Almost immediately after entering the park and paying our $16 entry fee we spotted two moose, a mother and calf. We have been to Algonquin before and on one occasion spotted one moose, but never two before, so already we were really pleased and it made the visit worthwhile.

Here is the mother and her baby.

We carried on driving through the park to the other end, then turned round. Next we went to the visitors centre where we ate lunch and watched the birds outside on the feeders.

Here are some siskins, male goldfinch and a purple finch.

After filling ourselves with hotdogs and fries (we went for the healthy option) we carried on and then spotted another two moose. We had to do a quick U-turn to get back to where I had spotted them and it was again a mother and baby. Soon after we stopped, the baby moved into the woods, but I managed to get a photo of the mother. As soon as we stopped, other people saw us and they too stopped. Before we knew it there were half a dozen cars parked up taking photos.

All the moose we saw were very patchy with their fur. They must be in the process of getting rid of their winter coats and replacing them with summer ones. This is something we had to do ourselves as it got really warm. T-shirt weather for the first time this year, yippee!

After spending a few hours at the park, we drove home and saw another groundhog. So the total animal count was 4 moose, 1 deer and 2 groundhogs, not bad at all.

Last night it was announced that Osama Bin Laden had been killed by the US. Not sure how I feel about this as it could have bad repercussions. I doubt his people will let it go without a fight – literally! It is good he is gone, but there are plenty more when he came from.

Also, today is election day, so hopefully everyone who is eligible to vote will. Will we wake up to a majority conservative government tomorrow, or another minority? It does seem that if it is a minority conservative that it will be with the NDP in second place not the expected Liberals. We will have to wait and see.

Here he is:

After walking around the back garden he wandered round the front then we lost track of him. I hope he comes back as I just love him. I know they do a lot of damage, in fact he pretty much uprooted one of our decks by tunneling under so that the deck legs no longer met the ground, but he is cute!

Us old fogies stayed in for the evening whilst they went out clubbing. However we found out in the morning that they could not find the clubs they were looking for and ended up coming back to the hotel quite early and watched TV.

On the second day in Ottawa the girls went on their own way and needless to say they went shopping! I just fail to see how anyone can shop for hours and hours. We left them at about 10.30 am and met up with them again at 6pm – and they were still shopping!

Sunday we went into Belleville so they could – yes – do more shopping! Lots of peanut butter M&M’s later (apparently you cannot get them in the Uk we went home. Spent the rest of the day relaxing as we had an early start on Monday to get to the airport for their early morning flight.

We got up at 4am and there was a raccoon in the garden so we quickly called the girls who were starting to stir to come see. Even though we see the damn things in the garden most evenings since they arrived not one had visited – typical. So not they had seen raccoons and groundhogs!

We checked them into their flight online which allowed us some extra time to get to the airport. The drive there is normally a maximum of 2 hours and we allowed 3.5 hours, however due to horrendous delays with traffic in Toronto where we hardly moved for over an hour we managed to miss the flight. Now we have travelled all over the world on both business and pleasure and have never ever missed a flight. When we got to checkin the woman told us that “You have missed it by 17 minutes, go over there and buy new flight” charming!

We went “over there” and were told that the tickets they had purchased were not transferrable and they would have to buy new ones. At that point there were lots of tears from fed up daughter and I think the booking clerk felt sorry for her and agreed to rebook them for a smaller fee of $100 each which I paid on our credit card. The trouble was this was 8am and the flight wasn’t until 11.25 pm.

We had to decide whether to go home and come back again later but the girls said they would stay at the airport and wait. They had charged their PSP up so would play games and wander round. We stayed with them for an hour or so and then made our way back home after lots of hugs and tears.

We finally heard back from them today and they arrived home okay but have colds – a result of airline air no doubt.

From the time their original flights with Zoom were cancelled due to going into receivership to the very end it was a flight nightmare. Good job all the bits in the middle went well to make up for it!

We also have a downy woodpecker who has started to become a daily visitor. This one is much smaller than the pair we had before and much much smaller than the hairy woodpeckers we get. This is him hanging from the bird feeder. This was one of the only pics that came out with out a fuzzy head as he never keeps it still!

An here is one of the hares who frequents the garden. Not to be confused with the many rabbits.

We parked the car at the airport and helped them with their bags to the checkin. Trouble was we were too early, so they decided they would wander round the airport for a while. We said a rather tearful goodbye and then they were gone.

The journey home was uneventful and we chatted about the last two weeks, reminiscing already! When we got home I cooked the two pork steaks David had left for us – to his cooking instructions and they were lovely.

