Month: June 2024

What is it with this weather?

At Spidey, we were at a presentation one Saturday night and it was so cold we had to wear our winter coats. The following Thursday we were in shorts and sandals, and five days later back to jackets and long sleeves. WTF. (Winter time forever.)

It’s the wind that makes it worse. We were sitting on the deck enjoying a drink and watching out for vicious frogs when the wind suddenly blew up and drove us in. Now I had to sit through more episodes of Bridgerton as there are no more hockey games on.

There’s me waiting to don my shorts and sandals to show off my knobbly knees and nicely trimmed toenails and all it does is still be winter. Rosalie’s Dad used to call me chicken legs when he saw me in shorts. Other than that he was a nice guy.

I know that in a few weeks, there will be complaints that it’s too hot, but not from me. A month ago I wanted to book our flight back to Mexico, then Rosalie reminded me that I would be missing a lot more beer days so I shivered and shut up.

Back in the days of sailing ships, canon balls were stacked on a brass grid called a monkey. When the weather got too cold the monkey contracted and the balls rolled off. So we got the saying, “It’s cold enough to freeze the ball off a brass monkey.”

I went to the doc for my annual maintenance check and after some blood work, he said that I was still alive but needed lots of TLC. (unfortunately, Rosalie didn’t fall for that one.) My blood is a little out of wack like the rest of me, but I’ll be fine after an oil change. It seems that I’m a bit anemic so I got some iron pills and some folic acid to make me all better again.

I’ve been cutting down on alcohol (Okay, go on, laugh. I can take it.) So I wanted a substitute and started to look at low-alcohol beer. The prices though, are crazy except for the ones with high sugar content. The more expensive ones are a lot better than I expected. I also got some Diet Coke which I only drink moderately because apparently, it makes your teeth fall out.

So now I get to drink warmed-up Coke to stop me from shivering. Oy Vey!

Rosalie and I are going into the rock painting business as we recently found it very rewarding.

Spidey had a rock painting competition and Rosalie decided to enter it. She wanted to enter the 0 to 18 age bracket but I convinced her that that wouldn’t be fair, so she entered the 18 and up group. She didn’t know what the prize was but all the rocks entered were to be displayed around the park.

She painted a bunch of rocks that Peter and Suzie had given her but soon ran out of those, so we got resupplied at the beach.

She entered four of her rocks and didn’t expect to hear anything more. She told me the prize was a bag of peanuts and an uncooked brussels sprout. But, behold and lo, a lady showed up and presented her with a gift card for $50. She won! I was so proud of her. It was for Boston Pizza so, at last, we can eat again! (I do like brussels sprouts though.)

Her rock would be displayed close to our site, but they have to glue them down or they get stolen. Rosalie said she would be honoured if someone thought hers was good enough to be taken. Maybe it has as we haven’t found any of hers yet.

In other news! It was Suzi’s birthday a while back and five of us went to The Rocking Horse pub in Nanoose to celebrate. We were an eclectic bunch representing five countries. Suzie from Hungry, Peter from Australia, Walter from Belgium, Rosalie from Canada and me from England. The funny part was that our meals were all English—fish and chips, steak and mushroom pie.

I have been growing seedlings for my hydroponic setup and have a growing box with a grow light. I check it every morning and water as necessary. The other morning I opened up the box and saw what I thought was a plastic frog. It turned out to be real. I called Rosalie to come take a look and we took photos and named it Herman or Hermoine. I left it where it was to see if it was there the next day. We have no idea how it got there as the box is on a table with only a hole at the back for the electrical cables to go through.

He looks innocent but is really mean

The next morning I opened the box and the darn thing tried to attack me. Now we have to watch where we walk so we don’t squish him.

I had a complaint from a reader (Neil) that I was delinquent in delivering enough blogs. Sometimes I have little or nothing to say so how do you write about that? However, we had an entertaining afternoon so here it is. 

My birthday was on Sunday and thank you to all my friends for reminding me how old I’m getting. 

Peter and Suzie spent most of the day with us and we went to Courtenay to find our favourite sushi restaurant, Seh Mi. We found it alright but it was closed! So we prowled for another place and found one called Sushi Jo, just up the road. The food was great and the service was awesome. I would go there again.

Anyway, that’s not what my sushi story is about. 

Neil, Diane and Sue came over for happy hour and the girls wanted to have a sushi party. As well as the sushi there was a bottle of saki and Neil and I noticed that it was rapidly getting emptied. I don’t know where it went as we had very little of it. 

While Neil and I sat quietly talking and having a drink the girls were having a whale of a time making sushi rolls. I don’t know what they were up to but the food was flying rice and other ingredients were everywhere, the instant pot was working and the girls were having a great old time. 

Finally, when the food was made and the saki bottle was almost empty they served it up.

Sue, Neil, Rosalie and me but someone forgot to get a photo of Dianne.

I don’t like raw fish but one of the rolls was raw salmon so I said “What the heck” and tried it. I obviously didn’t have enough to drink as…nope, still don’t like raw fish. Perhaps if I could have gotten my hands on some of that saki it might have helped but I was too afraid to ask the girls for some.

Throughout the afternoon, we stuffed ourselves with sushi and had a few more drinks and a lot of laughs. It’s great to have friends that you are really comfortable with. We were fortunate to spend two afternoons with friends like that. Thank you guys.