When Lynsay said it was on one of her Facebook pages this isn't quite what I thought she had in mind.

The house move weekend comes to a close, everything went fairly smoothly, there were no major disasters and now we're just at the start of the long haul needed to get all of our worldly goods into some kind of organised system in the new home.

It has been a long and tiring process and even with professional movers transferring the major portion of the household goods there have still been numerous car trips between the two locations for all the things we didn't want to hand over to any third parties. It's not that I don't have confidence in the movers, just that there are many personal possessions that, even though they may not have any great financial value, are completely irreplaceable should anything untoward happen.

However, the first real full day in the new house has been an absolute pleasure. There's almost no noise around, other than an occasional train whistle in the distance. No noise, anyway, that doesn't make me think of the soundtrack to something from the TV nature channel. And even the (lonesome) train whistle blowing only makes me want to sing a terrible rendition of a Hank Williams song. Terrible because that's the way I sing and not because there is anything wrong with Hank Williams, by the way.

I haven't really had too much time to get into the garden since there's just too much to be done in the house. I did take five minutes on the deck this evening, though, just to grab a couple of pictures. I was hoping for deer, but only managed to spot a couple of mad March hares having a dance contest. They can just be seen in the bottom left of the picture below.

Ok, so at ten in the morning the phone rings, the keys for the new house are available because the transfer of the property has officially been registered and, as of now, it's ours. Yay, cheers all round the old house for that little ray of sunshine. So off we go to the lawyer to pick up the keys, but not before filling the car with a load items that are the first things transferred from old to new, you know, all the important stuff like the kettle & tea bags and cups. We get the keys, speed off to the new house, unload the boxes, wander round for a few minutes then head off back to collect my new car. While I do the walk through of the new car with the sales guy, mrs spice heads off to grab sandwiches for lunch and we arrange to meet back at the old house (cue Smiths tune of the same name).

By the way, the transfer of the old house doesn't happen until Monday, giving us three and a half days overlap - a great de-stresser if there ever was one. Anyway, now we have two cars to load to help to transfer more stuff over between homes and, once loaded, away we go once again. We do a little sorting out at the new house, organising and putting things in places that will almost certainly change again once we've been in a few weeks and then - since it's now going on seven in the evening, we decide to head back to the old house, where we're staying until we have some of the furniture delivered to the new place. Still with me? Excellent. Well, mrs spice sets off first while I finish of moving a few boxes and about ten or so minutes later I reverse out of the garage. As I'm waiting to check that the garage door has fully closed before I drive off, I glance up and see some blurred movement in the bushes near the back of the house. Before I can do anything else there are five deer galloping out of the trees. They stop, look over in my direction for a few seconds and then carry on charging past me to where ever it is that deer go in the evenings in that neck of the woods. I have to say it was quite a surprise seeing the deer up close running through our garden and, as mrs spice said, when I told her what she had missed, we should take that as a great welcome, a good omen and a lesson to always have the camera ready - which, of course, I hadn't.

But next time...

A long hiatus will soon be coming to an end and there will be regular updates again. Yeah, I can hear the boos, the hisses and the groans already - you cheeky monkeys. Lots to report, new house, lots of new projects, new pictures, new music and... drum roll... a new car. Yup, I've gone and bought myself a Toyota FJ Cruiser.

I've been lusting after one since last August when mrs spice and I went test driving new cars. I didn't get one at the time simply because our garage has a curved brickwork lintel that cuts into the clearance at both sides of the overhead door - meaning that the car will barely go through and I'd probably have to reduce the tire pressure to make sure I don't scrape the top. Anyway - the garage at the new house is a good few inches higher and has a straight lintel across the opening - and since we have the new house in two days time it seemed like a good idea to get the car at the same time. Of course, doesn't life predictably throw a curve ball at you when you don't need it. I have to pick up the car at exactly the same time we're supposed to pick up the keys for the house. Grrr!

I can't make up my mind which to do first.

