Container arrives!

We woke to sunny blue skies and the temperature a sniff above -20C. I decided the duvet was not getting enough TLC these days so selflessly stayed in bed to take care of it whilst the wonderful Mr Reed put the kettle on and checked the email to see if an eccentric millionaire had decided to buy the UK house for 50K over the asking price....up one cup of peppermint T, down one eccentric millionaire (they seem rather scarce these days....).

So we went for a bimble in the snow, me in salopettes having discovered that Gap jeans do not protect you from -16C (see its warmed up a bit!) even in the 'well padded' areas! Went down to the lake which was sparkling and you could see the heat evaporating in wispy clouds. Wood Lake, over the other side of the hill, has actually starting to freeze over, so they will be starting ice-fishing and skating soon. Like the skating idea but not so keen on the fishing malarky - ice goes with gin and tonic, not sitting by a hole waiting for a hungry trout, not matter how tasty they are!

But the big news was we had a call from Ted the removal van driver to see if we could come down to customs and sign all the papers to get a headstart for unloading the stuff tomorrow. So we bundled into the car and headed to the airport with some trepidation having heard story after horror story on the customs sign off process.

We needn't have worried, the customs offical was lovely! Although did get a bit worried about when he asked if we had anything which could have come into contact with dirt (camping stuff) as they can make you unload this and pay for it to be checked and cleaned if necessary, then we moved on to Shaun's reloading equipment....but then discovered that the custom officer was a member of the Fish and Game Club in Kelowna and he and Shaun were off talking about targets, things with random numbers and letters - ie 'did you have a CZ Shadow', 'no but I used to have a CZ 75', 'did you have the xxxx? (insert incomprehensible string of random alpha numerics here)' 'Yes it was a xxxx [insert postive or negative comment with appropriate level of enthusiasm/disgust]!'

So we got everything stamped and Shaun got an invite to the next competition event!

Then our lovely driver, ted, asked if we would like to put our stuff into storage today, rather than tomorrow? Would we ever! This means a day's skiing before we head off to Vancouver!
Now, i know, probably after a month or so of being able to ski everyday on beautiful powder we may get a bit less excited however having waited for the snow since mid November and the ski hills being open for the past week and us not being able to go we are a bit stir crazy about getting back on the planks and flashing those season passes!

So the afternoon was spent decanting the truck of 89 items and boxes (I know there are 89 as I had to check them off on a little list with a very cold pen and very cold fingers/toes/nose etc for an hour and a half!) which Mr Reed and Ted ablely manhandled the furniture into the storage unit. We rescued a couple of boxes, skis obviously, but also the box with all the 'Home comforts' in - Branston, HP Sauce, Coleman's mustard (all of which we have realised they have over here!) but most importantly, 20 packets of Divine Fair Trade Dark Chocolate.....! Mmmmm! Oh and 600 PG Tips teabags for Mr Reed.

The items we should have included are a) pickled onions (£4+ a jar over here and not Barry Norman's special ones with chilli either, just plain old Sarsons) b) Heniz Tomato Soup (£2+ a tin) I miss Heniz tomato soup) and c) taramaslata (okay, this probably would have gone off by now but there's tzatzki and hummus of every conceiveable hue but no pink goopy stuff?!)

Sorry wandered slightly off track there...

Refortified with a Tim Hortons coffee and a chocolate based drink for the lady, have returned home to check that the babies, sorry, skis, have made it through okay - which they have!

Tonights dreams will be filled with white fluffy snow, empty slopes and trying to pretend that -15C is just a bit on the crisp side!

Silver Star here we come!