Hard to believe it’s July already! Even though it’s the dead of winter now, it’s still a comfortable 21-22 C during the day and a somewhat chilly 16-18 C overnight – much better than the temperatures we had a couple weeks ago in Hervey Bay!
Those temps were, however, appropriate for watching the Stanley Cup. It was on at 10am here so Young Rob came over to watch Game 7 with Hugh while I, you guessed it, worked. But this did give them both an opportunity to practice making some Canadian delicacies to serve on Canada Day:
They started with coffee served in our Marc Tetro mugs and then moved to Caesars and Montreal Style bagels. The game didn’t go our way but a good time was had by all. Meaning all those watching the game. Some of us had to work. Have I mentioned that yet?
In between the Stanley Cup and Canada Day was game 2 of State of Origin – the annual rugby league series between Queensland and New South Wales. We once again went to Geoff and Sharyn’s along with Rob and Barb to watch, and we proudly donned our Maroons shirts:
Well, it was a crushing defeat for the Maroons 🙁 (have I told you that “maroon” is pronounced “marone” in Queensland – Bugs Bunny wouldn’t be impressed). Game 3 is on July 17 so hopefully we get back our gusto. But the ladies’ State of Origin was the next night and we totally crushed the Sky Blues in that game! This was the first year the women’s series had 3 games like the men do so it was a big deal for our Maroons to win the best of 3. Game 2 they played in torrential rain, the field was spraying up water and mud like you wouldn’t believe, and the weather was only marginally better for game 3. But the stands were packed! And kudos to Hugh for being the one to decide to put it on the telly – he heard the criticism from women that men don’t pay enough attention to the women’s game and so don’t realise how good the games are, so he decided to start watching. And the women were right, it really is a good game!
Last year on Canada Day, Rob and Barb had us over, so this year we invited them to ours. And then we invited 2 more friends. And 2 more. And so on. And suddenly it was a good ol’ Canada Day party! You may be wondering about the title of the blog, referencing “Canadia” but with my insertion of ‘eh’ (given that I really use eh a lot!). Well, our friend Sharyn tends to refer to Canada as Canadia, pronounced “canEYdiya.” One of those things you never think about, but we say Canadian, Canadiana, but then Canada for the country (sort of like we spell “speak” and “speech” differently – how annoying is that!). So as a tribute to Sharyn, we now celebrate Canadia Day 🙂
We set the table with some Canadiana (Liz – I think you will recognize the hats and flag and you might not be able to see the beads on the hats but they’re there too – and we hung the big flag out on the patio):
I went through my usual playlist on Spotify and separated out all the Canadian songs – I had 65 of them! Just like there are some amazing Aussie songs that never made it to Canada, we learned that there were many amazing Canadian songs that never made it down here.
Then Hugh went to town making all sorts of fabulous food for us! He made his delicious Montreal style bagels with cream cheese as an appetizer (they say entree here, not appetizer – which makes a lot of sense and, given the French influence in Canada, is a bit odd that Canadians say entree for the main course, another thing I hadn’t thought about until seeing it differently down here!). Bagels aren’t terribly common here and Montreal style ones don’t exist at all, but judging by the success of them on Canadia Day, Hugh could probably start a business selling them!
While people were enjoying their bagels, Young Rob got to making his world famous Caesars!
Like butter tarts, Caesars do not exist outside of Canada. We brought several bottles of Clamato over on the container ship because we knew Rob and Barb had run out a long time ago. We’re almost out now so Rob will have to go back to making the close-to-Clamato-tasting concoction he usually does. To serve Caesars to Australians, I have discovered that it is important to have them try it BEFORE telling them what’s in it. Now the downside to this, which I didn’t think about until later, is if someone were to have an allergy to, say, clams, and I was forcing them to drink something without them knowing what’s in it. Fortunately, no one ended up in hospital so all’s well that ends well 🙂 The Caesars were a HIT! Kevin even had a second one. And also fortunately, we discovered that the USA Foods store in Melbourne is a stone’s throw from our friend Melbourne Rob’s office so we can place an order for him to bring up when he comes to Yeppoon :).
Now for the mains (“entrees” in Canada). Hugh made poutine with fresh cut fries! You can’t get cheese curds around here so we used diced mozzarella and it worked out great. My arteries are now blocked, but so worth it! Hugh also made lasagna, in honour of the Italian communities where we and Rob and Barb lived back in Canada. And he made ribs with his own homemade rub, smoked on the BBQ – those of you who were part of the “rib off” many years ago will recall Hugh’s extreme disappointment in coming in second to Chris S in that contest, when he had made his own rub and his own BBQ sauce from scratch. That story may have been told a few times over the years and it did seem to come up again on Canada Day. Not that he’s bitter 🙂 But the ribs really were very delicious!
Our friend Canadian Bill and his wife Loretta joined the gang and Bill brought pierogies. Bill has lived here for decades but he still has his Saskatchewan accent and his great taste in pierogies! It turns out there is a local lady who makes them so Bill has passed her contact info along to Hugh. As much as pierogies aren’t really Canadian, you can’t get them here and they are very popular in Canada, so we christened them as Canadian. Young Rob also brought pickled eggs, such a curling club classic! And something you don’t get here either. I’d never actually had one before – I love hard boiled eggs and I love anything pickled, but somehow eggs in liquid in a jar just didn’t seem appealing to me. But, if I was asking people to drink clam juice, I could try a pickled egg – they’re actually pretty good! I think I still prefer just plain hard boiled eggs with salt, but as I’m writing this, I did just go sneak a couple more pickled eggs :).
