It’s a bit of a boring one this week – the major activity for last weekend was filing our taxes. Everyone in Canada has to submit a tax return, even if your employer has been paying your taxes for you. It’s basically impossible to fill in the incomprehensible forms by yourself, but various companies have made online tools to make it easier. Ours was extra complicated as we have to pay tax on the rental income from our house in the UK and declare our UK income from the start of 2020 (the Canadian tax year starts in January). Luckily Rosie loves a spreadsheet and we have three masters degrees between us, so we got there eventually!

We did also manage a non-rainy walk to Jug Island beach. It reminded us of our months spent on Gabriola Island, but not quite as good and with way more people. We usually had the beach to ourselves on Gabriola.

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Life is continuing much the same since we’ve been living in the city. There is probably a few weeks left in the ski season, so Ollie is making the most of it. The weather has been good so far this week, the pictures below were taken a few hours before posting this.

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Tomorrow we have an early start planned. We’re determined to walk up Dog Mountain in Mt Seymour Provincial Park, but it’s very popular and the car park is always full. We’re hoping a 6am start should do it. In the afternoon we’re going to catch the SkyTrain a few stops to Port Moody for a shore-line walk followed by a brewery crawl. Even though we are allowed to go out to bars and restaurants, we aren’t allowed to mix with people outside of our households… so it’s not as exciting as it sounds.

We are jealous of the UK’s vaccination programme. Our province in Canada has just started taking bookings for ages 85+, so still some time until we get ours. You’ll all be back at the pub way before us.

To help you orientate yourself, here is map of the locations features in this week’s blog:

Are you bored of waterfalls? Oh dear, well we thought this one was a good one, so we’ll show you anyway!

On Saturday morning, the skies were clear (shockingly). Without a proper plan, we attempted to go for a walk to a popular viewpoint, but the car park was full. Second choice was Kennedy Falls. It was a fun 4 hour round trip through patchy snow and ice. We had our micro-spikes/mini crampons on. Whilst Rosie felt smug about how little sliding she was doing, Ollie felt embarrassed because he kept seeing other people in just trainers. You’d think he’d give up trying to be cool now he’s 30. The waterfall at the end of the walk was one of our favourites! It doesn’t look as impressive in the pictures as it did it real life, probably because of the camera angle, but it was wide and tall with lots of different levels and interesting rocks to look at.

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During the week, Rosie made a devastating discovery (devastating for certain people who think she shouldn’t spend all her money on board games anyway). There is a huge board game shop down the road from our apartment! We went in to see if they had any Exit games (a board game version of an “Escape Room”) as Rosie bought Ollie one for his birthday and it was good. They did. They also had everything else! As it was only a few minutes to closing, we only came away with an Exit game and Codenames Duet. It’s going to be hard to stop Rosie buying Scythe on our next visit.

Unfortunately the games of Codenames are not going very well. If you haven’t played it, you have to get your partner to find your “secret agents” by linking words on cards together with just one word and a number. Some cards represent your secret agents, but some are assassins… E.g. if you have agents hidden below three words: “Eggs”, “Babies” and “Nose” – you could say “Smells, 3”. But you’d want to be careful if there was an assassin under the word “Cheese” in case your partner guesses this incorrectly. It helps if you are both on the same wavelength, which apparently is not the case for us. Rosie misses the 9 year old she used to play with at the Baldock board game club.

Guess what the weather is doing this weekend… It’s raining! Again! We will use this regular opportunity for a few Skype calls, but will probably have to go on some kind of wet walk to fend off the cabin fever.

Last Monday, Ollie woke up to find Rosie had snuck out of bed. He went back to sleep and found her next to him asleep later. When confronted, she claimed she had simply been for a night time bathroom trip. But, when Ollie got out of bed and walked into the living room, he was met by lots of decorations and a poorly spelt banner.

Following a birthday breakfast that befitted his age, chocolate porridge, we headed out for a hike to Norvan Falls. Luckily we had recently purchased some microspikes, as the conditions were a bit slippery. We were also glad of the waterproof boots. When it is colder, the waterfall freezes over, but it was a bit too warm for that this time.

When we got back we enjoyed some homemade cassata, a cake from Sicily that we learnt about on Paul Hollywoods City Bakes programme. Overall a success, but the icing didn’t go quite to plan (a bit thick and solid). It was also slightly illegal when our friends, Alvin, Simon and Theodore, joined us for the sparklers and to sing happy birthday!

Energised with sugar, Rosie very subtly sent Ollie out of the apartment so she could “prepare the presents”. Dejected, Ollie went to the building lobby and thought he would check the post. In it he found an envelope with “open me” written on the front. Thinking this might be a later part of an elaborate birthday surprise by Rosie, he pocketed it in an attempt to confuse her. However, Rosie had meant him to open the letter straight away. Once he got called back in, he got a telling off for being so stupid for thinking Rosie was that stupid. It said “open me” on it for goodness sake.