I can fully understand why many people find it difficult to negotiate their way through life's winding paths when even the most simple of things can, on close inspection, become blindingly complex. Take, for example , something as simple as a seemingly straightforward translation from French to English.

The French word for water is eau - no problem there. The French word for cat is chat. Equally as uncomplicated. So can anyone explain to me why the French word chateau doesn't translate as cat water?

"I'm Bored! - Amuse me!"

Ha! You have to laugh. September 30th marked the first day for registering your phone number on Canada's official Do Not Call List. This is a list of telephone numbers which, in future, telemarketers much first consult before proceeding with making any nuisance sales phone calls to private homes. If they fail to consult the list and make calls to numbers that have been registered for the express purpose of stating that the user does not wish to receive sales calls, then the offending company can be reported and made to pay a fine.

Telemarketers forming an orderly queue in order to annoy the spice household

It's obvious that telemarketing, here in Canada, is so popular that on the first day for registering to avoid these annoying calls, so many people tried to register that not only did the registration web site crash, but phone registration system also gave way under the strain of an unprecedented number of people trying to block the telemarketers unwanted assaults. It's estimated that within two years over half of Canada's 36 million people will have registered to prevent having some some strangely accented voice invading the privacy of their home and offering access to unwanted, and unsolicited, goods, services and advice.

Perhaps the sheer volume of people wishing for an end to this pestilence might be an indication to the telemarketers that it's time to change tack and do something more constructive than the current tactic of simply irritating everyone. Somehow, though, I don't really think they will - but I will say this. When the next telemarketing call comes through to spice acres - I'm ready.

Watch this space.

You know Summer is over when you start finding these in the garden.

Mrs spice has been working on a book. Nothing unusual in that, it's what she does. She's set up an office in the sunroom and happily works away and all the while I leave her in peace and take the occasional cup of tea and throw the odd scraps of food in her general direction. If she needs anything and she doesn't want to have to break off what she's doing she can use one of the many phone handsets in the house as an intercom. And while this may seem a little odd, it is a big house and it can be hard to get someone's attention if we're at opposite ends of the building - that, along with the fact I have a few good hiding places.

Anyway, this afternoon the phone rings - I know it's mrs spice when only one handset is ringing and this time it's the one in the kitchen. "Quick, look out on the deck" she says. So I do and there, in broad daylight, is a small raccoon who, upon seeing me, decides to climb up the tree next to him and sit on the deck roof. I run upstairs to look out of the window which overlooks the roof and the raccoon seems quite happy just perched there. So off I go to get my camera, then I head back downstairs and onto the deck.

I can't see it from the deck so I climb onto the rail around the deck and gingerly edge closer to the roof corner. From there I can see the raccoon and he can see me, but he seems quite calm and isn't displaying any aggression. So I take a few pictures and the raccoon seems to get into the spirit of things, striking a few poses and generally showing far more professionalism and cooperation than you'd find in the average super model while in transit through an airport lounge. 

The raccoon stayed for what seemed like an age before I finally felt I'd taken enough of it's time and had certainly captured numerous photographs. It then ambled further up the tree and out of sight. This was quite an unusual encounter because although I have seen the occasional raccoon in daylight before it isn't a very common occurence. I guess it's up and about early because it's hungry and wants an early start for dinner. And who can blame him - it's Saturday night and your reservation won't be held for very long if you're delayed on the way to the eatery.  

Anyway, it was a rare chance to get a close up shot of the animal and, before anyone tells me off, yes I do know they're wild animals and can show a very nasty side, but all my years of gibbon wrangling have taught me a thing or two about being careful when approaching wildlife. Along with the fact that even the most mean tempered critter isn't silly enough to bite the hand that's just presented it with a plate of food.

I've been studiously avoiding the Olympics since all the hype began oh so many months ago but today I did find myself inadvertently stumbling into the vicinity of one Olympic sport story when I was attracted by the headline on an Internet news site.

