Canadian Thanksgiving Day

On October 8th, Canada celebrated Thanksgiving Day. This is officially, if not always in practice, "[a] Day of General Thanksgiving to Almighty God for the bountiful harvest with which Canada has been blessed … to be observed on the 2nd Monday in October." We got into the spirit of the celebration when we realised we'd invited a couple for dinner that day! As it turned out, they were ill and cancelled at the last minute, so a quick email around resulted in Claire joining us for dinner instead.

For our yummy dinner we ate:

roast chicken with cranberry sauce(the turkeys are 4 times the size!), roast sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and green beans. For dessert we had pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and we drank ginger ale (Canada Dry) and apple juice. Yes, we did want to have a snooze after all this food!

This day also marked the start of our first Reading Week. We did some solid work that week, in between a bit of socialising (and depression about our workload and the rugby!). Mid-week we devoured another big dinner - this time a NZ leg of lamb, expertly roasted by Claire. Here we are at her house with her housemates and friends. (From the front: Ginny [new Regent NZer], Bronwyn, Claire [NZ]; Middle: Sheila [England], April [USA/honorary NZer!], Sharon [Sth Africa], Nathan; and back, Jonny [Scotland]; Tim [USA] was at work.)

We ended the week on Galiano Island, of the coast, where we helped cater lunch and snacks for the faculty retreat. It was great interacting with some of the faculty in a different setting from college. The island was very green, and reminded us a bit of NZ (but with different trees, of course). Here are some shots of the views we had from our accommodation and workspaces.