Home again after a week of travels. (I definitely see Fredericton as home now). I started the week in Newfoundland - prounounced similar to understand with an emphasis on NewfundLarnnd. I love the accent and the Newfies are really friendly and welcoming to all. (even the English ).

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I spent all monday teaching a group of 12 on the fundamentals of project management and felt exhausted at the end of the day. I enjoyed it the whole day I get such satisfaction out of seeing the lights going on when they understand the point I am making. Teaching is fun. PS I had a great opportunity to reverse the phrase I often hear, I told the class I love their accent

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While in Halifax I managed to find a Kelly Kettle  and I felt compelled to buy one as I have been admiring them for a couple of years. To those of you who have never seen or heard of a Kelly Kettle, you need to know it is one of the greatest inventions to come out of Ireland. It is a device for boiling water (damn obvious because it is called a Kettle) anyway here is a picture from their site showing how it works.

The fire is fuelled by pine cones, twigs, leaves, newspaper any old bits of fuel you can pick up while hiking. My version is the Pint version and it boils enough water for two mugs of coffee in about 3 - 5 minutes. The kettle will be for camping / day outs to whip up a quick cup of coffee, make some cuppa soups etc... I am thinking of getting the 2.5 pint version for our 72 hour emergency kit. 

Kathryn has already laid claim to it when I die. I guess that starts to happen more when you are 50 , "Dad, I love your .... can I have it when you die?" I don't consider it callous just practical plus it cuts down on death duties HAHAHAAHA (by the way they don't have death duties in Canada so your family keep the value of everything you have accumulated)

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Greasy Gary is my secret name for a new ground hog we have under the shed. It is a young pup and the girls all insist on giving our wildlife residents cute names.  Although the Racoon's name has changed from Petunia to Bandit while I have been away. I guess it is because Petunia was it's mother's name (dont try to rationalise it, just go with the flow).

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We had our annual Newcomers Club Potluck BBQ yesterday. Location Mactaquac's Centenial York Park. When we arrive it was drizzling and overcast, but like true Brits going to the beach on a summers day we persisted.

Then the sun came out and we had a great time. I think there was about 34 people including kids. Stuart and I were flipping the burgers, wieners, corn cobs and some sausages. This was accompanied with a whole pile of green salads, potato salad, bottles of coke, lemonade etc finished off with several cakes (Virginia made an excellent Banana Cake), water melon etc... I think we finished about 6pm so 4 hours of fun and it was great to see the tennis cricket game using the empty burger boxes as wickets. I didn't get any pictures sorry.