How disappointing it was though to suddenly find I was reading a story about an Australian gold medal winner in a track and field event. Who ever would have imagined a headline that shouted "Hooker ends 40-year Australian wait with pole vault gold" could have been about anything other than a bizarre Antipodean sex act.

Well, isn't it a long time since I last posted? Seems like having a blog and not making the slightest effort to add new entries is the height of fashion these days. Or, to put it another way, not blogging on your blog is the new black. Well, you see, I haven't been blogging because I've been blah blah blah...

I've been doing other things, ok, so just get over it. Not that anyone really takes the slightest bit of notice of what goes on here. I could confess that I like to spend my Sundays jumping naked into a barrel full of live monkeys and absolutely no one would notice or even challenge the authenticity of the statement. In fact, that is exactly what I like to do at the weekend and the twin benefits of massage and exfoliation, obtained from the sessions in the barrel, are well worth the time and money spent maintaining a healthy lifestyle and habitat for my simian amigos. You should see my skin after a Sunday monkey tumble - the word smooth barely describes it. And the glow - well, the glow could just be the result of a coating of monkey pee, but I like to think it's a sign of the health and vitality that results after a bout of primate wrestling.

But I digress from my intentions of this entry being meant to have no purpose other than to allow me the opportunity of venting my spleen - not that I have a spleen to vent since it was removed back on March 1st 1979 and which I only remember because March 1st is St David's day and - coincidently - I'm a saint. OK, no I'm not, but I do share the name David and so it makes it a little bit memorable, that and the rather long scar I was left with.

Anyway, on to the venting of the non existent spleen - and by the way, here is a diagram of where the spleen lives for those whose knowledge of anatomy begins and ends with the word McSteamy (and no, I don't understand the reference, either. It's just another example of my gifted ability to bluff my way through current popular culture and appear far more in touch with the modern world than I am in reality).

But the venting. Where is the venting, I hear you ask. No I don't, I just hear the sound of digital tumbleweed blowing through a cyber void. But I have to find some kind of tenuous link between my pointless and inane gibbering and the purpose of why I opened up this page in the first place and so I'm placing a question on your lips.  The venting, you ask. Since you ask then I shall tell.

It's about Ebay, or at least, to be more precise, it's about one of my recent experiences on Ebay. I used to like Ebay a lot. There was a time, many years ago, when it was a good and easy place to find interesting things. It was the collector's marketplace - for a brief moment in time. Like all things in life it doesn't remain static. It changes, it evolves and it eventually becomes - as Monty Python might say - something completely different. Now it's become predominantly a marketplace for anyone and everyone who thinks they are an entrepreneur and who wants to make a quick and easy buck or two - usually at the expense of quality and efficient service. I still buy on Ebay but not nearly as much as I once did. If I want to buy new retail items online I tend to go to somewhere like Amazon where I know the service will be good and efficient, where the despatch times will be almost instant and where I also know there will be no hassle if an item is defective or not as described - none of which can be applied to large numbers of Ebay retailers.  But there are things that Amazon doesn't have - obscure music releases or the occasional spare part or accessory for something - things where Ebay is often the only accessible source.

And so it was that I threw a few auction bids in recently to grab a handful of items which are on my wanted list. All of them were auctions, not buy-it-now items and all of the bids were made after closely looking at the items, the descriptions and the reputations of the sellers. No problems appeared to be lurking in the gloom surrounding any of the target items other than one seller's detailed feedback indicated he wasn't the fastest of shippers. OK, so how bad could that be? I was about to find out.

