Beer, Flags & Shopping

Keith and I are hosting a Canada Day party on June 30th to show the Brits what Canada Day is all about. Drinking. Haha. To prepare, we are continuing to add to our Canada paraphenalia by ordering five 3'x5' flags! Not sure where these are going, but there will be no doubt on Saturday the 30th that we're Canadians! The whole married patch will be well aware! I was quite surprised in my endeavor to find Canadian flags that there are numerous online UK stores to purchase a wide variety of world flags from. I figured I'd be lucky to find one store located in the UK, but I was actually able to compare pricing of several and go with the best option. Who'da thought!? We should have them by Wednesday.

I have learned that I am terrible at social timelines. I don't realize how close an event or occasion is until it's too late to prepare properly. I'm like this for birthdays as well. So yet again, the Canada Day preparations are right on schedule - behind schedule. We realized over the weekend that it's only 2 weeks away and time to get our butts in gear. I contacted the detachment at Daws Hill regarding beer orders (they stock Canadian beer - Keiths & Sleemans) on Friday and they were all out of Keiths already. We opted out of Sleemans. We were disappointed we wouldn't have any Canadian beer - what kind of Canada Day party can we host without Canadian beer?? I was determined there had to be a way. I spent along time surfing the net trying to find a UK based company with Canadian beer - way too expensive to ship from Canada. After a few hours of searching, I was about to give up when I fell upon the Canada Shop in London. This shop is wonderful! They have a bunch of Canadian (some are probably American products that we Canadians love) products and they ship right to your door. It's a little pricey, but worth it if you've got a craving for home. AND they have beer!!! They carry Molson Canadian (perfect for Canada Day - maybe not in taste), Moosehead Green, and Sleeman's. So I ordered up a 24 of Molson and a 24 of Moose. We're gonna have to take a collection at the door on Canada Day to pay for these beer! Haha. The lady told me we'd have them by Monday. Sweet!

About this Canada Shop - http://www.canadashop.uk.com/ - I realized some other items we cannot get here and some I will definitely miss. Wunderbars, Coffee Crisp, Eatmore bars, and twizzlers to name a few. It's just not right. I have updated our list so you can have a look. Other things I am already missing are Shake N' Bake and Crisco Shortening! Haha. they also sell Kraft Dinner for a low price of £1.95! That's over $4.00!! I'm thinking I should start up a Canada store myself! Even so, it's nice to know there's a place in the country we can get comforts of home if need be.

During the afternoon I went to Woolworths and bought picture frames and a duvet cover. I was sceptacle that the cover would fit due to the different sizing here, but it fits. I had to get a King size to fit our Queen size duvet. The cover is red and goes nicely with the damn blue curtains hanging in all the bedrooms. Not sure if I'm keeping it for this reason as I think it may be a hard red to match to other curtains. We'll see.

Received parcels from Chris & Vern today. Thanks! Keith's Gran sent a quilt she made for us and a wedding card. Thanks Gran! Chris also sent some goodies for the much anticipated arrival of Dale & Lauren's bump. Not much longer! That reminds me, if any of the NB crew is looking to send anything to Dale & Lauren, they can send it to us via Belleville and we'll give it to them. This saves you heaps on international shipping charges. Please address the box to Keith as follows:

Capt. JK Esliger
CFSU (E) Det Daws Hill
PO Box 5051, Stn Forces
Belleville, ON K8N 5W6

Then just send us an email to give us the heads up not to open it. We'll only keep it if it fits Keith. Don't write anything on the box pertaining to Dale or Lauren as they'll catch on to this brilliant scheme and we'll be in trouble.