h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well the end of the holiday turned out to be a bit of a damp squib - with the emphasis on the 'damp'!

We had one more nice trip out, this time to Troll Falls, in Kananaskis Country, accompanied by two year-old, so walk was rather slower, but there was plenty of noise to scare the bears! The falls were absolutely gushing due to the recent rain - the last time my friends had been up there, they were frozen, so that was a bit of a change. Lovely walk through the forest, heard lots of birds but couldn't identify them. (I bought them a book on birds of Alberta as my leaving present to them.)

As we were leaving the car parking area, we had to stop while a deer moved out of the road in a very leisurely manner, and on the way home we saw a group of elk near the roadside.

Last day there (Friday) was forecast to be wet, but in fact it didn't actually start raining until lunchtime. I went to the Glenbow Museum in Calgary which is excellent - spent nearly 2 hours there and only looked at one floor, mostly First Nations (i.e. Native American) stuff (oh, and the gift shop, natch!). They obviously do a lot of work with schools and there were various groups of kids there who all appeared to be having a great time, drawing pictures, having talks from museum staff etc. One lot appeared to be having a writing workshop and writing stories based on the exhibits in the 1920s section.

Well as the day wore on, the rain got worse and worse. We had a short powercut during the evening and the water went off (computer at the water treatment plant was down, apparently). During the night I woke up and heard a beeping noise, which was the alarm system letting us know that the power was off again. C was out half the night with the rest of the fire crew, pumping out people's basements and moving items like fridge-freezers above the level of the rising water. By the morning, the water in S and C's basement was about a foot deep and the gas had been turned off as it was reaching the level of the pilot light in the boiler - so no heating and no hot water.

C had a few hours sleep and then went back to the fire station. S packed an overnight bag for her and her daughter and prepared to go and stay with a friend in town. I packed my case and we went off to have lunch and try not to think about sewage backup. So it was a bit of a subdued farewell at the airport later that afternoon - however I see from the paper that temperatures in Calgary have been in the 20s again this week, so I'm hoping this means that everything is drying out, rather than that snow is melting rapidly and raising the water table! We did have a quick chat on M$N and they said the water was going down, so fingers crossed ...

Anyway, it was lovely to see them all and to spend time with them, and I really miss them now I'm back.

Hi Annie,

Sorry you had such a soggy end to the holidays and that your friends were so badly effected. I'm always amazed by the way people in other countries take these kinds of things in their stride. Anyway I hope everything gets back to normal for them soon.

The first time I visted Canada was about 25 years ago I was impressed by how interactive musuems over there were compared to the UK where everything was locked away and in, quite frankly, dull and unwelcomimg buildings. I'm pleased to say that things over here have improved considerably since.

How's the jet lag ?

Hi Polly

I don't really suffer much from jetlag - this may be due to the fact that planes have an immediately soporific effect on me, sometimes I fall asleep before they've even taken off!

My friend in Vancouver gave me her patent jetlag prevention treatment: walk in the fresh air, food to keep up blood sugar, stay awake until at least 9pm, and that seemed to do the trick.

I slept a bit on the overnight flight back, which was just as well as the arrival hall at Gatwick was complete chaos: 10 flights had just landed and there were so many people standing round the luggage carousel when ours finally came through (an hour after landing) that I saw my case go past three times before I could grab it! The flight from Calgary to Gatwick was 8 hours, and counting waits and missed trains, it took me 5 more hours to get home to Cambridge!

Did the treatment again, but without the fresh air bit (as it was 28 degrees when I got back, I didn't feel like any exercise!) and went to work the next day - felt perfectly OK, just a slight headache, but I put that down to the heat.