Shipping from outside of Canada works out at around a week for items coming from the USA and around seven to ten days for items from the UK or Europe, so when my item hadn't arrived from the US after two weeks I started to get a little concerned. I made allowance for a long weekend in Canada and the fact that we're in the middle of the summer recess where it's quite possible Canada Post and the Canadian Customs are understaffed and things get backlogged. When there were still no goods after four weeks I began to get annoyed. On August 7th (remember this date - it's relevant) I contacted the seller regarding my shipment - I had paid him, via Paypal on July 9th and all I asked, politely, was for him to confirm that he had mailed them and to tell me the date of despatch. Here's his reply - verbatim - from August 8th

Sorry for the delay been having problems with my computer over the last few weeks. I make my living with it and without it am a fish out of water. I just got my computer back and this is the 1st chance I've had to check email etc.

Your package left the other day, hopefully you get it Sat. or early next week.
The issue was that I was looking at all of my completed auctions and noticed that yours wasn't paid for, or at least I thought as I'm so used to paypal as almost everyone pays for them that way. Yours was a problem because I got it in the mail and the envelope was stashed under some papers. That's the whole reason for the delays.

Thanks for your patience!!!!

I appreciate it big time!!!!!!

On receiving this I very nearly collapsed unconscious on the floor, overwhelmed by the noxious fumes from the incredible overloading of the amount of bullshit packed into a single communication. A quick reply pointing out that I'd paid using  Paypal on July 9th - 29 days earlier - produced another reply telling me he's mixed me up with another buyer and that my package had been sent and would arrive soon. After that excuse I was beginning to have visions of fumigating my computer to get rid of the smell.

The package did arrive - on August 15th - a full 36 days after paying for it.  This is the longest I've ever had to wait for a delivery from the US and it's not the fault of the postal service. While I'm not one for leaving negative feedback for sellers on Ebay, this guy deserved it for the blatant excuses he made instead of just coming clean and admitting he was at fault. If he's been honest and just said he's screwed up I may even have let him get away with me just not leaving any feedback at all, but he just couldn't take the honest option and so didn't really leave me any alternative.

And so I left what I think is a moderate negative comment "I paid July 9th. Seller Mailed August 7th. Disappointing" Not totally undeserved and not insulting like some of the negative feedbacks I've read - mine just stated the facts. But have we done there? Not quite. After posting the negative feedback I then receive an email from the seller, obviously wounded that I've just busted his 100% feedback record (although his detailed feedback rating isn't quite so good), which says;

"Re Feedback. Just how would you know it was mailed on August 7th?" I can almost hear the petulant stamping of feet in that sentence and the only reply I have is to say... er, Harlan! - for that is the sellers real name - What's the date on this label?

Duh!

A nectarine is nothing more than a shaved peach.

So, there we are, mrs spice & I, heading off on a two and a half hour drive to pay our second visit to a potential new location for spice acres. It's raining - not unusually, since it always seems to rain, storm. downpour* (delete as applicable) whenever we go and view a property. I have no real problem with that, if for no other reason that it means we are going to be very unlikely to buy a house that floods, or one that has a leaking roof. It also seems to have become something of our property viewing signature, as in oh, it's raining, must have a house to see, today.

Anyway, we arrive, the owners have left the building, our realtor is some way behind us and won't be there for another ten or so minutes and I need a bathroom. Well, it has been a long drive, we did stop for coffee and I didn't go when I should have gone. OK, so what's unusual about that.

As it happens I only need to pee, the house we're looking at has 22 acres of land and is on the edge of a forest, there are a lot of plants and bushes around and there are no neighbours for a very long way. No problem, then. I'll just head down into a bushy area of the forest and away we go.

I'm standing there, exposed to the world - or the tiny little bit of it that can't possibly see me - sprinkling the daisies, or some other such euphemism and feeling a great sense of relief, when a dark cloud rises from the bushes. A huge, mean, vicious, hungry and very determined dark cloud of... mosquitoes. And there were a lot of them. And by a lot I mean every mosquito that lives north of the Mason-Dixon line... Along with their cousins, aunts, mothers, grandmothers, sister, half sisters, adopted daughters, nieces, housemaids, hairdressers, beauticians, exfoliators and leg waxers (assuming mosquitos wax their legs, that is).

