Sun 21st Aug - Calgary

Earl is The Man

Our breakfast pancakes were made  by the in-house expert chef Earl, with bacon and maple syrup of course. Nancy came over to join us and so did David (the 9.30 start was very early for a teenager so it just goes to show how good those pancakes are). The first time Earl made us pancakes Andy and I were just little things and Pat and Earl had come over to the UK for an (unannounced) visit. We were fascinated by the weird puffy pancakes and didn't believe a word any of the grown-ups said about how tasty bacon + maple syrup was, although we were sold on the syrup by itself. We have got more adventurous since then. When Pat and Earl left, me and Andy cried.



After breakfast Nancy and David went home and the rest of us retired to the garden. It was a super hot day with a clear blue sky and we had a nice chat in the shade and put the world to rights.



The entrance of the Pro Bass Store

Then Nancy came back with pans to go to Cross Iron Mills mall to buy some bits so mum and I went along too. The highlight of the mall is an outdoor equipment store (the Pro Bass Store) which is filled with stuffed (real) animals such as you might come across while hiking / climbing / camping / hunting etc, set up in little scenes here and there.



Bear Loo Roll Holder

There are also some cheesier wildlife-related products...



We checked out a nice household/kitchen shop too and nancy bought her parents a dish draining rack , and a book shop where mum wanted to get a Bill Bryson book for Pat. I got several things including a notepad entitled Crap and subdivided into 'Crap to Do', 'Crap to Buy' and 'Other Crap'. It seemed to pretty much sum up most of the lists I make. The only thing not covered by it was lists for going in holiday - but fortunately they had a notepad of those too...


Bear Bodies and Innards

Nancy also showed us the make your own bear shop. You pick a bear outside, put in things like sounds and a heart, fill it with fluff and customise it with little outfits. I must admit I was tempted...



Yay! Dinner!



We had an early evening meal from Peter's (an iconic burger joint particularly loved by Andy). It has been going since 1962 and in fact was taken over 2 years ago when the original owner wanted to retire. But they had to promise to keep the product just the same (and why wouldn't they, given how busy it always is) and it did taste the same to me. Nancy and I went to get it and I bought it, and we ate it in the garden. I had a coffee shake and a cheeseburger. One large fries was about double the quantity we needed for 5 of us.



Pretty fireworks (better in real life)



At the moment there is a fireworks festival on in calgary called global fest where countries take it in turns to do a fireworks display to music and judges and the public choose the winner. This year there is china, the philippines, canada and italy, and a finale, and today was the philippines so we went along to see how good they were at pyrotechnics. There was lots of international stuff going on - food stalls, exhibitions from all the local minority communities and dancing by various local groups and, weirdly, tents for each political party. It was really nice, and warm and chilled out, and the fireworks themselves were amazing. The show must have gone on for half an hour and cost an absolute fortune.



Smiley firework (look at sideways on)



As well as a cracking finale they did a very nice

firework accompaniment to 'just the way you are' which featured firework smileys to go with the text 'and when you smile / the whole world stops and stares for a while'. Cool.
We rounded off a lovely evening back home with a sneaky little Baileys.

Ps Andy - here is a pic of the Peter's logo from the chip bag in case you want it as your

screensaver x