More Maple Syrup Activities

After Lachlan's great description of how maple syrup is made, we should tell you a little of how we have been involved.
It all started with a community festival at the local park ( Parc Coussineau) back in February.  It was our first local outing, and we were keen to meet locals and kids from the school where our children had been for 3 weeks.

It was a very cold day, and we quickly realised there was a queue for something desirable and free.  We had no idea what we were queuing for, and were handed paddle pop sticks.  We soon saw kids and adults wandering off with frozen lollipops of maple syrup, maple taffy (tire d'erable). As Lachlan has described, it is maple syrup, heated to 232 F (approx 112 C) then poured onto snow or ice in a long channel designed for the purpose.  It becomes semi solid, rolled on a stick, and it is heaven on a stick. 


At this stage I asked a few questions. Discovering it was a community run event, I offered to help in the future.  I met Capitainsyrop ( Captain Syrup), a performer, film director (Canadian Race around the World contestant from 1983), comedian and local identity, Mario Bonenfant. He has run an urban sugar shack for 10 years now, bringing traditional knowledge and skills  about maple syrup to the city folk. I helped setup his sugar shacks for a few more local events and was involved in the process of gathering and preparing maple syrup. 

During one week in March, we had 6 or 8 school groups each week attend. They came along to see how maple syrup has traditionally been collected, and then of course, sample some maple taffy. This week was followed by a community event on Saturday 22 March.  Unfortunately it snowed on this day, so only about 750 people attended. They had expected about 2000. Despite the numbers, the snow made an amazing atmosphere.  As this was only two weeks before the provincial election, we had all sorts of dignitaries there, and some very long boring speeches! All in French so we were able to ignore!

What we have learnt.

Maple syrup production has traditionally been done by small enterprises in the forest, and only recently has it become a large scale enterprise. 

A Variety of taps from wooden
to metal and now plastic, with an example
of the plastic tubing system used nowadays. 

In the beginning the indigenous people made the syrup by taping trees with wooden spikes. These then became metal after European settlement and are now plastic. A hole is drilled into the tree at about waist height, about 5 cm deep and about about 8 mm wide. The taps are inserted, tapped tight, and the sap stars dripping out if the temperature is correct (between -5 and 10 C).



Initially the maple water (sap) was collected in wooden containers. This later progressed to tins of about 4 litres, and emptied into sleighs carrying about 400 litres to return to the shacks where the processing (evaporation) occurs. These are called sugar shacks (cabane à sucre). The sleighs progress to become sled trailers behind skidoos, and then again to become modified 4 wheel motor bikes with tracks on each wheel.  Larger operations now have plastic piping collecting the sap.  

The collection of sap needs to be done daily, as the trees can produce about 4 litres per tap per day. This ends up being a lot of work, hence the development of drainage tubes. The tubes are attached to each tap, which in essence creates a reverse drip irrigation system. You start with 6 mm tubes, going to larger and larger ending up with 50-75 mm poly pipe at the shack. Of course if you have 6-7000 taps to drain, this saves a lot of work. Rather than rely on gravity, they have a suction pump which maintains a constant low pressure to clear the pipes. One pump can do about 7000 taps!! 

Raw maple water has about 95-98 % water and some impurities, so after a series of filters the water is concentrated by evaporation to make syrup (no water). The indigenous aboriginals did this by heating granite rocks then placing them in small amounts of maple water, and gradually evaporation made syrup.  It can take 20-40 litres of water to make 1 litre of syrup, so this is a slow process.  Metals arrived and evaporation over a fire in a pot was the next step, but only allowed one batch at a time. Then came a horizontal evaporator, where the water comes in one end, the whole base of the container is heated, and evaporation takes place, and, since it is level, as you drain off the finished syrup at one end, valves allow the more concentrated syrup to move through the 3 or 4 chambers of progressive evaporation until there is no water left. 

The most recent development is the use of an osmotic separator as the first step, then pre-heating this more concentrated water over the horizontal evaporator, then starting the process.  This saves at least half the fuel needed to heat the syrup. It can now take 1 litre of fuel to make 1 litre of syrup.  Much better than cutting all the trees to stoke the fires under a single pot!!!!

At the end of the evaporation, when it has been boiling at 212 F (100 C ) and there is no more steam coming off, the temperature then starts to rise as it is essentially pure sugar. It must not go above 219F (104C)however, otherwise it will turn into maple sugar.  