And they bit. Oh yes, they bit. Not the obvious, dangling out of my shorts, pink and exposed part, because I managed to keep that part moving and out of harms way. They bit me everywhere else, though. My arms, my legs my back and they even bit me on the top of my head. I hurried through the act of watering the garden, tucked myself away and bolted for the safety of the porch - fortunately just as the realtor arrived to let us into the house.

And what a nice house it is - only, we won't be making an offer since I don't really want to spend my future summers hiding away indoors away from the beasts in the bush. And after sitting here for the past few days watching the itchy and irritating, egg sized lumps adorning my body gradually grow smaller and begin to fade, I'm more and more convinced this is the right decision. I've also grown to have a real hatred of mosquitos.

Busy! That's how we've been these past few weeks... or perhaps it's months, I'm no longer sure. The days and weeks seem to fly by with the rapidity of a fly flying by and there is much that has happened since the last post (cue bugler playing The Last Post...) So much, in fact, that I have no intention of writing a huge essay and posting it here just so people can ignore it and pass on to more interesting things. What I will do, though, is rattle through a few headlines of the salient points.

So here is the gnus...

Right, so now that I've got the oldest joke in the world out of the way I'll get to the point.

• House is on the market and although we've had a good number of viewings, we haven't yet had an offer on the place.
• We've looked at a good number of houses with property ranging from 2 acres (nice house, not enough land) to 130 acres (fantastic land, terrible house) with a couple of very nice places in between - including 22 acres in a forest in a very private location. This one we're going to see again next week. Who knows, perhaps spice acres will really be an acreage.
• mrs spice has completed work on another book - this one is number 11 in her Argeneau Vampire series.
• Winter has turned into summer and it's very warm.
• Emma the cat caught a baby bird on one of her daily walks when my attention was distracted. (she goes for walks on a leash, like a dog). Emma is a very bad cat.

• I found two baby squirrels in the garden. One of which seems to have been separated too early from it's mother and was struggling to eat. I tried to feed it with milk and crushed food , but sadly it died. The picture below is from when I first found it and it actually seemed OK at the time. It was a few days later when it started to deteriorate.
• Did I mention it was hot.
• The hot weather has brought some very violent thunderstorms with it. Bad enough that the power was knocked out the other night and that there were several lightning strikes close by - including a tree which was brought down in my neighbour's yard.
• I have lots of new music and new books - too many to mention.
• And I haven't posted on the blog for a while - but that's now been rectified.

So, until next time, here's to the memory of the poor baby squirrel.

Yes, it's alive, as actor Colin Clive exclaimed in the 1931, Universal Studios production of the movie Frankenstein. Said at the moment the monster, played by Boris Karloff, first twitched into life, it seems an apt analogy to use when I finally post something in this space after what is probably my longest cyber silence since I first took the plunge and shuffled on to this immortal toil that is better known as writing a blog.

The reason for the silence - and I've only just realised the appropriate nature, or inappropriate if you have a generous disposition, of the song playing along with this entry - is simply that I'm busy. I am, as the English would say, and I can't for the life of me explain the origin of this phrase, currently running around like a blue arsed fly.

The great Canadian winter has suddenly ceased to be and has been rapidly replaced by an almost instant raise of the temperature to summer levels. In the space of around three weeks the world around me has transformed it's ambient nature from double digits below freezing into becoming an unseasonably, take off all your clothes and dance naked with the garden hose, 25 degrees C (77 Fahrenheit).  How strange all of this appears for a relatively inexperienced resident like myself, can be illustrated by mentioning that, in the past week, I've seen patches of unthawed snow and ice still lying in shaded areas along the road side at the same time as, in the areas catching full and direct sunlight, I can feel my exposed skin actually burning.  Canada really is a strange, and unpredictable country. Eh?

