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M&A

Canada September 2024 - Day 3: You don’t have to get it right the first time…..just revert to Plan B!

It’s all well and done partaking in a daily exercise routine, which both Maice and I have done daily for many, many years….Maice with her ‘Yoga with Adrienne’ and me with my ‘walk, walk, walk’ and ‘LW-R five minute exercise routines’ but since we’ve been doing yoga here in Canada, not only do we wake up early, we wake up with aching limbs, making it very difficult to arise from ones sleeping apparatus. Although today was only Day 2 of our Yoga sessions I was finding it extremely difficult to manoeuvre parts of my body into certain shapes and poses and I don’t think Maice was faring too well either considering the amount of oohing and aahing that was coming from her side of the mat.  This we can only put down to jet lag!


So today we’ve got a plan. An actual plan, which goes something like this….yoga session, walk to Pandosy area via Lake Okanagen (hoping to do in excess of 10,000 steps), coffee….somewhere new, breakfast at home, Tara coming over, drive to Pandosy (again) do the Pandosy consignment shop, lunch, shops, home, relax, bed! It may not be the most exciting plan to some people but to us it was great to add a bit of retail therapy into the days proceedings.


According to today’s weather forecast we were in for a sunny day, with some clouds hanging around and a top temperature of 23 degrees. I must say, it wasn’t looking too promising but the forecasters were correct yesterday so we’ll align with their infinite knowledge, dress accordingly and leave the umbrella at home.  We set off at 07.50am and headed off towards Lake Okanagen. We did concur that not only was it a tad on the chilly side it was also very cloudy and we wondered where the ‘sunny day’ had got too. Honestly, these weather forecasters and their predictions, one day they’ll get it spot on.  We walked along the banks of the lake which was looking particularly ethereal this time in the morning, took a few photos, played on the play apparatus at the kiddies play area….and why not, I mean lets face it, we’re all big kids at heart, took a few more photos, carried on walking and ended up at Pandosy where we had a dilemma. Where do we go for coffee? We weren’t that far from the Bean Scene cafe but that was out of bounds to us so we decided to try the coffee at the very posh Urbanfare supermarket. Admittedly it wasn’t a barista machine but we thought, it’s somewhere new for coffee so let’s just go with the flow, I mean, how bad can it be? So we ordered a regular, skinny extra hot cappuccino for Maice and a regular, single shot extra hot cappuccino for me. Well, we shall never be having coffee there ever again. For me it was the worst coffee I’ve ever had in my life. The two ‘regular’ extra hot cappuccinos we ordered, which incidentally were served in two 16oz cups (quite large) were tepid, with just a hint of warmth and mine was literally just hot sweet milk…yuk! It tasted so disgusting I couldn’t drink it. Maice drank a bit of hers but all we could do was pour them away…..$8 down the drain. So what we’ve learnt from this sorry tale is that a) we need to order a barista coffee, not a ready made one from a machine b) everything is bigger in Canada so we need to order small c) we most definitely need to go back to our favourite cafe, the Bean Scene….ha ha, only kidding (not!) and d) If Plan A don’t work there are 25 more letters of the alphabet!

As you can imagine after our very disappointing coffee experience we felt the need to frequent another cafe in order to restore our faith in our morning coffee ritual and soon found ourselves sitting inside the Marmalade Cat cafe with a properly made cappuccino. It did have a slightly strange taste to it but we think that’s just the type of milk they use, but it was so much better. Feeling better we walked home and no sooner had we walked through the door we walked back out again, got into the car and Maice drove us back to the Marmalade Cat cafe where I went to collect my reading glasses which I’d left in the ladies loo!  Honestly what’s that all about!

Myrna’s car, like most other cars is electronic, you know, you press one button to open the door and another to close it, it’s so simple even a toddler can use it. So when Maice drove us to the cafe she’d opened the door and when I tried to get in the passenger seat the door was locked. No matter how much she pressed the buttons, it wouldn’t open. We tried this for a couple of minutes and fortunately just by fluke it opened and in I got. Then, when we got back to the house we couldn’t lock the car until Maice pressed the red button and it beeped loudly at least five times and locked the doors! We’re obviously doing something wrong because I had the same problem the day before when we’d been out with Myrna. We just happened to be browsing around a clothes shop, where incidentally both Maice and I purchased an item of clothing (well, it would be rude not to!) when I realised I’d left my glasses in the car so taking the car keys I went back to fetch them. Opening the doors was fine but could I close them. Absolutely not. When they close the car beeps once, but there was no beep happening. So after five minutes of trying to lock the car I thought I’d send a message to Maice to tell her I was at the car, couldn’t lock it and to bring my purchase with them when they left the store. Of course, the dilemma I had was I hadn’t purchased any roaming on my iPhone so whatever I used I’d have to pay for so I telephoned Maice and got her answerphone message! I left a message telling her I was sat on the wall beside the unlocked car.  Five minutes later and they still hadn’t appeared when suddenly out of nowhere the car beeped and the doors locked!  Honestly, there’s something not quite right with this car!

We digress, back home after our walk and coffee experience Tara, Maice’s sister arrived and after a catch up we made a plan. The plan was to return to the Pandosy strip mall for a spot of shopping and consignment shopping then find somewhere that Myrna and Tara have never been to for lunch. We’re delighted to report that Plan A was successful……..we had a successful shopping experience where we all purchased various items of clothing and accessories after which we found ourselves at the FAMOSA Italian Pizzeria. We all found the menu quite confusing at first until our waitress talked us through it and guess what, it was also Happy Hour! We enjoyed a delicious meal, lovely cocktails and then returned home where we continued with the food and drinks in the form of snacks and Caesars.  Delicious. Tara’s two daughters Kerris and Katana came and joined us at various points in the afternoon and evening until by 8pm Maice and I were beginning to suffer with the jet lag once again so to bed we went.  It had been a long but lovely day and tomorrow was also going to be a long and lovely day…..something to do with going to Vernon and a wine and pottery class was also mentioned!  Now that should be interesting!

We’ve just been advised by Myrna that to close the car doors we needed to depress the button twice! Now why didn’t she impart this information to us at the time of handing over the keys? Honestly, like mother like daughter!


On that note, night all…

M&A xx

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3 Comments


Jane Hansford
Jane Hansford
Sep 15

The lake looks lovely and so do the cats!

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nickyanderson33
Sep 15

Ps lake looks beautiful 🤩

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nickyanderson33
Sep 15

It’s always easy when you know how 😆🚗

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