Hand filled cans. 

The final syrup is then filtered to take out any crystals that have formed from being heated too high (maple sugar- great in coffee!!) ash, bugs and other impurities.  This slightly cools the syrup, so for bottling/canning, it is then warmed again to 82 C, to kill any bacteria. Cans are filled, lids attached to the generic cans, and finally the label of the local sugar shack attached.  Once canned, they are immediately dumped into an ice bath, to prevent any crystallisation occurring inside the can. 

The kids loved putting the lids on the cans. 

There are different qualities of syrup, varying in colour, flavour and purity.  The darker colour is usually earlier in the season and stronger tasting, but dark syrup is slightly bitter and only used in commercial cooking.  As the season progresses the sugar content drops and the colour and flavour are reduced. The best eating is medium.  

So the final stage for Lachlan's favourite treat, the taffy, is to heat the syrup to 234 F (112 C). This takes skill to avoid producing sugar. You then pour it onto fresh snow or ice, lift it with a paddle pop stick and let your taste buds take you on an adventure. We have now come from total ignorance to an appreciation of the process.  

Our varied experiences in the Laurentien's (mountains to the north of Montreal)

The mass market lunch at a commercial Sugar Shack.

The original Cabane à sucre were the traditional family enterprise, where a meal would be served to the family helping, and you would get to taste the syrup straight from the evaporator as a small reward.  Unfortunately some have now become major tourist enterprises.  About a month ago we visited one of these tourist ventures with some of our neighbours.  It was huge, based around the idea of sports, especially ice hockey, and lashings of food. Pea soup, bacon, eggs, potatoes, ham, fried bacon rinds, bread, maple syrup, coffee and finally fried pancakes and maple syrup.  Wow, that blow the diet for that week!.  They had a huge kids indoor play ground with many fully enclosed long slides, indoor hockey rinks, but nowhere did we see the production of maple syrup.  Not even a tree tap or bucket in sight.  

This was half the group at the Shack!

In contrast, last weekend, we went with another neighbour to her friends' family cabane à sucre, in the forest. It had a little shack, with four generations of family, about 20 people, making the syrup. It had the feeling of Italian families gathering to make tomato passata! Heaven. We saw the whole process from tree to the taffy being poured onto the snow and then into our mouths. The kids helped put lids on cans, watched the temperatures as they rose and rose to 232 F, saw all the steam and blazing furnaces. They were educated by a lovely retired teacher, who loves any opportunity to speak English. They were fascinated by the process and entertained by him. As there were dogs around, Sophie refused to go outside the shack, so she and this guy became quite good friends - she invited him to our beach at Malua Bay!

We will have to make maple taffy  (tire d'erable) at the ski lodge in 2015!!!

Road Trip around the Grand Canyon

Thanks to a pedagogical day (pupil free day) at school on a Thursday, then a school closure the following Monday (for a provincial election), we decided to take a few extra days off and have another short escape. We are getting sick of the cold weather, so warmth was a criteria! Through all our planning, we hoped to see the Grand Canyon and some of the national parks around it, but not sure how it would fit in. We wanted to avoid summer and the heat, so using this short break in early spring was a great opportunity.  We also decided to trial travelling in an RV van: we are considering hiring one in summer for a fortnight, as it gives us car hire and accommodation, plus flexibility, for a cheaper cost. Obviously they have some disadvantages also, which is why we wanted to trial it for a short trip.

Our RV van, home for 5 nights. It was 30 ft (9 metres) long. Notice the flat ground behind the van, and snow on the mountains in the background. 

We flew to Las Vegas, arriving late afternoon, to collect our RV van. We were advised not to travel too far that night, to give ourselves time to adjust to the vehicle and how it worked. A quick trip to Walmart for food supplies and we hit to freeway into Vegas. We stayed at an RV park right on the Vegas strip, thinking we would venture into the city … to feel the atmosphere and and see the lights, not hit the casinos!  Unfortunately we forgot to factor in jet lag so by this time, our body clocks were well past 9pm (Vegas is 3 hours behind Montreal), so the children couldn’t manage that. A quick meal at a dodgy food court was about all we got to do.

