We had an early start today. Victoria picked us up at 06:15 to take us to Waterloo regional airport. She was really quite cheery when she walked through the door, certainly cheerier than her mum is first thing in the morning! We were quickly through security, sitting at a table drinking vanilla infused French coffee. Sounds delicious, smells good, tastes average. Ah well. The ground crew came round checking that we had the correct luggage with us. We had both paid for a carry-on bag, except apparently I hadn’t. To be honest she was lovely about it and tagged my bag regardless of the non-payment. Although I had paid and was able to show her proof. Bloody technology! Boarding went well, no hassle. I was in a middle seat of 3 people, but we didn’t have ... read more

Stratford is a small city on the Avon River in SW Ontario. As the river enters the city it widens into Lake Victoria. The city was a railway town until the middle of the 1960s when the Canadian National Railway closed its repair shop in the city laying off numerous employees. The drive from Cambridge took us through probably hundreds of thousands of acres of arable farmland, the flat landscape stretching out in front of us and to the sides with huge fields of green and others with grey earth. We drove through North Dumfries, crossed the road to West London, saw a sign to New Dundee, drove through Shakespeare – the village not the person - and eventually entered Perth the county in which Stratford sits. We parked on the outskirts of downtown Stratford and ... read more

Susan’s home town. We walked to Tony’s Diner for breakfast along trail paths lining the edge of creeks (streams) and along sidewalks (pavements) through clean, attractive housing areas where the homes are well spaced out with tidy gardens. Each house is very individual, unlike a lot of areas in the UK where estates are populated with very similar looking houses. There are lots of trees with birds and squirrels. We saw Canadian Robins - bigger and leaner than the small round ones we have in the UK, and their red breasts aren’t as vivid. There are grey squirrels like in the UK, but also black ones. I attempted to get photos of the robins and the black squirrels, but as is often the case when trying to photograph wildlife – in my experience anyway – as ... read more

Canada trip – the travel begins! Well so far it’s been ok. The taxi from home to the bus station was 10 minutes early. Luckily, I was ready 15 minutes early. The National Express coach was about 10 minutes late leaving the bus station, but that was because we were waiting for passengers to arrive from Plymouth for an onward journey to LHR and that bus was late in. No problem, we arrived at LHR safely and in good time. The driver made a lovely little speech before we left Bristol welcoming us on board his coach; he sounded Polish, and while he had a strong accent and spoke quite fast he was easily understandable, even though he said at least 3 times that his English was poor. He sent a little love up the coach ... read more

Yesterday’s diving was good, exploring a couple of coral gardens. The first one was called Fucilleri after the fish that tend to congregate there. Well, we weren’t disappointed, there were thousands of the bright yellow fish swimming around on top of a small shelf. There were the most beautiful corals too, and we were lucky enough to spot a trumpetfish, puffer fish, butterfly fish, and an octopus. The second dive at the site called Licorn was equally as wonderful regarding the coral. Marine life included shrimps, blue spotted Ray, a large crocodile fish, and an octopus hiding in a hole with just his eye visible. The highlight of the day however was a call after the second dive that humpback whales had been spotted, so we motored out in the general direction, and we weren’t disappointed! ... read more