Hotel life - Week 9

We're at the end of week 9. It seems insance that I have lived at a hotel for over 2 months now, when you think that there are just over 4 weeks in a month. The good news, which I have already shared before, is that our time is now coming to an end soon enough. Next weekend will be my last post for hotel life updates--and I might have to start with mandatory self-isolation updates from London after that to help me find things to do during that 2 week period after we arrive 😆

Meanwhile, we found out about somewhere else we could go for a short road trip outside a city. We've been running out of ideas since we want to try to find new places and don't have the ability to stay overnight anywhere else, so we can't really go to far. But a friend of mine posted some photos from Carvel the other day, which is a hamlet in Parkland County. It looked really lovely, and as it's close to Stony Plain, we figured we might stop in at the pioneer museum to look around. Unfortunately, it ended up being closed, but we did get to see Carvel itself. We stopped in at the General Store, which we thought might still be running as a more traditional general store, given the size of the hamlet--only about 7 households lives there. But It was mainly a place to sell locally made soaps, linens, old-fashioned candies, clothing like cotton nightgowns, and a variety of interesting creations like birdhouses made with old license plates from different provinces in Canada. There was even an old, moss-covered wooden bench for sale--for only $75! I wouldn't buy that--I grew up spending my summers at my grandparents' farm and know that old wood eventually rots--moss is growing on it because it's moist, and it isn't usable other than to just watch it disintegrate. So some of the stuff for sale there was weird, but most of it was really nice. My husband decided to try a shaving cream from there that I now love as of today after he tried it. It smells so good--like freshly cut firewood that got wet in the rain, just like the outdoors, but somehow is still sophisticated. And it's subtle--not the Axe body-spray smell we've come to associate with teenaged boys that don't know any better! 

Surrounding the general store are beautiful garden--not professional type ones, but the kind you would see in someone's yard. While there appears to be a private residence area of the store, and you can tell this is someone's garden with some raised beds for vegetables, you can walk around and look at the garden. There happened to be a cat relaxing in the shade behind the garden, and when I went to try to pet it, it didn't run away like I expected it to. It seems to love people--any people! It started purring right away and nudging my hands and licking--just like my own cat does to me but would never do to a stranger. It was a little bonus of our visit to the hamlet.

About an 8-minute drive away is an antique store called Useful Things. It's not quite in Carvel but pretty close, and the mailing address is there. It was quite a lovely store--not cluttered like someone with a hoarding problem storing junk and not all real antiques. It's on the farmyard in an old barn, on a lot near the owner's house. And when you walk in, they have a number of quality pieces, but it's really well laid out, and there aren't too many thinks, just a comfortable amount so that you can really see the things. There was a lot of nice furniture there--a dining table that was sturdy and solid wood--absolutely beautiful, and only $400! If only we weren't moving!

Anyway, I do recommend taking a trip out there sometime. We didn't end up getting to see the pioneer museum in Stony Plain because it's closed on the weekends, but it was still a worthwhile drive. I'm sure the museum will still be there when we move back.

Hotel life - Week 8

I am happy to say that these hotel updates are going to stop in the near future. Our immigration documentation finally got sorted out, and we received our passports back late last week. That meant we could book our travel! Outside of all the loose ends we need to tie up here, we can actually start feeling exciting about moving to the UK. I've started to feel like this experience has been so anti-climactic because it has taken so long. My husband's post was made official in mid-March, right before the country shut down with the pandemic, and we are finally going to be departing in a couple of weeks, so almost 6 months after knowing we would be moving! 

So I might not be updating my blog as often, especially as I won't be working right away, and our travel will be limited during the pandemic, but as I'll be at home, I might get bored and write about things I'm experiencing like culture shock.

Meanwhile, one of the things that created a bit of stress are the changes that the UK gov't recently imposed on pets travelling into the country. There were already limits on when they could arrive--they had to arrive on weekdays, but now they are also limiting how many pets can enter per day, per region, and possibly per flight. It was very concerning to find this out. As a result, we will need to place ours in a kennel for at least a week after we depart as all flights with space for pets are booked up until the middle of September. I appreciate neither the cost nor the fact that it will be stressful for all of us involved--they've never stayed in a kennel or travelled before, and I'll be worried about their wellbeing the whole time until they get to us. Had we been able to travel even 2 weeks ago, this wouldn't have been the case, but everything happens for a reason, so perhaps this is all for the best somehow.

We didn't really do much that was new or interesting last week in terms of being a tourist in our own city, but I did happen to get some beautiful photos of a pelican in a park we frequent. We were there during golden hour in the evening, and the pelican was preening itself. They have such beautiful faces, and my husband mentioned how their eyes look like the wise but serene eyes of elephants. So I'll leave you with a few photos of that.

  

Hotel life - Week 7

As of today, we finally heard that our immigration documents were approved. We don't have them in our hands yet, but at least we know they're done and on their way. It was supposed to be prioritised, but it doesn't seem like that happened. So we will be in Edmonton for approximately another 2.5-3 weeks as we won't be able to book our travel until we get those. But at least there's an end in sight!

