Hello Tail and Dennis

  Ladner, British Columbia, Canada Friday, August 28, 2015

It was great to see Dale and Tannis again. 5 years almost since we were here last and they haven't changed a bit! They have had a bit of a refurb though which looks great. We shared a bottle of wine with Tannis when we arrived whilst we waited for Dale to come home from work and then joined him at a local restaurant; Sharkey's, which sits on the edge of the river. Lovely. We didn't have much of a plan for our stay here, it was all about relaxing with friends and abusing their wifi! (it wouldn't pay to get that the wrong way round!) We also got the chance to give Rosie some TLC. She got emptied and a good clean inside and out, a much needed oil change which during the inspection they discovered one or two other little things so she got those seen to tooHer plates arrived from John in Ohio (thanks again John) so now she is all official. Well she was anyway but it didn't look official with a paper numberplate wrapped in a plastic bag hanging off the back! Tannis had been yakking on about some special bread she likes from back east and soon after we arrived her cousins from Manitoba arrived; Jerry & Judy. We met them for a lovely Thai meal one evening and then the night turned a bit surreal.... Out in the car park, a dodgy deal took place under cover of darkness. Car boots were opened, black holdalls were uncovered and the dough changed hands. Literally. Loaves and loaves and loaves of the stuff! So much so there was hardly any room in the car for passengers. We guess Tannis really does love that bread and Jerry and Judy won't get charged excess baggage going home! Saturday 29th August was the day of the storm. For just a couple of hours the wind blew through and brought trees down everywhere around Vancouver and over 335,000 people without power. Bryan went for a swim as there is a 137m open air pool down by English Bay and it was too good an opportunity to miss as he couldn't get on the internetThe following day we still no power so why not go for a meal in the dark? We could have just stayed at home and done this but there is a restaurant in Vancouver called The Dark Table. We had seen pictures on Facebook of when Dale & Tannis went the first time and it looked like fun. So they had rounded up some friends Mark & Amanda and Wally & Cindy and all 8 of us booked for Sunday night. Upon arrival in the lighted lounge, we could choose from the menu or you can chose the Surprise option. All of us went for the Surprise option and Jody just kept her fingers crossed that they would find the only vegetarian in the dark! When we were ready, we were led to our table in the dark dining room by a blind server named Bobby. He led us Conga style to our table and seated us all one by one. Jody ended up almost sitting in Tannis's lap which got us started with the giggle. No light producing technologies are allowed in the dining room, including flashlights, cellphones, or luminous watchesBobby was brilliant and looked after us very well. I think we managed to get most of our food in our mouths not all down us. The dark seemed to put Bryan in a very brave mood too. This whole experience was hilarious. The most fun we had had in a long time and we couldn't stop laughing. At one point we even got a sing song going and other tables were joining in. Fabulous! We really would recommend it to everyone if you get the chance. One day we went to Vancouver Island with Dale as he was working over there and had some clients to visit.The ferry took about 2 hours but the weather was miserable so no nice photographs i'm afraid. We dropped Dale at his site (he has a cold too) then spent the rest of the morning driving around. We made our way to Coombs where the shop keeps goats on the roof which was cute. As the weather was so miserable we didn't really feel in the mood for visiting the beach or driving around much so we went back to get Dale and took a crafty nap in the car whilst we waited for himWhen we got home, thankfully all the power was restored and we could all have a hot shower at last! The 2nd September was a good day for us. Bryan had his interview for Rio Olympic Games. we got a lot of work done and our Letting Agent has confirmed new tenants for our house in Swindon. Phew! All in all a good start to the day. That afternoon, Bryan, Dale and his nephew Garth all went to a shooting gallery and did some target practice with an assortment of gadgets. You could chose what you wanted to shoot at and Bryan chose..... Hello Kitty! We went to Gastown and watched the steam-clock chime 4pm. This is really cute if you haven't seen it before. We have put a short video clip here We had a right performance getting a hot dog from a street vendorOur next stop was Escape. We had had a great time doing this with our friends Lila & Simon, and Bryan's cousin Nigel & his wife Cath in Sydney so we were keen to do it again. When we arrived we were informed that the previous group, which consisted of a lot of kids, had been in there and partly demolished the set. They were in the process of rebuilding it and it would delay our start time. Eventually they decided to switch the theme of the room we were in and put us into a "Break in" scenario. It was very James Bondy with walkie-talkies, secret panels and there were lasers and motion sensors everywhere. We set a few alarms off and had a great time solving the clues to move through the set to our ultimate goal - to steal the artefact! Well we didn't make it but we were so close..so close. We were on the last clue to solve (which is called the friendship-breaker and for good reason) when we ran out of time :-( We all stayed friends though and went for dinner at Sitar which is where we ate last time we were here and had the first Thali we had had in agesSaturday we all took a trip to The Sunshine Coast - we have written about that separately. Sunday was another exciting day for us - we were going to the Cabin. We had visited the Cabin owned by Tannis's brother Marq and his wife last time we were here when it was covered in 6 foot of snow. We had spent a fantastic day tobogganing down the hill and warming up afterwards in front of their wood-burning stove. This time was a little bit different though, we spent the day out in the sunshine on dirt bikes and quad bikesIt has been many many years since either of us had ridden a proper motorbike with gears (the mopeds we rode in Thailand don't count) and Jody had never ridden a quad bike either. It felt good to be back on the bike though and after a quick practice up and down the tracks around the house we were off. The 4 of us went out Bryan, Jody, Dale and Marq & it was very pretty up on the mountainside. We found our bike legs again but it was very very gravelly and in the end Jody decided to switch to a quad bike as the bike was just a little bit too tall for her. We had a great time bombing around the mountain tracks. One of us did get stuck at the top of a slope when we lost our nerve and someone else ended up in the dirt (see the pictures and video if you really want to see who - it's funny looking at the videos as it felt like we were going really fast but the videos look like it was filmed in slow motioin!) Luckily none of us broke anything and we didn't see any bears. We had a barbecue later and that wood burning stove was going again as it was a bit chilly when the sun went from the valley. We had had another fabulous day to remember. Thank you Marq & Linda once again. Here's another video of us Tannis had to leave for work on Tuesday at stupid o'clock so Monday night we said our farewells to her and the rest of our time here we spent catching up on things we can only do with internetIt didn't seem right with Tannis missing so we set about creating her. Flat Tannis joined us for a last glass of bubbly but unfortunately she couldn't take the pace and we had to put her to bed quite early! tee hee! The hospitality here has been amazing as always and Dale & Tannis have made us so welcome. Thank you It has been a blast! Hopefully we will remain in England long enough to give us a chance to return the welcome when they come and visit us! [gallery columns="4" ids="11205,11206,11207,11208,11209,11210,11211,11212,11213,11214,11215,11216,11217,11218,11219,11220,11221,11222,11223,11224,11225,11226,11227,11228,11229,11230,11231"]