Phew - we are nearly there...... Only four more days till we leave...
I'm currently sat on the decking in the back garden of the house in which me and Buffy have been house sitting for the last 6 weeks or so. We have had a lovely time here in a really nice little house and are quite sad to be leaving it. But it is necessary to leave in order to put in one more piece to the big jigsaw that is moving to England! I'm actually sad to be leaving as I will miss playing with 'Ash', the cat that has been my friend for the last 40 odd days and the cat that is currently sat at my feet miaowing and nudging his head against my foot so that I will play with him. I still prefer dogs and always will, but I will try and give cats a little more attention in the future in the hope that there are at least one or two that are like my mate Ash! I told Buffy I would come around to day and do a final tidy up, but I am actually here to see Ash, behind her back!! Haahaa, sorry Buffy!
Bye Ash - Ill miss you!
As I say, this is one of the last pieces of the Jigsaw to go into place before we leave for Toronto, Iceland and then England next week. It all started about a year ago with Buffy searching for her families historical paperwork and managing to get her visa for England. It continued through finding someone to take over our apartment lease and moving out of there into Buffy's parents place - where we moved downstairs, then onto the floor and back again all in a few days. In between all the moving we went camping - twice and moved into the house where I now sit. There has been packing for the lake, unpacking, wedding showers, wedding rehearsals, wedding barbecues and wedding socials - lots of wedding stuff, which finally finishes this afternoon with Matt and Andreas nuptials. Obviously this is between moving out of here and another trip to the lake. I have only lost one thing during all this moving and I am really pissed that it is my Jets hoodie that was given to me by Stef and Pat for Christmas. I'm really annoyed that it has been lost somewhere along the way, but pleasantly surprised that I haven't lost more stuff! Anyway, after a weekend at the cabin starting tomorrow, we head back to the city and finally leave on Tuesday evening. The final piece of the Jigsaw will be in place.
So what happened in the last week and more to the point what happened at the cabin last weekend!?
Ill tell you all about it -
Buffy had organised a few days out there for us and some of here friends. Unfortunately, due to the long weekend, wedding organisation and a few other reasons which I wont go into, a few people had to drop out and so on Friday evening we managed to fit me, Buffy, Joel, Walker and Evan into the car and drive East into Ontario all in one go. We were a little later than planned due to people finishing work and picking up stuff, but we motored over to the lake and arrived just after 9pm. A mellow first night followed during which we played a game of Trivial Pursuit around the dining table - We all decided that a new version needs to be bought as a lot of the questions were about 20 years out of date and slightly confusing!! However, it was a fun evening.
Saturday promised sunshine, but failed to deliver by early afternoon, so we all piled into the car and headed to downtown Kenora - the strange little town at the end of Lake of the Woods.
It turns out that it was the summer festival down there and so we were greeted with more bouncy castles than you could imagine and a fat bloke in a leopard skin coat, who stood on a stage below and crane and claimed to be an escape artist!
The crowd was gathered around waiting for him to cram his mighty girth into a small wooded barrel before being dunked into the cold waters and attempting to escape! I actually thought a few of the crowd were just mesmerised by his coat and belly and would probably be hoping for a bit more excitement - maybe the barrel will sink and carry leopard man to the deep dark depths (about 10 feet) of the lake, before he magically appeared again stood atop the arm of the crane!?!
Breathe in mate!
Hes in! You can see his hand!
Its OK, the police are here!
After a short struggle for him to get out of his coat and into a tiny wetsuit, he managed to cram himself into the barrel and was raised into the air over the lake itself. Then dramatically he was lowered into the waters and a minute later his big arse appeared out of the water like a whale coming up for air, before disappearing again for a few seconds. Then he triumphantly clambered back onto the top of the barrel with all the grace of an overweight child fighting for ice cream.
Drama in Kenora!!
Will he survive the shark infested lake!?
Yeeeeeeeah!!!
I know I'm taking the piss a little, but the actual act itself of escaping from a barrel was quite entertaining and I did enjoy it. Maybe the bloke just needs a little more showmanship!
Watch the drama unfold here in the is short video - Prepare to be amazed!!!!
After all the excitement it was time for the best bit of Kenora - The Chipman van. You may remember from last year, we went here and had awesome, huge proper English style chips with malt vinegar and I definitely wanted some more - so we joined the big queue in Chipman street (Yep, the street is named after the chip van - its THAT good) and scoffed our way through a huge pile of real chips - none of your crappy french fried rubbish here!!
Walker and Evan scoffing real food!!
Huh!?
After a bit of a walk around to buy booze and Walker and Buffy busking for an hour or so to pay for it, we jumped back into the car and went back to the the cabin where we had a relaxing evening burning stuff on the camp fire. Jon had given us a roller blind thing that we laid across the fire pit and gave us a huge amount of smoke and drama - it was a little bit low for limbo but the perfect height for a bit of fire jumping.
Burn burn burn!!
I know - I have my old army trousers on - they are so comfortable though!!
Stella eats an axe!
We then sat around all evening chatting around the fire and eventually making our way down to the dock to sit and watch the shooting stars and satellites criss cross the clear dark sky.
Stargazing and keeping warm!
Stars
The final couple of days at the lake were spent messing about on the water. We took a chilly trip around the bay to look at the huge obnoxiously large cabins before stopping at Mutchmor cabin for a quick drinky, say hello and to look at their new 6 foot deep shit pit (Its actually a new pit below the biffy (toilet) but it is deep!
The moved Biffy at Mutchmor's!
Then the final afternoon - Monday was spent in lovely bright sunshine - throwing sticks into the lake for the dogs to collect. swimming in the lake ourselves and messing about generally. Tom, Catherine, Wayne and Leanne had arrived on Sunday evening after dinner and so there were now a big gang of us all really enjoying the warm weather and waters.
Thanks for the card!
Throw the stick please Evan!!
Teaching the dogs what to do with the stick!
See - she learnt that from me!
Buffy also managed to find some old armbands she had as a kid and spent a while swimming in the m for old times sake and because she is a knob!
Weirdo!
Yes she is!
SWIMMING!
All in all it was a really good afternoon with one really weird half hour when Joel introduced us all to some weird tablets (No not ecstasy!) It was a strange berry based pill, that changes your taste buds. Basically really sour things now tasted like sugar - lemons, limes and even vinegar tasted really sweet and you could eat them as easily as you would enjoy a lemonade or a bar of chocolate. However the chocolate we tried had virtually no taste at all and if eaten with a bit of grapefruit, tasted like nothing I have ever known. It was disgusting - but one of those things you have to keep doing to make sure you had it right first time! A weird but fun experience.
Finally it was time to leave and return to the city. It had been a great weekend wit some great friends and I'm really glad it went well after all the effort Buffy put into getting everyone out there. We have decided we need to do it again when we return to Winnipeg!
I took a few photos of the cabin and the island while I was there - here are a selection...
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