Thanks to that jet lag however, we were awake at 4am (7am Montreal time). We probably could have hit the strip then! Rather, we made an early departure and headed west towards California.  The advantage of the RV was not having to pre-book accommodation. We were completely self-sufficient, including small mini kitchen, shower, electricity, flushing toilet, and fridge/freezer. We had enough food for about 2 days so where we ended up was up to us. 

Taken from the plane, showing the city of Las Vegas

The city of Las Vegas is very desert like. It is completely ringed by mountains, formed by rocks, with a relatively small, flat area in the middle forming the city. The airport is extremely central and the sky is very busy with planes - constantly one or two circling, waiting to land and departures every few minutes also. The hills are arid, the colours are desert tones and there are no trees. It is dry and dusty. Vegas has a static population of just under 600 000, who mostly, we imagine, service the tourists who visit the city in their thousands. The plane flight into Vegas had a party-like atmosphere on board, with most people travelling there for a weekend of fun and partying. We were the only people with children, so our experience of Vegas was dramatically different to most tourists!

Red Rock Canyon

Not far out of Vegas, the scenery changed dramatically. We had only been travelling for 20 minutes before we pulled into a rest area to admire the canyon. We had found Red Rock Canyon, and on Lach’s insistence, we decided to climb a hill that was in front of us. 15 minutes later, scrambling up the rocks and past cacti, we discovered the most amazing view: a canyon, with red rock walls (funny that, considering the name), reaching sky high. In the middle was a wide prairie that was completely flat. We could see a settlement in the distance and we wondered why people would live out there and what conditions and services they had.

See the RV in the
background?

We continued on, past the township of Pahrump and towards Death Valley National Park. We left Nevada and moved into California state. Death Valley is the hottest place on earth, with a top temperature of 57 degrees Celsius in 1913.  The landscape again was desert, yet it changed every few kilometres. We had towering rock walls; flat plains, limestone hills, tall peaks and shorter hills. There was very little plant life in this area of the world. But for us, one of the best things was the warmth! With that being one of the criteria of the trip, we quickly stripped off into summer clothes.

Very windy sitting here ... Soph was holding on tightly.

We travelled about 90 minutes into the national park, climbing elevation in the first part of the trip, only to quickly drop the further we went into the park. We reached the central area, called Furnace Creek, were we ate lunch at sea level. We walked through a small canyon, called Golden Canyon, but the heat, and strong winds, made it unpleasant to do much more outside.  It was even too hot to eat lunch outside - no trees remember, so we ate inside our van. 

Love this photo informing us we are at sea level,
yet we can still see snow on the mountains.

Golden Canyon

The area in which we travelled - you can see Los Angeles on the left, 

then north-east to Death Valley, then south-east to Las Vegas. 

A more detailed map. We started at Pahrump and to Shoshone, and through
the national park, south of Funeral Mountains Wilderness. Our journey out of
Death Valley was the thin gray line, continuing past Badwater Basin and back
to Shoshone and Pahrump.

Further on into 

the National Park, we found ourselves 86 metres below sea level, at a location called Badwater. Aptly named when a surveyor’s horse wouldn’t drink the water, the surveyor made notes referring to the “bad water”, without investigating as to why the horse wouldn’t drink. You can see the grains of salt on the ground and the outlook was white. The white on the path is salt that as been trodden in.

The long road ahead ....

We took a different road back out of the national park, as it was getting late. While we could pull our van up anywhere, I still wanted a little more security of being around others. We decided to aim for Pahrump for our night of accommodation. There are RV parks all over this area of the USA, so finding a park for the night was relatively easy. Pahrump is a satellite town of Vegas and we are astounded that people live there! It is an hour out of Vegas. In 1980 it had a population of 2000; in 2010 it had risen to 36 000! There was no obvious reason for this population explosion: no major developments to bring workers to the town. It is isolated and lacking trees and greenery. It had a huge impressive hospital, so plenty of health workers, but we were amazed why people would live there.

Hoover Dam, taken from the bridge

After a cool night - desert temperatures are high during the day and quite low during the night, we headed off for a big day of driving. We had already discovered that our van was slow, so we really needed to add a couple of hours to our given estimate times. We restocked our food supplies and drove east of Vegas, towards Arizona and the Grand Canyon.  We stopped at Hoover Dam, right on the border of Nevada and Arizona, which is an amazing feat of engineering in itself. But to add to that, a new bridge has opened, as part of the freeway, only in 2010, which bypasses the need to drive over the Hoover Dam wall. You can still drive over the Hoover Dam wall, which we did, but it is a tourist attraction now. The rest of the traffic uses the bridge which is extremely high and very impressive. The supports for this six lane bridge go right into rock below. The landscape is high rock walls, with the Colorado River running through them. We walked across the bridge, which gave a great view down to the Hoover Dam. We then drove over the bridge, which is close to scary!

