'I am the Isle of Wight.'

The last and final day of 2017 and I just went for a quick walk to the store. I needed to stretch my legs a little so took a detour down to the river on what is a beautiful crisp, freezing cold day and enjoyed a few minutes out of the house, where me and Buffy have been holed up with illness for the last few days. More about that in a minute.

I met a bloke while I was out. A 50 something hippie, a white dude with dreads and a guitar on his back, looking cool in sunglasses and asking - Which way is that, as he pointed north. I told him North and he asked where Wolseley was, so I gave him the directions.He then said ' That accent - Manchester?' Yes, I replied. 'Unbelievable as everyone else here thinks I am from Australia', Me too he said, but I'm the Isle of Wight (He did actually say 'Im the Isle of Wight', Not, I'm from the Isle of Wight. He then disappeared into the hazy sunshine and another adventure. It is minus 41 with Windchill and I am still ill, so maybe this was all a figment of my under active imagination. But I believe it happened. .

Th temp on the sign is without wind chill!

A lovely day outside

Even the hardy people here are getting a bit miffed with the cold. Being cold is normal obviously, but now its getting silly. For the last week or two its not been above minus 25 and with windchill has been as low as minus 43 Celsius, To put that into context - The prediction for two weeks ahead has the warmest part of the day at minus 14C. If we reach those highs that will be a 29 degree difference between the cold of minus 43 and minus 14. .29C is a lovely warm temperature. The perfect beach temperature to enjoy your summer beach holiday. 29C up from what we have now will still be minus 14C. That is just mental.

Anyway, enough of that stuff, here's what we did these last few days...

Its 3 weeks since we arrived back from the UK and its been busy busy busy, Two weeks back at work and then luckily, both of us were given the whole week off between Xmas and New Year - so 10 days in total to relax and enjoy the festivities. It has been great - Until three days ago and especially today (30th Dec)- when we have both succumbed to the dreaded lurgy. Both me and Buffy have the shivers, headaches and sore throats and as I type this in the nursery upstairs, (Formerly the office and 3rd bedroom, but now known as the nursery for obvious reasons) Buffy is sleeping downstairs on the sofa, cuddled up to her whale pillow and still dressed in her pyjamas after getting up this morning. She now has it worse than me, but it feels like it is alternating between us,

Asides from being ill, today has been amazing. We were finally able to announce Buffy's pregnancy and the birth date of the future leader of the planet - Our already crazy baby - will be born sometime about 10th July 2018.

After we had Adam, Alena, Joel and Byron round our house last night, where we finally had chance to tell them, it was great to post our news and get such great responses from everyone. Thank you for all your good wishes and congratulations. I will keep you updated on whats happening on here and probably on facebook too over the coming months.

It has been difficult trying to keep the secret. We found out early one Sunday morning at the start of November and as anyone who has been in this situation, you just want to tell everyone, but apparently its not the done thing until about 12 weeks has passed.

One of the main issues has been drinking. Buffy likes a beer and a glass of wine like every good 'adopted manc' and hasn't been drinking for months. So we have been taking empty cider bottles and filling then with Ginger ale, so it looks like she is drinking - to try and keep people off the scent. There has also been times when I have had to drink for both of us - swapping bottles and glasses mid-conversation without anyone seemingly noticing. Its been hard! haahaa

Anyway, back to Xmas - We had a great couple of days which started as normal with a few drinks out on Xmas Eve. This year it was just Buffy (on virgin cocktails) me and Stef. But we had a good night out and left the Palm Room of The Fort Garry Hotel after midnight.

Xmas day came around and we headed to English Place for Cinnamon buns and family present giving. There was a wide variety of crazy, cute and awesome gifts as normal - Toy planes, plastic forks, knife sharpeners and my personal two favourites - A secret Hitler board game and a hand sewn ornament for the bathroom that reads 'Please don't do cocaine in the bathroom - Class!

We had decided a few weeks earlier to surprise Jon and Susan with the baby news on Xmas day as it was the 12 week point, so after all the presents were opened there was one small box left under the tree, labelled as 'Jon and Susan'. Nobody knew who it was from and so they opened it to be surprised with a soother (babies dummy) and a picture of the scan we had at week 10. I must admit, they both surprised me by being rather calm, but they are obviously overjoyed at the thought of becoming grandparents. I am so happy for them and for Stef and Pat who I know will be awesome Uncles to whatever kind of freaky devil child we have!

Here's a quick video showing the opening of the surprise....

After English place it was time to head off home and get ready for the trip out to Anola and the big family get together for Xmas dinner. As normal, it was a great evening - Great food, a few beers and a cold game of boot hockey ( I am really crap at Hockey) added to the surprise Susan gave everyone by writing Grandma and Grandpa on her and Jons dinner place cards to announce our news.

There was also a hot spot quiz - won by me and Buffy of course in a team with Will and Anna. It was hosted superbly by Susan - A certain Dave Bradley would be proud!

Boxing day was a lazy day watching a movie before coming back home to the city and picking up our presents to ourselves. Two brand new pairs of ice skates - We decided to buy some of our own as when the river freezes over and we want to go skating, we have to go all the way to the Forks, queue and hire skates and then skate on the river back the way we came. If we have our own, we can skate to the forks, have food and beer and then skate home! Makes much more sense.

We tried the out new Terry Fox 1km trail in Assiniboine park for the skates first outing and loved them. They are comfortable, warm and if I can learn not to throw myself into hard solid ice every 3 minutes I am sure we will have years of fun ahead wearing them!

Just about to fall on my arse again.

So that was a couple of days ago and since that afternoon we have both been ill. We did manage to have a great night out with Ian from Toronto though, to watch the Cannes Lions advert showing at the WAG - A yearly tradition now and to show him our favourite new bar. The Langside Grocery.

Then last night we had a few friends around (as I explained at the start of this post)  to watch 'Paint Your Wagon' and let them know the baby news. Its been a case of recover enough to so a couple of hours of stuff, before collapsing into a warm bed or comfy sofa to rest. We have two more days off work and at the moment I cant see up getting dressed properly for at least the next 48 hours - Pyjamas, blankets and hot drinks will suffice I think.

Anyway, here are a few more pics of Xmas...

 
 So that is the end of another year and the start of the new. Things will be changing around here. We have a lot of shopping and a little bit of decorating to do before the alien that Buffy is carrying bursts its way into our lives in July. We are really excited and cannot wait, but for now, we are going to see the New Year in with a whimper. Now and for teh rest of the day we are sat on the sat on the sofa fighting snot, headaches and sore throats. If we even make it till midnight we may celebrate with a cup of somethjng hot and milke before heading to bed - but at the moment I cant see us getting beyond 9pm. Happy New Year to all  - See you on the other side!!