Ross and Beverley: Catching Up

Hello and after 6 weeks of no blog information we are now back on line. As you all know we only update our blog when we we feel there is something of interest to share with you.

So, over the last 6 weeks we have celebrated a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with our wonderful Canadian friends Debbie and George. The dinner consisted of turkey with all the trimmings followed by a great dessert and our contribution to the occasion was homemade pumpkin soup. As many of you will be aware North Americans generally do not eat pumpkin as much as we do in OZ but Debbie and George are prepared to try anything and we all had a great time.

On 31 October we were invited to a Halloween Party party at James and Susan's place our next door neighbours and you will see from the photo below just how some folks approach the night. We will let you guess what the costume represents. Suffice to say it is not a mushroom.

During the day of Halloween wanting to do the right thing we went to Walmart and purchased a quantity of Halloween treats just in case we had trick or treaters come knocking at the door. Ross got into the swing of things as you can see from the photo below and he spent some time doing up individual packages of goodies. However, as we live some 17 kms outside of the city the trick or treaters were few and far between so we now have lots of sweets left and will be eating these until next Halloween.

On 11 November we attended a Remembrance Day ceremony at a local village not far from where we live. Remembrance Day in New Brunswick is a public holiday as it is in various parts of Canada and it was so pleasing to see that all around the country people turned out to remember those who had payed the ultimate price to ensure the lifestyle Canadians enjoy. The conduct of the ceremony is very like what we do in Australia and Remembrance Day is as big for the Canadians as ANZAC day is for Australians. We were fortunate that it was a sunny day but we all needed warm jackets and sturdy shoes as the ground was very cold. We wore our medals and it was a privilege to celebrate this day with our Canadian friends.

Recently we have discovered NZ lamb in the supermarkets in Fredericton so we have been enjoying this. Lamb is not eaten much here in New Brunswick so it has been a real pleasure to introduce our Canadian friends to this tasty food. Last evening we enjoyed Australian lamb.

As we come to the end of this entry it is with much sadness that we let you know that our much loved Herbie passed away on 7 November after being very unwell over a 6 week period. He put up an heroic battle but succumbed to an overwhelming infection. We miss him terribly and Murphy is still a little lost as this is the first time she has ever been a lone dog.