The new bridge, taken from Hoover Dam wall

Once you pass the rock walls of the Colorado River, you are on open plains, most of the way to the  Grand Canyon National Park. The freeway was nearly dead straight, through to a city called Kingman. Between Hoover Dam and Kingman, the landscape was desert like: few trees, shrubs only a half metre tall and more cacti. In the distance - about 5 kms away from the road, canyons could be seen. On the other side of these was the Grand Canyon, but not areas accessible to the public. Again there were random settlements dotted along the road: places big enough to feature on our maps and to have names - like Dolan Springs, Chloride and Golden Valley, without trees or much infrastructure. Some of the houses were very run down and not well kept; others looked quite out of place as they were modern and very nice. We constantly wondered about these settlements and what kept them alive. There were several opportunities for us to buy guns, along the way, but we resisted!

After Kingman, most of the drive was a slow climb. The Grand Canyon sits at 7 500 ft (2300 metres) above sea level, which is higher elevation than Mt Kosciusko in Australia. As we climbed, the vegetation changed - the plant life became shrubs; the shrubs became trees and then the amount of greenery increased. Wildlife was Elk, moose and deer, which fascinated the children. The temps dropped gradually too, which wasn’t so great! My impression of the Grand Canyon was that it would all be desert like, but the approach certainly wasn’t.  Even within 50 metres of the rim of the canyon, there were trees growing and Elk wandering around. No cacti up this high. This was a big surprise for me, as I was expecting desert like surrounds. We drove for about 8 hours on this day.

We passed through Williams, which is one of the remaining parts of the “mother road” of the USA, Route 66.  Lach loves Route 66, mostly thanks to the Disney movie Cars, so he was intrigued. We didn’t stop at this stage, as time was getting away and we really wanted to see the sunset over the Grand Canyon. We entered the canyon from the South Rim, which is the most popular area. The north rim is still closed for the winter, opening at the end of April. 

Started at Vegas, headed through Henderson and Boulder City, then south-east to Kingman,
east to Williams and north to The Inner Canyon

We pulled into our RV park just after 5pm, to prepare for sunset at 6pm. We quickly found our snow coats again and headed towards the rim. That first sight of the canyon is just jaw dropping. It takes your breath away, as you absorb the vastness; the dramatic cliffs; the different colours; the changing rocks; the sharp peaks; the flat plateaus; the sheer, vertical drops. It is truly a natural wonder of the world. We wondered how the native Americans would have reacted upon reaching the canyon, millions of years ago. It must have been a huge shock to see this enormous crack in the earth’s surface. Later, a ranger told us that several of the tribes native to the area actually believe that they came from within the canyon and the water source (the Colorado River) at the bottom. 

Taken during the day

Sunset on the first night

Sunset was stunning, watching the colours change as the sun lowered. We also rose early the following day, to see sunrise at 6am. This was also stunning, as the canyon had quite a haze about it until the sun’s rays hit the rocks. Sunrise was freezing - temps below zero, so we were back to being cold!

Sunrise ... it was cold!

We started at the very top of this rock!

We were keen to do a hike around the canyon and all of us were keen to go down, rather than along the top. There are tracks that go all the way down to the river, at the floor of the canyon, with a couple of camping sites available down in there. We set off hoping to reach the first rest station, which was 2.2km down. The track was dirt, about a metre wide and steep in parts. It twisted constantly as we dropped the 1100 ft (335 metres) down. There were lots of signs giving health advice and warnings about the walk, but we figured we all had a good level of fitness. We were advised that the trip up could take twice as long as the trip down, so we were conscious of making sure the kids had the energy to get up! We walked for about 1 hr 15 and reached the first rest station, but felt it was a very easy pace. We stopped lots of times, taking many photos along the way. There was considerable human traffic along the way, especially in the first 20 minutes, but it dropped off as you went further down. Everyone was very friendly and people took photos for each other along the way. We chatted with others, many of whom were setting off to camp overnight at the bottom or were returning back up, after being out for 1-2 nights. Many interesting stories as to why they wanted to do this!