Ollie eventually opened the envelope to find a cryptic clue: “Find your first gift (a bit of a tribal con yeah?) on the precipice”. This lead Ollie to a bottle of BC fizz and his next clue, which in turn lead to a… well you know how a treasure hunt works! The prizes were birthday messages from friends/family members. The hunt took about 3 hours, with an interlude for fish and chips (nothing like back home), and much wine. Ollie thought it was the best present ever. Unfortunately, because we were having too much fun, we didn’t really take many pictures to share.

All of the messages and photos were much appreciated, they made Ollie’s birthday very special. Even though we were stuck in the flat by ourselves, it felt like you were all there with us! Ollie was exhausted afterwards, he’s getting too old for parties and rushing around. He’ll have to take it easy from now on, plenty of rest and early nights. On that note, good night everyone!

On Saturday we finally had some snow in Vancouver! Not quite as much as the UK, but it still made for a fun morning watching trucks skid around the corner outside our apartment block (trucks are particularly slidey as they don’t have much weight at the back). Once we were bored of that, we decided to head to the beach! We arbitrarily chose Pacific Spirit Regional Park and headed off on our trusty winter tyres. When we got there, we discovered that we had chosen a “clothing optional” beach. Disappointingly, everyone was dressed.

There were lots of chilly looking paddling birds at the beach. I wonder if they get scared off by the naked humans in the summer.

We have separated out the bird photos, either for easy access or easy skipping, depending on your inclination.

On Sunday we went to Deep Cove, a community in North East Vancouver. Primarily, we wanted to go because they have a famous doughnut shop, but also it is usually really crowded and we thought the weather might have put some people off. Aside from the doughnuts, Deep Cove is also famous for paddling, be that in a canoe or in a kayak. The hire place wasn’t open, but it made us want to get out on the water. We are trying to work out if we can fit a canoe in our parking spot.

Monday was a bank holiday in Canada – for “Family Day”. As our only available family was each other, we spent it together. Ollie made some baguettes for a change from the sourdough, we hung up our art from last week’s blog and we went for a local walk to Burnaby Lake.

On Saturday, we have booked ourselves in for a class at “MakerLabs” – a maker space in Vancouver with lots of tools for making “almost anything”. We are going to start with some more woodwork, but maybe we will discover another passion! Then one of us is turning 30 on Monday… We’ve taken the day off work to commiserate.

The UK has a reputation for precipitation,
But Vancouver takes the biscuit.
If all that’s outside is dihydrogen monoxide,
How can we stay optimistic?

Through fun indoor activities that are not just for kids, that’s how!

Last week in our rainy spare time we decided to try creating some art for our walls. We thought about potato stamps or colouring in with crayons, but eventually settled on one level up – chalk pastels. With the help of a certain website for pin enthusiasts, we decided on some simple abstract creations and set to work with the masking tape and our index fingers for blending. Thanks to Loolar for the hairspray fixing tip!

Rosie regrets trying to make the moon look more moon-y, it just looks a bit grubby now. We think we deserve a 4 out of 10, not bad for a first attempt.

We didn’t have much hope for Sunday when we woke up to this view:

But amazingly the fog lifted and we managed to go for a walk around the Vancouver sea wall before coming home to watch the Super Bowl. Apparently it was a boring game, but Rosie thought it was like every other sports match she has seen, just with slightly more falling over than usual.

Finally, an update on the kombucha and an answer to the age-old question: who out of Rollie can jump higher?

Last weekend we spent a rainy day making kombucha and some sourdough. We decided to document the kombucha process as we couldn’t have our readers missing out on seeing the beautiful scoby Ollie made! Updates on the final result to come in a later instalment.

We also went outside for a walk around “Deer Lake” down the road from our apartment, but we regretted it slightly…

For those of you that were struggling, here is the answer to the “Where’s Rosie” puzzle from last week. We always think it looks so much lower down from the outside than it feels from the inside. It is a very tall building! We are floor 15 out of 40.

This weekend, we will be mostly eating nachos. It will be our first time watching the superbowl, as its finally going to be on at a reasonable time! Go team football!

Hello Rollie followers. We shall start this week by attempting to meet some requests from one of our most loyal Rollie followers. Maria asked for a walk around/through of our building (we forgot to google what “Mary, Mungo and Midge” is…) Due to social distancing and the fact that you can’t access the stairs from the ground floor, there was a huge queue at the lifts earlier, so we chickened out. Maria also suggested more in the “Where’s Wollie!?” series, so instead we’ve attempted to combine the two. Slightly disappointing, this is a “Where’s Rosie”? Can you spot her? The second picture is slightly easier. (Sorry about the quality, Rosie accidentally gave Ollie the camera in manual focus mode from an earlier shot).

We’ve had a more recent request for a photo of a Mountie, but I don’t think we’ve seen one yet. We will overcome our embarrassment and ask for a social-distanced selfie if we ever do come across one.

