I'm an aracnophobe. I hate spiders, big or small they freak me out.

So nothing in this world would make reach out and grab a spider with only a paper towel between me and it.


Nothing except the fact that the spider was sitting on my daughter's head, and she wasn't yet aware of it being there.


(not to get things out of proportion - it was a small spider, the size of a new ten pence piece (UK) / 10 cent piece (Canada) including legs - but still, I was freaked out, but I managed not to freak out little miss trampledamage :o) )

The Alberta provincial government has had to apologise for using a picture of a British beach in their posters advertising how wonderful it is to live in Alberta.

A picture of a beach... advertising Alberta - which has no coastline of its own. And they're surprised people complained!

CBC News report

Funnily enough, I think I've been on holiday to that beach. I was never so photogenically blond though...

Just spent two weeks in England/Ireland taking little miss trampledamage and young master trampledamage to meet their grandparents and aunts and uncles and new-born cousin - little miss trampledamage loved her, and was jumping up to help everytime her cousin was being taken away for a diaper change.

Am exhausted.

Loads of things to tell about the holiday, but I've no energy to write them down, so I guess I'll be telling little stories as they occur to me.

Major thing to remember for next holiday - find somewhere other than Heathrow that Canada flies to. Horrid, horrid place.

Andy Hallett who played Lorne on Angel has died of heart failure.

E-Online link, I had to click it twice to get through, hopefully it'll work okay

At five past eight in the evening, we watched the International Space Station go overhead, and in front of it we saw the Russian ship that was going up to dock with it. The station is a very bright light, larger than a star, moving steadily across the sky.

CBC news on the docking


It's little miss trampledamage's second time of seeing the ISS go overhead, she loves it.

It's a bizarre experience living in Canada for St Patrick's Day. At little miss trampledamage's preschool they've been doing shamrock and leprechaun crafts all week and there's a "Wear Green" day tomorrow, and even at mr trampledamage's work they're having a "Wear Green and win a prize" contest for tomorrow. I said they should both write a sign that says "I AM Irish, I don't need to wear green".

What's odd is that they make a big thing of it, but it's nothing to do with Ireland. It's green and shamrocks and leprechauns but it's not Ireland. I suppose for Canadians, StP's day isn't about Ireland, but St Patrick is the patrion saint of Ireland and for someone who used to live there it's a little odd to have the holiday without the country.

EDIT: I know shamrocks and leprechauns are about "Ireland" and there's always a fair bit of shamrockery in Ireland for St Patrick's but here it's still oddly separate from the country. Can't explain it properly - it's just odd.

Having said that, since I was living in Northern Ireland and was overly conscious of being an English person and not wanting to attract attention to myself, my experience of St Patrick's Day is a little twisted anyway! It's difficult to get into the swing of things when you're used to worrying about riots...

Not a citizen yet, although we are eligible to apply (just waiting til after holidays to start that particular bit of stress) but I have, at last, made a snowman using the method often seen in cartoons of rolling large snowballs through the snow.

Seems simple on TV but you need the right kind of snow (shades of British Rail!), and the right kind of snow is wet, sticky snow. It's usually so cold in toon-town that what we get is the fine powder snow. But we've had a really warm day today so the top layer of snow has melted slightly allowing for the snowman to be built.

I'm really pleased!

You might remember me mentioning that whether little miss trampledamage was going to kindergarten in the autumn was an issue that would be causing worry.

Not so much anymore :o)

As is her way, little miss trampledamage has decided matters for herself. There was an information evening at the school, so I told her what it was about, why I was going and how we hadn't decided yet whether she was going or not.

Since then, every time she does something that I'm pleased with or impressed by she says "Great! Can I go to kindergarten now?"

So, that's that sorted then!


I did talk to her preschool teacher, who agrees that the little miss is definitely academically ready but wasn't sure she was socially ready. However the symptoms she describes (standing waiting for direction rather than leaping in and grabbing a toy, and watching what everyone else is doing rather than working on her own crafts) are more extensions of little miss trampledamage's own personality (and also mine :o) ) - and as mister trampledamage put it "well, that isn't going to be fixed by another year in preschool."

A US Airways Airbus A320 has crashed into the Hudson River in New York City.

BBC News story

Patrick McGoohan and Ricardo Montalban have died

CBC obit for McGoohan here

and for Montalban here






And a quick update on family trampledamage - weather bloody cold, young master trampledamage turns two tomorrow. So I suppose on the upside, at least we haven't had the blizzard that heralded his birth.

It's currently -38 centigrade outside (-49 with the wind-chill) so mr trampledamage decided to try the legendary throwing boiling water into the air in a Saskatchewan winter experiment.

It was amazing!

The water turned immediately to a fine frozen mist and just blew away on the wind.