The hike down showed significant changes in the rock structures. At one stage, the dirt on the track changed from a yellow tone to a distinct red dirt. The first part of the track was against a backdrop of a vertically flat wall of stone. It was amazing to see how high it looked from the top, then to find that we were below it on our path. We expected the temperatures to rise as we went lower into the canyon, so we were all prepared with layers on. As we were walking in shade quite a lot, we were cool for most of the journey and only really took jumpers off at the end of the climb up. 

The return journey was significantly harder, obviously, but the kids coped so well. Ironically, we made it up in less time that our descent! 50 mins up, probably because we didn’t stop to take many photos. It was a great sense of achievement for all the children, so we were all on a high!

Sunrise

A quick lunch and we decided to keep exploring. The Grand Canyon National Park operates several shuttle buses to get people further away from the visitors area. We used the shuttle as a hop on/hop off ride, and walked along the rim between some of the stops. All of the view points offered different views. From some you could see the river clearly; others showed a different perspective of a smaller canyon within the big one. All stunning and we decided that we wanted to see our second sunset from one of these view points, which we did. The shuttle buses run until one hour after sunset, so it was a great service.

The next morning, we headed back to towards Vegas. Grand Canyon is about 280 miles (450 kms) from Vegas.  All the travelling in our van was taking longer than we expected. We had wanted to visit at least one of the surrounding national parks - either Zion, Bryce or Sedona, but decided against it as it would have meant more time just driving. We had a short stroll around Williams, of Route 66 fame before continuing back to Vegas and its hot weather, then a swim, beer and dinner! The extremes on this trip were fascinating: snow coats on one morning and temps of 30 degrees the following afternoon; 200 m below sea level one day and then 2000 metre above the next day! Driving time from the Canyon back to Vegas was around 6 hours. Van had to be returned early the next day before we flew back to Montreal.

The big question now is whether or not we would do the RV van again. The advantages to begin with: 

• Tony, being the farmer at heart, had no fear driving this thing. It was 30 ft long, so once he worked out how wide he needed to take the corners, he was fine. Of course we were also driving on the right hand side of the road, so it was a challenge. I didn’t drive at all!
• it was great being able to pull over whenever we wanted to have lunch and give the kids snacks. On the days of longer drives, pleasant looking cafes were few and far between: so to be able to eat our own snacks and lunch was great. This was also great with toilet stops.
• It made our food choices much better and much more cost effective, rather than eating out all the time. 
• Kids loved travelling in the back. They generally sat at the table, with Olivia and Sophie facing forward and Lach happy to travel backwards. He could travel backwards and have his head down in a book or the iPad and not get sick! The rest of us couldn’t do that. They also played games a lot of the time. On one of the seats, you could be buckled in but still lie down, so several of us had good snoozes along the way. 
• We love the food section at Walmart!
• Our own flushing toilet and clean shower was great … we saw many awful toilet and shower blocks. 
• Emptying the waste was easy and you could do it at your own site at most of the RV parks. Not nearly as a pain as we expected.



Inside the RV. Only one child slept up the top (usually);
the table and couch also folded down to become beds. 

• We had town water and heating at all the van parks, although we were self sufficient for a night or two, had we needed it. 

The disadvantages ….

• not having other transport. We needed to plan our trips as once we pulled into the RV park and hooked up, it was a pain to unhook everything. Only once did we nearly drive away with everything still connected - thankfully Tony did glance back and realize. To drive away during the day, we also had to clear all the benches and make sure everything was secure, so the kids got sick of packing things up all the time. 
• The beds were bad!
• Where the temps were cold, the van was very cold. We all froze on the first night at the Grand Canyon and the second night, we all wore many more clothes to bed but still got cold.
• The supplied kitchen kit was extremely basic…… hard to do much at all. Wine was drunk from the coffee mugs!



Cooking was a challenge.
There is wine
in the coffee mug!

• The cooking was terrible. As you are considered self-sufficient in an RV, there are few bbq facilities. I had expected that we would bbq each night as our meal. The park at the Grand Canyon was the only location that had a bbq. It consisted of a grill that had wide gaps between the grill bars, so we couldn’t cook bacon on it, let along eggs! It was also a charcoal bbq, (no wood allowed) so it took ages to get going.