This weekend, we went for a walk in Minnekhada regional park. It reminded us a lot of home because of all the wetlands and ducks. On Saturday morning it was clear and frosty, which made it extra picturesque. We climbed up to “High Knoll” to get a good view back towards Vancouver and the surrounding cities.

Afterwards, we drove a bit further away to a village called “Fort Langley”. It was a bit posh with trendy independent shops and a dog spa. We had some great burritos for lunch. There is also a national historic sight called, you guessed it, “Fort Langley”. We got in for free using our annual National Park passes, but were severely disappointed when there were no turrets, no trebuchets or cannons, no moats, no mottes or baileys, not even any brick walls!

Built in 1827, Fort Langley was basically a warehouse for the Hudson’s Bay Company and part of a trading route with the British Empire. It packaged up fur from the interior, as well as salmon and cranberries from surrounding farm land. There is one original building still standing, but the rest are reconstructions. There were some extremely knowledgeable volunteers on the site – a cooper and a blacksmith. We learnt about how barrels were the Amazon parcels of their day, used as disposable packaging for cranberries and salmon. We also learnt how to reliably start a fire using a striker, a flint and charcloth. Maybe we’ll have better luck with campfires now!

We’re not entirely sure of our plans this weekend. Any suggestions?

Finally, a big congratulations to Jen and Pete on the arrival of their baby daughter! We are sure she will become a Roaming Rollie fan in no time.

This week Rosie is back in control of the blog! No more silly lists and mystic nonsense. Just some good old fashioned updates, nature pictures and an exciting new addition to the Rollie family.

On Saturday, we visited Golden Ears provincial park, about a 30 minute drive away from Vancouver. It’s called Golden Ears after the prominent twin peaks, which may have originally been named “Golden Eyries” after the golden eagles observed near the summit.

Stress and nervous tension are now serious social problems in all parts of the Galaxy, and it is in order that this situation should not be in any way exacerbated that the following facts will now be revealed:

• Rosie’s new walking boots were not a total disaster. The waterproofing and grip was excellent and no blisters developed after 4 hours of walking. However, her left little toe did go a bit numb, so they are probably a bit narrow. She is hoping they might stretch.
• We didn’t make it up to the top, nor did we see any golden eagles… But we did spent a lovely afternoon walking to Alder flats where there is a campsite used by people on their way to the summit. We might return in the future with our tent!

The trail was relatively quiet compared to most around Vancouver and had a good mixture of up, down, flat, mud, rocks and roots to keep Ollie entertained. Rosie was entertained by the latest outdoor craze – mushroom hunting. There were several fun bridges to cross and we managed to go back on a slightly different route to the way out – which pleased the hiking gods.

In other news, we have finally got a bed! Furniture shopping has slowed now that we have the last of the essentials. We were thinking of getting a sofa, but are actually enjoying sitting in our individual arm chairs. It’s like we have skipped forward a few decades to our retirement.

Rosie is working hard during the week, Ollie is still job hunting and we have been going to the gym in our building in the evenings. This leaves very little time for cleaning, so we have decided to adopt a robot vacuum cleaner – introducing Kyle the Kyvol! Kyle likes crumbs and tangling himself up in cables. He dislikes dark objects and running out of battery so he has to go to bed.

Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny, so we are visiting another park and hopefully a fort! (A North American fort, so only 200 years old, pathetic). Then on Sunday, winter is arriving in Vancouver and we might even get some snow down here. We’ll probably just stay in and play with Kyle.

A bit random this week, but we thought we would enlighten you into some of the things we have picked up since coming to canada. Not all of them are specifically Canadian, but hey ho.

1. We can cope with snowy conditions now

Unlike the UK that seems to shut down due to some light snow, we are now experts in digging our car out and driving off on the slick and slippery roads.

2. The power of magic crystals

3. Cooking with Miso

Vegetable stock powder or cubes don’t seem to be a thing here, people use liquid stock in cartons which seems silly. Instead, we have started dropping a dollop of miso into our sloppy dinners to give them a salty depth. We quite like it and will be looking out for miso on our return to the UK!

4. Itadakimasu

At our first workaway, the family we were staying with said this before every meal. Previosly they had hosted someone from Japan who had told them it was about much more than ‘Bon Appetit’ and also involves thanking everyone involved in creating the meal (from farmers to supermarket staff to the chef themselves). We liked it instantly, but it became even more relevant when we spent so long working at farms!

5. Ollie now likes beer

But it must be drunk in a chalice…

Bonus Photos

To finish, here are some pictures taken from Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver on our walk last weekend and a photo of Ollie caught red-handed returning from a bakery.

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Tomorrow we’re going to Golden Ears Provincial Park (remind us to look up why it has such a silly name). Rosie has some new hiking boots, which never goes well for her, wish us luck!

This week we have made you a video tour of our new apartment (with all the usual quality lighting and Rollie production value). We haven’t quite got all the furniture we need and we keep running out of spoons, but it’s more than comfortable!