And this was fresh out of the kettle boiling water.






mr TD has a set of pictures of some guys from where he works doing the same thing a few years ago. If anyone wants to see them, I'll e-mail them to you.

I feel an urge to get started on this whole "actually posting stuff on LJ" thing, so I figure the place to start is a quick history of family trampledamage, so you'll know all the background stuff.

Let's see...



Gosh this is hard...



Well, there's me and then there's mr trampledamage, little miss trampledamage who's four and young master trampledamage who turns two in January.

We moved from Northern Ireland to Canada (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - aka toon-town) on Feb 23rd 2006 (always thereafter celebrated as New Homeland Day). February of this year marks our three year anniversary of landing and means we can apply for citizenship.

Mathematicians among you will notice that this means little miss trampledamage was born before we moved - we did that journey with a 14-month-old toddler, not something I'd recommend. young master trampledamage was born five days after the worst blizzard to hit Saskatoon in 50 years - this was our first experience of a Canadian winter, it certainly makes every other winter seem easy.

little miss trampledamage is currenty at preschool and will possibly be starting kindergarten in the autumn - expect much worrying about this.

I stay at home to look after the two centres of the universe, but have recently started doing a paper route in the early mornings before mr trampledamage goes to work (on good days before anyone else wakes up!) to get me some exercise and extra money. Keep in mind as you read this that January is the coldest month in toon-town and the weather tomorrow morning is going to be -40 with the wind-chill).


Think that's it. Everything else is either covered by the Official Secrets Act or you'll pick it up on the way.



Apologies in advance if this is the last post until I read about bodies being lost behind cupboards again...

It's little miss trampledamage's fourth birthday on Wednesday. Today, with her help, I have made what I think is probably the best chocolate sponge I have ever made! Tomorrow we add the chocolate butter cream in the middle, then pour Cadbury's Premium Dark (Bournville) chocolate over the top and in that we'll add Smarties.

She likes chocolate :o)

Doesn't like sweets or lollipops, just loves chocolate!



If it turns out as nice as I hope it will. I'll post a photo!

Well mine anyway...

Here's the thing. A Canadian winter goes something like this: come Hallowe'en, the big cold arrives, temps sink to under -10 centigrade, a whole big pile of snow falls and then for the rest of the winter it stays cold, some more snow falls, more cold, some more cold and then come the middle of March we get the big melt and spring arrives.

That's what is supposed to happen. That's what happened last year. It was fabulous. Yes it was teeth-rattlingly cold, but because it's always cold, the snow never melts until spring. So no ice.

This winter however...

It's nearly the middle of November and I can still see the grass! We've had very little snow and none of it has settled. We're due for +4 temperatures over the weekend. This means what normally falls as snow falls as rain, which then freezes overnight, which means ice, which means me slipping over. This is not good. This is not a Canadian winter. This is a freaking British winter. If I'd wanted a British winter I would have stayed there!

Paul Newman has died.

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2008/09/27/newman-obit.html?ref=rss

Two items for your delectation and delight!

First up (from easterbunny) is an explanation of the U.S. sub-prime mortgage mess using stick figures. Funny and educational - enjoy!

http://www.businesspundit.com/sub-prime/

Second, today is the 30th anniversary of the release of Teenage Kicks by The Undertones, so BBC Northern Ireland has an interview with bassist Mickey Bradley talking about the recording of the song.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/foyle_and_west/7633336.stm

(I know most of the places he's talking about too, which is cool :o) )

Sad, sad news.

Geoffrey Perkins, one-time head of BBC comedy, producer of the Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy radio show among other great comedies, has been killed in a road traffic accident.

This is the BBC report from yesterday

John Profumo has died. I guess all most people know about him (certainly me, but I'm woefully ignorant about things) was the Christine Keeler scandal, but after that he devoted his time to charity work.

Here's the BBC obituary

Haven't heard of any other politicians offering to do the washing up at a refuge days after their fall from grace.

EDIT - It seems it was a week for losing good politicians - March 2006... *sigh* This is what I get for not paying attention. (Thank you for noticing so quickly, itsjustaname)

Does anyone on my friends list speak Spanish?

I'd like the numbers from one to ten written as they are pronounced in Spanish, please.

The Little Miss is having great fun being able to count to six in Spanish - it's in one of her Dora the Explorer books - and we have a counting book that does one to ten in English and French (thank you itsjustaname! It's fab), and I can do the French pronounciation (reasonably!). She'd also really like to be able to go to ten in Spanish, but there I haven't a clue.


Can anyone help?


thanks heaps and heaps.

Well the subject line says it all really. Here's the news article from the Yorkshire Evening Post

Ignore the very bizarre picture they've decided to put with the article and read the details - it sounds fantastic. And I'm incredibly jealous of anyone who goes on the right day in September and gets to meet Peter Lyon who made the swords.

Anybody going?


(P.S. that's Leeds, England for the Americans among my readers :o) )