This past week, I visited Lois Hole Provincial Park with my aunt, who had come in from Northern Alberta for a visit. And because she was here, my other aunt stopped by on her way home from an event she was at in Ponoka, so it was a nice visit. We were able to stay out in the open and physically distance ourselves, even with our dinner--we did takeout separately and found a nice, big picnic table where we could be out in the open and sit to visit and eat but also stay apart safely. It was wonderful to visit them before I move away for a while. You always hope family will come to visit you when you live overseas, but time and money often prevent those. No one except one friend from Europe visited me while I lived in Mexico for a couple of years. Many people wanted to come, but almost no one actually did, so you just never know. In any case, I didn't get any good photos from Lois Hole PP because there wasn't a whole lot going on, but I got a bunch from the U of A Botanic Garden, where we went a week later.

I've loved the U of A Botanic Garden for a long time. My brother had his wedding there, and as he doesn't live in Canada, I got to be the on-the-ground person organising it, which meant that I got to visit there as often as I liked for planning purposes. I don't think I actually abused that, but I did need to go there quite a bit, so I was not unhappy to take extra time to walk around and enjoy as I could get in for free--technically paid for by the cost of using it as a wedding venue, but I could make unlimited visits. It was wonderful. I should have mentioned, when I posted photos from the St. Albert Botanic Park that one of the reasons I love gardens so much is that I find them to be places of solace for me. There were certain family challenges growing up, and gardens were spaces of peace and solace for me. My grandmother had a gorgeous garden that was hidden behind a hedge of overgrown caragana and through a doorway that was a small, white-picket gate. There were lots of roses and delphiniums, particularly. That's mostly what I remember was because I was still young when it got razed accidentally when an arborist company came to tear down some trees that were very tall and in danger of destroying the house if they should every fall from being hit by lightning. And as I grew up, my mom's perennial garden grew and matured, and it also became a place of solace. So I can't wait for a home again where I can make my garden and build it and enjoy it as it matures when I'm back from England.

Hotel life - Week 6

The rose garden

This past week brought us to the St Albert Botanic Park. I had come across it in an article I read online, and I hadn't heard of it before, but the photos were beautiful, and it looked like somewhere I wanted to go. The gardens did not disappoint! My only regret was that I missed peony season, but it will be something to look forward to someday when I'm back in Edmonton. There was just so much to see there that I barely wanted to close my eyes, and the rose garden was lightly scented with the many roses. What I also love about this place is that it's totally volunteer-run, so entry is free. It's an unbelievable place to visit for free! 

I also wish I had known about this place when I got married. We found a decent place with some trees near our venue, but the botanic park here is actually relatively close to our venue and would have been much more suitable for wedding photos--but you can't know everything! I took a lot of photos, but I've only included a few here. Make sure you click on them so you can see them larger rather than the thumbnails I've included here.

    

Hotel life - Week 5

I seem to manage to find adventure no matter what I do. In terms of discovering new places during the past week, I visited Paul Kane Park. It's a little park in Edmonton. It's named after a well-known Canadian painter who was in part known as one of the earliest people to document the lives of First Nations peoples before colonisation had taken place. I didn't really know much about him other than having just heard of his name before.  

In any case, as he was a landscape artist, this park was designed as an art park to pay homage to his landscapes and has a man-made pond and water feature that trickles water down into a very shallow stream that runs into the pond. The stream has benches on either side of it, and at some points it's close enough where you can take your shoes off and just let the water run over your feet. As we went on a super hot day, this was a refreshing activity, and it also reminded me of Heritage Days when I was little, and my parents would also stop at this little creek that would trickle water into the man-made pond at Hawrelak park. We would take our shoes off and cool our feet in the water after walking around for hours in the heat. The stream sometimes is dry now, but when it's not, it always seems to be muddy there, and the rocks covered in that slimy green plant, so it's not a good place for that anymore. I know with Paul Kane Park, I won't have to worry about that happening, and it's definitely a place I want to return to!

The beginning of the stream

 In other news, I ended up rescuing another animal--in this case, a German shepherd puppy! We noticed this puppy in a red and white t-shirt on the street corner, trying to chew on a straw from someone's discarded Slurpee container, and I wanted to get the straw out of its mouth as it seemed very dangerous--not to mention the fact that the puppy also was just out with no apparent owner in sight. So I looked for a tag on his collar, and luckily it had one of those kind with his name and a phone number. It took me a while to get the phone number because, being a puppy, he was super silly and playful and kept jumping around and play biting, and I was trying not to allow his teeth to sink in too much. Anyway, I was able to finally get the number, and the person I spoke with seemed really surprised that I was calling about his dog. Within seconds, a girl of about 12 or so appeared from the house right next to where the puppy was! It seems that their gate somehow got open, and out went the puppy to explore the big world outside! I was really glad I was able to help out, especially a dog of that breed being very susceptible to theft, and if he'd been any bigger, it might have been too dangerous to approach him, and he would have been take by the City. The owners would have paid a hefty fine to get him back since he is unlicensed! So apparently animal rescue is my new thing... hahaha