On Tuesday morning I had a business meeting to attend and when I got home found they had not phoned to say they had landed which was a little worrying. But looking at the plane schedule on the web it got in ok, so we figured they had got the car and driven straight to their friends house in the UK where they are staying for another week and fell asleep. At about 2pm aunt Judy phoned to say they were okay, but that her friends mum was ill in hospital so they were going to visit that evening and would phone us again later in the week.

The weather has certainly taken a downturn since they selfishly took the Spanish weather back with them. We haven’t gone into double figures yet and have had rain and even some snow flurries yesterday – SNOW!!!!! The weekend sounds warmer but wet.

On Tuesday we spotted the groundhog for the first time this year, lovely to see him back. The deer seem to have moved on though as we haven’t seem them much at all. Now there is plenty of food in the woods they cannot be bothered with us!

When Judy & David left they were had decided that they really wanted to come and live over here. I cannot believe it as I never in a million years did I think they would be prepared to leave the warm climes of Spain to come to Canada, but they loved it. I can possibly sponsor them, so you never know. If they sell their Spanish house – buyers queue up here please, then I think they will seriously look at moving here rather that another area of Spain. We will have to wait and see what happens.

We were not quite sure what had caused the hole so decided to wait round the corner of the house to see what emerged.

We waited for about five minutes and then…

Yes it was our resident groundhog, although we hadn’t quite realised how resident he was. I then went round the other side to get a better pic.

We have a veritable zoo here!

He is really quite cute.

I have also been called back for another ultrasound at the hospital on July 9th. This is to make sure the cyst I had is gone. I believe it has because I haven’t had any pain for quite some time. I am still waiting for an appointment for an MRI. No idea how long that will take.

We had to have our truck serviced on Friday and the bill was extortionate – $45. Honesty I don’t think a garage in the UK would even look at a car for that sort of money let alone service it. I know it was one of the smaller services (30,000km) but still.

It is really hot here at the moment and has been for several weeks. We had a few cooler days (low 20’sC) last week but mainly it has been in the high 20’s. Today we got 34C which is really too hot and the weather man suggested with the humidex it felt like the low 40’s which I can well believe. The heat is even wearing the squirrels out and they can be found flaked out in the trees and on the seed boxes, they are so funny.

We have been successfully keeping the growing number of raccoons at bay. So far we have noted two different mothers with five babies each and another with three. They are totally adorable, but they keep coming out in the day and they literally take over the feeding stations in the garden, which means the squirrels, and chipmunks are frightened off. Hubby has devised a plan that involves using the hosepipe to flush them out of the garden. For some reason they are quite happy to sit out in the rain and eat, but don’t like to be hosed. We don’t care if they come around at night and finish off the leftover food, but to steal it from our “regulars” during the day is just not on.

When we were first looking at places to settle in Ontario, Bancroft had been a contender, but for whatever reason we dismissed the area, cannot remember why now!

We took a scenic route to Bancroft and saw many places that looked really nice. The closer to the town we got the hillier the surroundings. When we reached Bancroft we found it to be a really nice place which reminded us of some small American towns we had visited. We were a little peckish when we got there so found a Timmy’s for a coffee and muffin – well you have to, don’t you!

We wandered around Bancroft for a short time then decided, as it was still early to venture further north. Looking at the map we realised that we were reasonably close to Algonquin Provincial Park, so decided to drive there and take the road which runs through the south of the park – Highway 60.

When we got to the East Gate I went into the ranger station to see if we needed to pay or anything. The guy told me that as long as we were only driving along the highway we didn’t need to. We were also ok to stop off and take photos etc. He gave me a info sheet and map and off we went.

The road runs for 54 km and as we travelled along almost immediately noticed several cars parked up for no apparent reason, so we stopped too. It turned out there was a moose at the side of the road. We saw our first ever Canadian moose. It was a female and she was a bit tatty as she was shedding her winter coat, but hey, we saw a moose.

We stopped off at quite a few vantage points to admire the scenery. Some of the lakes are stunning and we took lots of photos. We also managed to see a couple of deer, but as we get them in the garden most nights we were a bit blasé about them.

The guide sheet we were given gave details of the hikes you can go on in the park and also the best time to visit to see wildlife. It seems that the first couple of weeks of May are good, so we plan to return then, better equipped and do some of the hiking trails.

We left the park late afternoon and managed to spot a groundhog grazing at the side of the road on the way home. We stopped off at Timmy’s again for a coffee before travelling the rest of the way home.

We had dinner and settled in for a night of TV. Whilst watching TV we always have one eye on the window to see what is going on in the garden. As usual the raccoons paid a visit and then quite a bit later my hubby spotted something else in the garden. We thought at first it was a raccoon, but it was moving differently, so I got the scope out and could just make out a porcupine in the dark. I took some pics before it wandered off, but because it was dark they are not very good.

So, we managed to see a moose, a groundhog, deer and a porcupine, quite a day!