it was safe to put away our winter coats and boots it snows again. We woke up to this today and it is only 2C but with the windchill feels much colder.
We are still seeing a change in the wildlife. The deer are not around as much and we are getting hundreds of grackles, blackbirds and goldfinches. The male goldfinches are starting to change from their dowdy olive green winter colours to their vibrant yellow and black summer plumage. They look a little scruffy at the moment, but another week and they will be beautiful.
Here are some pics we took this morning of the purple finches, goldfinches and brown headed cowbirds.
We are yet to see any female blackbirds, they are obviously leaving the hard work to the males and then will join them soon – either that or we are going to have a lot of lonely males this year!
In a previous post I mentioned that it was worth shopping around for stuff to get the best price. We proved this again yesterday when we wanted to buy a new projector for our business. We knew the one we wanted and had seen it for just over $1,000, however on looking further we found it advertised on one website for just $849, however the local shop did not have it in stock so we went to Staples to see if they would price match it. They had it advertised for $1,029 and when we showed the guy the lower price he seemed a little miffed. He got the price match authorized and we go the projector from there. I also had a $20 coupon which further reduced it as well as 10% of the difference credited to the price, so in the send we paid $811 for it. It definitely pays to research pricing here.
Over the last couple of weeks we have saved a fortune – $350 off my washer, $218 off the projector and whilst we were in the US I purchased an item of clothing that was originally $100 and I paid $27 in the sale. Hubby bought two shirts originally priced at $80 each and got them in the sale for just $9.99 each. I also got $80 off a handbag, so we have really done well for bargains recently.
What I haven’t done so well with is health – we came back from the US on Sunday evening and by Monday I had a cold. This has been really bad over the last week and I have been suffering. However, it is worth noting that this is the first cold I have had since arriving in Canada nearly three years ago – I blame the Americans for this one! Sorry to those of you reading who are American – I know you are out there – but I was fine before I arrived in Rochester and within a few ours of getting back I am sneezing, coughing and had a sore throat. I can draw no other conclusion other than I have an American cold!
Over the weekend we took the girls to Ottawa and spent the night there. We visited Parliament Hill and the river and canals. In the grounds of parliament there is a cat rescue area. Lots of cats live in an outdoor area and are free to come and go but are fed regularly. It was here that the girls saw a groundhog who had decided he was an honorary cat and was living quite happily with them eating leaves. He was much smaller and darker than the groundhog we had in our garden but at least they saw one. Later afternoon we took them to the Hard Rock Cafe for a very nice meal and then headed back to the hotel.
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!
