Two months in one as we were travelling for parts of September and October.

This is part of a neighbor’s new 6,000 sq ft shop.  He uses this custom tractor trailer to take his cars to drag races in Canada and the US.  The tractor has a small suite and the trailer has a repair shop and room for two cars, one above the other, with a 15′ hydraulic tailgate lift.  The neighbors all now have shop envy.  Saw a bear on the switchback in September.  Great visits by Aunt Dorothy and cousin Debbie.

Our friends from Ottawa moved to Kelowna in early September and are staying with us until they can move into the house they purchased.  So while they took care of Taisho, we took a 3 week holiday to England (countryside and London) and Vienna.   This is a country pub next door to my uncle Denton’s house in a town of 200 near Bristol.

We met each other for the first time and stayed with Denton and Allie for two nights.  Absolutely delightful people and while Denton was bedridden during our visit, he was full of good spirit and humor and shared great tales from a very eventful life.  

We drove around the Cotswolds for a week, enjoying narrow roads, beautiful countryside, charming old towns, local country pubs and bitter beer, and churches, cathedrals and castles.

We ended our country rambling in the delightful Stratford upon Avon where we saw a rollicking version of Shakespeare’s King John at the RSC, complete with a food fight, a bloody head, and excellent acting and costumes. 

This amazing eagle-owl was raised as an orphan – this was the first time she had flown in public. 

Spent a few days in London going to an opera (Don Giovani with 2 harpsichords) at the London Royal Opera House (not as nice as Opera Garnier but has a spectacular restaurant and bar), the delightful V&A Museum, the British Museum, a play at the 1898 Wyndom Theatre (The Man in White) and the odd pub.  Food was better in the countryside.

Spent a week in Vienna, the capital of the Hapsburgs, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the throne of the Holy Roman Empire for 300 years.  Heard the Vienna Boy’s Choir at a morning mass in the Palace Chapel, toured Schoenbrunn Palace, enjoyed the raucous Vien Fest (Austria’s Octoberfest), chamber music in St Peter’s church, furniture museum, the Hundert-Wasser museum, a piano/cello concert and a chamber music concert, the excellent Albertina Museum with a special exhibit of 500 year-old etchings and drawings of Durer and some excellent Picasso – early and late.  And of course beer, wurst, coffee and pastries.  A delightful city with an excellent metro.

Then back to London for a few days – Tate Britain and Design Museum.  And where we found out that Denton had just died.

After returning to Canada, I was diagnosed with pneumonia and had to rest a bit.  We cleaned up the gardens and got ready for winter and moved some dirt and crushed rock with the bobcat.  Helped a neighbor transfer about 400 bottles of wine from vat to barrel (he has another 2,000 litres in various types of storage).  I moderated a panel discussion on middle-power diplomacy at SFU in Vancouver, and we enjoyed 4 concerts in Kelowna and Vernon (including a 22 yr old playing a Stradivarius cello very well) and the Cirque de Soleil in Vancouver, and one last golf game for the season.

Cam has been working on the remaining cabinets in the kitchen, and will do doing some work on the front hall closet so there should be an interesting update at the end of November.