Lunch RV style - in the car park

We haven’t decided which one wins! Sleep and food are pretty major factors, but  with the kids was important too. In saying that, we all had a much better night on our last night in Vegas, where it was warmer. We were able to eat outside and slept better in the warmer temps.  If we set off from Montreal in summer, with much more preparation from a home base (such as bringing along more cooking supplies like sauces, and small amounts of food, also some better sheets) we think it would be easier. We would also bring a gas bbq along!

A great adventure ... we loved (most) of it... and we feel so lucky that we could see the Grand Canyon. 

Half way through and still plenty of snow!

The end of March also brings the halfway mark of our time in Canada. At the end of March, we still have enormous piles of snow everywhere and we (well, the children) are still wearing snow boots and snow pants to school.

I have posted this photo previously, but it is handy to see again, as I'm talking about the deck further on. This photo was taken the morning after a huge snow storm and gives an indication of how thick the snow was. It was also perfectly smooth... not even the squirrels which regularly visit our backyard had walked on it. The lump you can see is the BBQ, completely covered. I think I've shown a photo earlier, of Lach standing on this lump, he can reach the roof of the house.

In our planning and anticipation about our trip to Canada, we expected cold weather and snow. It has far exceeded what we expected ... never did we think there would be this much snow! The weather is the main topic of conversation everywhere we go, especially after a large snow dump on Sunday morning, 30 March. It seems that we are about 3 weeks behind a "normal" winter.

Generally ... i.e. the situation for the last 5 years or so, the "talk around town" is saying:

- in February, the temps are around -5 - 0 degrees. Because that is (relevantly) warm, there is quite a bit of snow. You get the occasional day around -10 and below. The colder it gets, the less it snows.
- in March, the temps move to around 0 - 5 degrees, with maybe 1 or 2 snow dumps which melt quickly.
- in April, temps are much warmer and move onto being spring like .... around 10 degrees.

We are far from that this year! We had very, very cold temps in February, then heaps of snow in March - around that -5 to zero degrees mark, but significantly colder at night. Now as we begin April, the temps are moving to around 4-7 degrees. And yes, it feels significantly warmer. It feels warmer than a Canberra winter day, but yet the temps are comparable. I'm sure I'll still complain about the Canberra winter in 2015.

I find it interesting that Australia had one of the hottest summers in 2013/14 and the Northern Hemisphere has had one of the coldest winters. There have to be some parallels in that.

Here are a series of before and after photos. The first photo was taken on Sunday morning (30 March), then a similar photo taken late afternoon on Monday 31 March. On Sunday, we had over 10 cms; but the impact of a warm day and plenty of sunshine certainly cheered everyone up!

There is more snow predicted in about 3 days time (Friday), with many saying that it will be the last. The long range forecasts are then predicting temps around 10-12 degrees, so hopefully the scene will look vastly different in about 10 days time!

In order to get rid of the snow from gardens and your property, many people apparently shovel/wheelbarrow it out onto the street. That way, it melts quickly and is gone from your garden! With that in mind ...

We have a lovely deck (as mentioned earlier) but it has been unusable since we arrived. On one mild day recently, just standing near the door onto the deck was so warm. We realised that it is going to a great place to sit and enjoy the winter sun. Isabelle sent several photos last year of her family eating on the deck and enjoying a glass of wine on the deck ... we look forward to doing that also!

So following on from people actively removing the snow, I've set a challenge for the children: to chip away the snow and ice, so we can use the deck. They've taken to it with great enthusiasm, and some help from Tony and the pick axe! Again, some photos showing a timeline progression:

Attempt #1: you can see how high Lach is and how Olivia is standing on the snow. Lach stripped off the coat and beanie shortly after this photo. It was hard work!

They made a huge impact, as you can see below.

Attempt #2: Sunshine, 6 degrees, a second day of work and we nearly have a space for the table! Sophie embraced the warmer temps and the purchase of a new skirt was a little exciting ... but really, it was not warm enough for her attire. The children are keen to put the table and chairs on the deck, put on our ski jackets and eat out there... but we had to break the news that next they need to clear a path to the garden shed, which has just as much snow, in order to get the table out! Also, there is no way I'm sitting out there if I need to wear a ski jacket!

Sonia wondered how long before we would be barbecuing ... well, it is recognisable under the snow, but still a little while off being used!