Fish Creek

"Come along for a walk", Laura said on one of my first weekends in Calgary after I got back from Disneyland. What I didn't know that it would turn out to be a nearly 3 hour speed walk in windy snow around an understated area called "Fish Creek", in Southern Calgary.

On the way we saw the suburb of Queensland, which cracked me up and I have since sent this photo to my Brisbane relatives for their entertainment.

I did not see any fish at Fish Creek but that was expected. Even the cold blooded creatures were staying under cover that day. It was a beautiful frozen walk and I had the opportunity to make a new friend, Kelty, a fellow geologist at the same company as Laura. My first Canadian girlfriend. I was making progress. I was able to ask her why hockey players try to pick fistfights on the ice, "It's tradition !" and we all chatted around the path following the riverbed.

There was a random moment. Most of us wish we had a superpower, whether it be to have X ray vision, to stop time, to fly etc. That day I discovered Laura's superpower. She is a real live Snow White. If any of you have seen the original Snow White animated Disney film, Snow White sings to all the forest ceatures and they gather around her and the small birds land on her shoulders and outstretched finger. This was spoofed in Shrek, when Princess Fiona sang to a bluebird, going up the soprano scale until she was so shrill the bird inflated and exploded. She then cooked the eggs from the nest for breakfast.

We were walking along when I noticed some little brown birds in a bush. Kelty explained that they were chickadees. I was delighted, having never seen one before.

All of a sudden Laura walked away from us into the field and fell silent. This was disturbing for two reasons;
- Laura is constantly in motion
- she is usually talking at the same time.

For her to cease both made me concerned that something was very wrong in the universe. As we stood and watched she stretched out her hand and a chickadee landed on it. Unfortunately I am not the fastest draw with my camera so did not capture this on film. This apparently was not a single occurrence, she has whispered butterflies and other birds to her before and since.

You can't judge a book by it's cover. Of course I have gone to town with this story since, and have told her that if she can get a Canadian geese to land on her hand (they are the size of a small child) I'll be really impressed.

By the time we got back to the car my nose was mostly frozen, my legs hurt in their hip sockets, I was wide awake and I felt I had earnt my lunch. We adjourned to the pub for my first ever maple-glazed pork ribs, Grasshopper beer and a good warm-through before heading home.

Photo album link has been included for the complete collection.