So that we didn’t die from scurvy, our non-Canadian guests kindly brought some salads. We had A LOT of food.
For dessert, I made Nanaimo bars and Young Rob made peanut butter cookies with little Reese’s peanut butter cups on top. Our friend Joanne made a dessert with maple syrup that tasted very much like butter tarts – well done, Jo! I’ve never actually made Nanaimo bars before but they turned out pretty good! Once again, thank you to Sing’s Asian Foods for carrying graham wafer crackers.
When our friends Rod and Lou arrived, Rod really freaked us out – he’d made a Justin Trudeau mask!
I’m still having nightmares.
So our motley crew of Canadians, Kiwis, and Aussies sent along a message for everyone back in Canadia:
Just to ensure you don’t go too long without some bird photos, here is our local Nankeen Kestrel hanging out, presumably hoping for an opportunity to get a nice goldfish lunch (we still have 4 fish, by the way, but just like they do in winter at home, they stay down at the bottom when the temps drop here):
And a typical day at the office with cockatoos hanging around:
Hugh got this funny video of some birds demonstrating the pecking order at the golf course. Noisy Miner is ignored by Juvenile Magpie, Juvenile Magpie beats Lorikeet, but Lorikeet beats Blue-faced Honeyeater – it’s like the beginning of a new game of Rock Paper Scissors (I’m sitting on our patio as I write this and a Little Friar Bird is chirping away in the bottlebrush tree, I wonder where he’d be in the pecking order):
That’s our Subaru Outback in the background, but its days may be numbered. The Tesla supercharging network has been improving a lot in recent months here and I REALLY REALLY miss driving my Tesla. Every week longer that I have to drive an ICE vehicle makes me miss Ruby more (the Outback is a great car, definitely recommend it, it’s just not a Tesla). So I joined the Tesla Owners Australia group on Facebook to see if there was anyone local I could chat to about the logistics of owning an electric vehicle in regional Queensland. In the category of It’s a Small World, Toni and Dave responded – we met Toni and Dave at a bingo night a couple months ago as Leigh is a mutual friend and we really enjoyed chatting with them (they’re new to Yeppoon too, moving up from Brisbane a few months ago). It turns out that they have a Tesla! They very kindly invited us over on Saturday morning and were AMAZING in answering all my questions. I practically ordered a Model 3 on the drive home, but cooler heads did prevail. The new version of the Model 3 that just came out has adapted some of the beautiful exterior style features of the Model S I had back in Canada while retaining the excellent interior features of the Model 3 and Y. Being a one-car family, having a hatchback makes life a lot easier. So we’ve decided to wait for when the refreshed Model Y comes out, hopefully in a year, and then I will at last have a Tesla again!
On Friday night, Hugh and I got the game Farkle out. Gary and Jo introduced us to this game and the 4 of us have played it for many hours together, accompanied by lots of laughter. Because Hugh and I sometimes drink wine whilst playing Farkle and our usually strong mental math skills can deteriorate in those circumstances, I had started a spreadsheet to do the math for us. When I opened the spreadsheet up, we realised that the last time we had played was in April 2023 when we’d been to visit Gary and Jo in Arizona. We had just chatted with Gary and Jo recently so it was another tug-at-the-heart-strings moments where we miss our family and friends in the northern hemisphere. But the good news is, Mr. Smiley here lost the tiebreaking game!
(oh that’s funny – Hugh’s wearing his RPS shirt, that’s the company Rock Paper Scissors owned by our friends Kelly and Andy in Gravenhurst (originally at the Cotton Factory in Hamilton), and I just talked about the game rock paper scissors, ha, that was not planned!)
During the course of our game, I dramatically improved the spreadsheet, so if anyone needs a Farkle spreadsheet, send me an email and I’ll share it with you!
In other exciting news (I know, it’s hard to top a new spreadsheet, I really do love a good spreadsheet), our first lemon is getting close to being ripe:
We don’t know when the right time is to pick a lemon, so will have to Google that. It’s a good size so we very much look forward to trying it! And there are lots of flowers on both the lemon and lime trees, so we’re in for a great season of citrus-infused alcoholic drinks at some point.
Well, Hugh is at the golf course this afternoon. He played in a pro-am event on Thu and Fri and one of the pros agreed to give him a lesson on Thu afternoon. Hugh can barely contain his excitement at the result as the little tweak in his swing seems to have made a big difference. And even better – the pro didn’t charge him! He was a great guy (even sent him videos and an app to help analyse his swing). He’s based out of Brisbane so anytime we go down there, we’ll schedule some time for Hugh to book a lesson with him again. As for me, I’m going to go do some work for a bit this arvo (Aussie for afternoon). Term 2 starts tomorrow and I especially love this term because I get to teach all my favourite topics! I’m also still developing an online course for a company in the States and it’s coming along nicely and it contains all my favourite topics too. Plus one of my research projects is on the cusp of greatness. It’s a good problem to have so many fun things going on at work! The downside is, my piano skills are terrible and I don’t think I could pull off the spectacular rendition of Jingle Bells that I shared at Christmas, so I’m going to have to make a decision to fit piano lessons back into my life one of these days.
I hope you are all enjoying the northern hemisphere summer!