in Vancouver on time. The system like PV was also very easy so we were through in no time. I panicked a bit when my phone wouldn’t connect to the internet and I wasn’t able to bring up the ArriveCan App. I explained to the immigration guy who didn’t say a thing just asked a few questions and let us go. It’s becoming easy now to go through Customs and Immigration. The lineups move quickly and the customs forms with the immigration info are done on one of the machines as you enter the process.

Anyway, the shuttle was waiting to take us to the hotel where we checked in. I arranged for the shuttle to take us back to the airport early the next morning to get the bus to the Harbour Air terminal on the river. We had to catch our flight at 8:30 am so an early start for us.

We got our Nanaimo flight okay and Dave and Barb picked us up. After getting our car insurance we arrived home just after ten am.

More to follow.

The last day, that is, before we catch our flight.

Rosalie and I spent the night in the hospital. She had a nice comfy bed and I had to sleep on the couch. I thought she was being selfish but she pointed out that she was the one with the nine stitches. I saw her point and let her have her own way as usual.

During the night I had to help her to the bathroom, I had to unplug her monitoring equipment for her antibiotic drip before taking her there and hoped that the alarm didn’t go off and alert all the staff to come running.

In the morning, she had to have a shower. She said she would wait until we got to the hotel but they insisted. I needed to help her so we had a few fun minutes getting her all soaped up and rinsed off without hurting her wound.

At about 10:30 in the morning the doctor showed up, but Rosalie was in the bathroom (again). So he said he would be back in a short while. After about half an hour he came back and declared her good to go. Then we waited again for a nurse to come and take the IV out. I offered to do it but she said “no!”. I don’t know why as we would have gotten back to the hotel quicker.

After about another hour her IV was removed, we got her dressed and proceeded to the public relations office for all our paperwork and the final bill. Surprise, surprise! They said that they were refunding us $100 USD. I almost fainted. The final bill came to $3,386 CDN, which, with a bit of luck, we can get some refunded by BC Med. We are still ahead of the game as for the four years we have stayed for six months, we would have paid close to $12,000 for travel medical insurance. We had planned for this.

The service in the hospital was great. The emergency area was practically empty compared to Canadian hospitals. The food was great and the staff, doctors and nurses were very efficient and most spoke some English.

The administrator called for a taxi and we finally got to our hotel. As we were checking in, I realized that I had left Rosalie’s Temporal card at the hospital. The hotel concierge told me that the hospital was only a ten-minute walk away so I decided to hike it. It was at least twenty minutes and there was not a scrap of shade. I took a taxi back!

That evening we had arranged to meet up with some friends Cathy and Al. After a few drinks in our room, we went to the marina to a restaurant that they knew. We had a great meal and the street entertainment was a lot of fun.