Happy birthday Ian :-)

Well, the obvious news story of this week is Ian's birthday we won't reveal how old he is but most of you probably know anyway He'd like to thank everyone for the cards and presents that made it across the Pond. For once he had a bit of a celebration, more than he normally does on his birthday anyway.

Firstly some of the guys from the Fire Department took him out to lunch in Wethersfield to a place that advertises "The world's biggest grinders"... and they're not wrong! A one and a half grinder fed three of them - with left overs! After lunch, they all headed back to the Fire House to pick up their cars, just in time to hear a shout and jump straight into the fire engines instead!

That night, Annalie completely surprised him by telling him she was taking him for a romantic meal for two, only to arrange for 10 other people to be waiting at the restaurant to surprise him He was completely surprised and touched by the turnout. It was a nice meal and there was another surprise in store for him back at Mhairi and Steve's flat with a big cake, complete with firefighter candles But he was embarrassed by the "Happy Birthday Hot Stuff" inscription It was a fun night and certainly not what Ian was expecting.

For once, Ian has been gainfully employed all week. In addition to an airport run on Sunday night, he has been plasterboarding (or drywalling) a basement for one of the IAE guys. It's a job that was first discussed back in the summer but it's taken a while for Marc and Mandy to get the relevant permissions from the council to go ahead with the conversion. Still, Ian's been able to exercise his creative side with a major DIY job.

This weekend we have taken a trip to the ski house together. There's no snow left so we didn't bother with our boards but we've got some of our stuff up in readiness for our first runs of the season. But Ian continued his week of DIY with a few jobs. We've been moving and building beds in the shared room, removing a random counter the owner installed and he's built a rack for skis and boards (from scratch - the clever devil )

The house is empty this weekend so we're enjoying the peace and quiet afforded by the place. The resort is dead though, you can almost see the tumbleweed! After we picked Ian's season pass up, we went to the Wobbly Barn again to pick up a season pass for that place. It is owned by the resort so if you have a season ski pass, you get a free Wobbly season pass. It's new this season so I think they're figuring out how to provide the most benefit to people, but at least it's something for nothing!

We've aslo been making the best of the hot tub It's actually unseasonably warm at the moment (although that means it's in the 60s hence no snow ) so the real benefit of the tub has yet to be felt, but we're both carrying stiff shoulders - Ian from work, Annalie from the gym - so it's welcome relief. The house is stupidly warm though as we can't find anything to control the heating and the owner hasn't yet told us how to turn it down.

On the way up to the house on Friday night, we made a chance stop at a diner and we found a fantastic serving of poutine. This is actually a Canadian "dish" comprising of chips (fries) covered with cheese and then smothered in gravy, mmmm. Ian introduced Annalie to this in Banff, and we've found something similar in a diner in East Hartford, but this was proper gravy so Annalie wolfed the lot. Luckily she'd only ordered a small portion - we hate to think what a large portion would look like

We're debating whether to come up to the house next weekend. It's the official opening weekend for the slopes and the resort is hoping to have low enough temperatures this week to make snow, so if there's good conditions, it may be worth it. The only downside is that we'd have to leave on Saturday night as we head to LA next Sunday - countdown to Hawaii begins