I debated missing my run, especially as it's the longer one and I'd only had 4 1/2 hours sleep but I thought I'd give it a go and although sluggish and I stumbled a few times, I did get round. 👍 Also got a PB for my 10k 🏆
How is it that I'm old enough to have a teenager! 13 😬 Leo was desperate to open presents and it took a while to get Ellis off the Xbox. Then when I managed it Rob was on a call so had to wait some more.
Finally got to sing and he did his presents. He wasn't impressed with the clothes but did love the lights for his room, the rainbow mouse and keyboard, a new watch and of course his gaming chair.
I showered and put some decorations up in the garden, sorted lunch and then we headed out to the Airsoft party. All the boys and one man loved it and preferred it over paintball. Would definitely recommend it.
We ordered the Domino's on the way home and within 5 minutes of being back, it arrived. Everyone was hungry and they hoovered it up, probably should have bought more but I was happy putting empty boxes in recycling rather than filling myself with left over pizza later on. 😊
The boys all then got in the pool and I had a chat with one of the mum's who had come round with trunks for Max. All you could hear was constant laughter. Love it. 😍
We sang happy birthday again and then I got to cut the cake. It was delicious and thankfully no one wanted any 👍😋😋
Everyone was gone just after 6:30pm, the boys went quiet, Rob had already been back working since we got back, I cleared up the garden and sorted the house out a bit, went on my laptop and did the blog.
Feeling sick from too much cake and totally exhausted but happy that everything went so well and that Ellis had a good time, that's the main thing. Hoping to get them all in bed on time tonight and I will be going up soon too. I've started watching The Fall and I wouldn't mind watching an episode of that in bed.
Where they to? 5th August Calgary
Compared to where we've been so far, Calgary seems to have very little, in terms of unique attractions, for tourists to do to entertain themselves. There's a tower, a monument of the city's wealth from oil which was probably quite impressive when it was built, which you can go up and, presumably, get a view of the city from. That didn't seem very appealing. There's an Olympic Park which, I suppose, is fairly unique but the ski-jump, which we saw as we rolled into town, is something of a white elephant in the sweltering heat. Kind of like going to Silverstone to have a look at an empty track. So, we gave that a miss too. That left us with the option of wandering round Downtown Calgary looking in shops at things we can't afford to buy or going to the only other attraction here when the rodeo isn't on - Calgary Zoo.
We didn't get there until lunchtime as 8 hours gawping at fluffy animals is a long time in anyone's book plus, we really needed a lie-in after the exertions of Sulphur Mountain the day before yesterday and the lack of sleep we'd been getting in the stuffy hostel rooms.
We're starting to become quite disciplined at sniffing out bargains now. Lunch today was a sandwich deal at Subway where we had the cheapest meat filling which, those of you with incomes won't be aware, is ham. We've also started doing those really annoying cheapo things like ordering tap-water in restaurants and getting 2 straws in our drink so that we can share it. It's not going to be long before we start stealing sugar sachets and ketchup portions to save a few more pennies. It's something of a pain in the arse over here as almost all of the prices quoted for anything you buy don't include a tax called GST which runs at something like 7%. Also, everyone in the service industry here expects a tip and the convention is 15%.
The zoo was quite nice, with a pretty decent mix of animals but we both had the usual zoo dilemma at times when you ask yourself moral questions about some of the animals they keep. Certainly, seeing an Eagle Owl in an enclosure where it probably couldn't even fully spread it's wings and seeing an Indian Bull Elephant in a concrete compound probably not much bigger than a football penalty area, was not pleasant. When you pay your entry fee which partly funds these places, you put your faith in their judgement to do the right thing by the animals and not by their own commercial interests. However, when you read statistics like there being more Siberian Tigers in zoos than in the wild, you do wonder whether they are making the right judgement calls on our behalf.
Putting that to one side, as you inevitably have to do if you are going to enjoy a visit to the zoo, we did see some wonderful creatures. Standing 2ft away from a hippo's head while he showed his disdain for the gaudy Yanks standing beside him by showering them with poo by waving his tail like a pendulum while he went was pretty funny. The Buffalo were great to watch, too. My personal favourite, though, was the charming little fella in the photo at the top of the page, Clarence the Cross-eyed Meerkat. Imagine what the other meerkats must've thought when it was his turn to stand sentry while they were all asleep in the burrow.
Ever since we arrived in Canada, especially when we were hiking around the Rockies, Mush has been saying to me that she really wants to see a moose. We weren't lucky enough to see one in the wild, I think it's the wrong season, so, avoiding the obvious gag, I told her this morning that despite not having seen one in the wild, she'd be able to look at them to her heart's content at the zoo. We didn't get to the moose compound until near the end of our visit as we were saving the best for last. Sometimes, things just aren't meant to be.
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