Ralston Rodeo

It's been another very hot week here in Alberta. The highlight this week has been the annual Ralston Rodeo; Yee-Haa! Trucks, RVs, burger vans, horses, cowboys and, of course, numerous angry bulls rolled into the village to transform the Ralston Rodeo Arena, aka 'Fort Whoop-Up', into a full scale Rodeo event. It must be the Canadian equivalent of a travelling circus that moves from town to town; bizarrely the next day there was hardly any evidence that the Rodeo was ever here!

This year we only spent a few hours at the Rodeo as it was so incredibly hot (35+) and we left earlier than originally planned to cool off in the pool at Medicine Hat. We had a brilliant time and got to see a few (short!) attempts of the cowboys riding the bulls. Alongside that the kids had a great time clambering over the various displays of armoured vehicles laid on by the Prairie Staff (as did Leigh!). The travelling cowboys are absolutely crazy & I am surprised that in our current climate of `Health & Safety` they do not wear crash helmets, let alone the event ever being allowed to go ahead at all! As you would expect, there were lots of ``oohs and ahhs`` from the crowd as each cowboy nearly got impaled on a horn or got carried off on a stretcher - but I guess that`s all the fun of the Rodeo!

It is a relief that the current MEDMAN exercise has just finished and Leigh has a few days off. The plan is to spend more time at the pool and have days out at Echodale & Elkwater. The children only have 1 more week off school; Ben is particularly gutted about that, but, unsurprisingly I am doing cartwheels around the garden!

By the way, don`t worry if you can`t understand the North American drawl - neither could the rest of us!

Wives Prairie visit

Well what fun! On Sunday night a bunch of us wives spent a night out on the Prairie to see just what our husbands get up to and to watch the final nights live fire exercise unfold. We started out at 8pm and were taken to CFB Suffield for a safety brief & helmet issue. From there we were packed in to the back of a smelly, dusty, green truck and were strapped in to what can only be described as some sort of roller coaster seat (all rather OTT I thought at this point!) for our next journey up to EXCON (Exercise Control). To get to EXCON we had to travel on what is called 'The Rattlesnake' - a very bumpy, dusty track on which we were thrown around and completely covered in dust - at this point we valued our helmets and 'OTT' seating and we all had scarves covering our faces as we couldn't see or breathe! Once we dusted ourselves off at EXCON, we were fed and watered and were given a briefing on what the whole Medicine Man (MEDMAN) exercise is about before being given more kit ready to move on to the Prairie. Packed again into our smelly, dusty truck, we had an hours drive across the Prairie where we were thrown yet again around inside this truck (I think we could be heard for miles with all the shrieking & giggling - not from me of course!) before reaching our final destination at Madden's Rock.

We arrived around 1.30am, which was when I realised that I had packed nothing of any use in my rucksack; the rest of the girls were unpacking chairs, blankets, LOTs of food and flasks of coffee - all I had brought was (a now very squashed) marmite sandwich and a hairbrush! Just as I was beginning to feel very sorry for myself, Leigh appeared from out of the darkness and took me off to watch the exercise from his very warm & cosy TSV (Training Support Vehicle). I had never really thought very much of Leigh's TSV before, but at that time in the morning on a freezing Prairie I was becoming a huge fan of it!

So, as 'Jack' as it was to abandon the wives in favour of relative warmth and comfort in Leighs TSV, I showed my true colours and was off like a shot! The exercise itself was very impressive indeed. I have to say I was utterly confused about what was going on - lots of explosions, tracer fire, loud bangs and soldiers and tanks moving around. A lot of the firing was going over our heads (which was slightly alarming!) and I was listening to all the radio nets from Leigh's TSV. Needless to say I couldn't understand a word of it! Amazingly throughout all of the noise Leigh's driver managed to kip outside in the rear of the TSV and only woke when Leigh shook him to drive us to the next point in the exercise.

Sadly, I had to leave to exercise early at 7am to get back & relieve the babysitter before the children woke, which meant I missed the finale of the 'Python' being fired - a very expensive rocket that makes alot of noise & a big mess (and apparently clears a route through a minefield)! But all in all it was a really good night and I have alot more sympathy for Leigh being very tired. It has taken me about 3 days to catch up on my sleep; the men were still working long after we left!

I have attached a little bit of film which I took during the exercise and have since edited. The last scene is the 'Python' being fired which Leigh filmed for me. Sit back, I think you will be impressed!!!

Happy Birthday Nick!

Just a quick extra blog to say Happy 38th Birthday to my older sister Nicola! Happy Birthday chick - fame at last eh! (well except for that time when you were on Swapshop!) xxx Lookin' good bird!xxx

Summer fun

A much overdue blog... Thank you for your concern in Saltash; no we haven't been eaten by dinosaurs, though I will use that as an excuse as I haven't got a better one! We have been without IT for a few days though; our laptop met with a rather unfortunate accident and is completely broken; sadly we have lost some of our photos too. On the plus side though we do now have a shiny new laptop which I am very happy with and am using now!

Leigh is busy out on the Prairie somewhere... and the children & I along with the rest of the Prairie widows have been soaking up the sun & generally relaxing! Last Friday eve we were over at the Commanders house as General & Lady Dannatt were out here visiting. He's a really nice chap. I wish Leigh had briefed me before hand though as the Canadian Chief of General Staff was out here visiting too and over dinner I asked him if he was in the Army! I didn't find out until later who he was! Oh well, it could have been worse; one of the other wives asked him if he lived in Ralston! Clearly I wasn't the only one who had no idea who he was!

I'm out on the wives visit to the Prairie on Sunday night. We go out at 8pm until the following morning to see what the boys get up to and to watch the final night live fire exercise, which is apparently pretty impressive. I'm really looking forward to it - it will be good to see what Leigh does out here after all this time. I bet the boys can hardly wait! Attached is recent footage of the children enjoying the pool in Medicine Hat & Ben skateboarding (for a change!). Olivia is first down the water slide followed by Charlie, I did pan around to try and find Ben but as per usual he was nowhere to be seen, pretending not to be out with his Mummy!