Anyway, as I was saying, I'm busy. Busier than a bumble bee, buzzing on a bustling, busy, bee activity filled, busy day. Since the winter has ended by stopping on a dime and spring has sprung itself upon us with an abrupt determination that knows no limits, so the garden has responded and has gone into an overdrive of growth and greenery. To almost paraphrase an Ethel Merman song that I don't even know, everything is coming up snowdrops, daffodils, poppies and... well, just about all of the dormant plants are determined to prove there is life after death by harsh North American winter. And so the season of garden work begins, takes up a significant part of the day and steals away some of my internet time.

Even as the garden grows and demands attention there are a number of other jobs to do on the house in preparation for selling. We have a few areas where the external brickwork needs attention. I can happily do this myself with a fair amount of confidence, particularly after seeing the areas which I repaired before the winter set in have all survived intact. As a very definite amateur in the house maintenance game I probably spend too much time on the job and waste huge amounts of my resources making sure it's done exactly as it should be (I'm a Virgo) but the payoff is that I can be happy knowing that: a) it's done, and; b) it's been done correctly and won't fall apart.

So, even while I'm up to my neck in grass, last year's leaves, growing plants. soil, sand, mortar. brick debris and hungry squirrels there is still a burning question demanding my time and requiring an answer. The problem is one of deciding exactly where in the province mrs spice and I wish to relocate to. And, therefore, in between the jobs we know need to be done at home, we've been taking time out to try and answer this question and have been heading off on road trips to explore the potential of areas where we may possibly choose to live.

We've headed north, we've headed south, we've been east and we've been west. I don't think I've ever been at the wheel of a car for almost ten hours without a break before, but I have now that we're house hunting. In the days before I arrived in Canada I suspect that if I'd ever driven for ten hours then much of the journey would have been in, or under, water, Living the general area of the centre of the UK, I doubt there would have been ten hours of road in any possible direction in which I may have chosen to point the car.

The days spent checking out towns and districts do take up a considerable amount of valuable time but it's something that needs to be done if we're going to make sure we're making the correct decision when we buy the next house. Even if we end up looking at places that turn out to be totally unsuitable, at the very least, we can cross them off the list. And, for me, travelling around looking at places I've never seen before, there is the added bonus of there always being something to see that I haven't seen before. Today's specific novelty being a couple of wild turkeys hanging around at the edge of a field.

And so, in my defence, there are good reasons why I have huge gaps of time interspersed between my posts. And also why there will be still more gaps to come. It's why I'm missing in action for much of the present time, it's why I'm not commenting on other blogs and it's why so much of what's on here isn't being updated.

It's simply that I'm lazy busy.

A watched kettle never boils, or so the old saying goes. Well, a broken kettle certainly doesn't and on the discovery, this week, that our trusty old kettle had shuffled off this mortal coil, (cue appropriate music by the band of the same name), mrs spice and I headed out to buy a new one.

Our mission - since we had no choice but to accept it - was simply to find a straight forward, plain, sturdy and reliable kettle that would have to do nothing more complicated than to boil water. How hard could that be?

Very hard, was the answer. There were big kettles, small kettles, fancy kettles, fragile kettles, kettles with digital add ons, kettles with pre-set timers, kettles with totally unnecessary functions, Kettles with gadgets, kettles with widgets, kettles that were so gimmicky they would almost certainly go wrong before the week was out and one kettle, a very nice all glass affair, that was already broken even while just standing on the shelf in the store.

There was one kettle though that caught my eye. It's only function was boiling water - it was sturdy, it was plain and it looked robust. It did have a gimmick, though, but it was the kind of gimmick that doesn't interfere with the functionality and didn't get in the way of the simplicity of the item. The added value feature in this particular kettle is given away by it's name. The kettle is called The Chameleon - and like it's namesake, the multi hued reptile, it changes colour. Really, it does.

And yes, mrs spice and I, two fully grown adults who are old enough to know better, were seduced into buying a kettle that changes colour as it boils the water. And while we might be two very sad people for being so enthused by this acquisition, at least we have something to entertain us while we're waiting to make tea.