Giles Family Trophies

Spring arrived a litle earlier than usual this year. Not that anyone's complaining! Last Saturday (10 April) we finished putting up the screened-in porch. We managed to get 2 coats of stain on the deck of the porch and then put the main dock out. This year, the dock was a breeze. Everything was level, so the whole exercise was completed in less than half an hour. Importantly, no-one got wet and no tools were lost! It was 23 degrees that day, and the water temperature was 9 degrees. It was hard to believe that the ice had cleard from the lake only 4 days prior (thanks to an unusual warm spell). I'm not including any pictures becasue the dock looks the same as it did last year! We're planning to do some upgrades to the swimming raft before we launch it - hopefully, new floats that will keep it lower in the water and a new ladder. This should make it easier to get "on board". Meanwhile. the squirrels birds have a new feeder, courtesy of Dave's Etsy Store

We're happy to report that all 3 of us had our first swim of the season today! It was a 31 degree day again (36 with the humidex), but the lake temperature is already up to 22 degrees. We usually prefer a minimum of 24 degrees, but we needed to cool off! I think that this is the earliest that we have started swimming since we moved here. 😀

Well, the two docks are now set up and ready for use. All we need is some warmer weather! It was a team effort. In addition, Carol did nice "photo shoot" yesterday, which you can view (with a commentary) on the  Other Photos page  of the blog. Carol also prevented me from fall into the water! The next job - towing the diving raft out to where it gets anchored.

A second "Photos" page has been added to the blog. We have the one devoted to The Games, and there is now one for other "themes". You can find it here . The first theme is the Lucerne Lake thaw - you've seen these photos recently. Coming up shortly will be some pics. devoted to the setting up of the docks this month. The first stage of levelling the main dock was more or less completed yesterday, requiring about an hour in neoprene chest waders in the 5-degree water. Only one tool was dropped in the water (so far) this year!

Vishal, the 2019 winner of the  Alv Erlingsson Trophy,  after his stunning win against Emma at darts: Vish prevailed - despite Emma's constant changes to the target (number of points), and partly because she had some difficulty hitting the target (board)! The Trophy itself has been updated accordingly:

Well, here we are at (Canadian) Thanksgiving weekend, so the competitions for the 2019 Alv Erlingsson Trophy have now ended. This year we were pleased to have (separate) visits by Ashley & Matt, and Emma & Vishal. An added bonus was that Joey was able to participate, in a limited way, in certain events. The adjudicators were impressed by the very high standard of play in all of the events, even though the number of sports that were included this year was down on 2018. This can be attributed to Sophie's absence in 2019! A selection of photos from the 2019 Games is now on the blog, here . And (oh yes!) we have a winner of the Alv Erlingsson trophy for 2019. It's Vishal Punwani. Congratulations Vish! The citation for the 2019 award, and other details, can be found on this page . 

We're well into summer here at the lake. The water temperature is sitting pretty steady at 26 degrees. Just a "heads up" that Matt and Ashley have booked a visit - they arrive on Saturday 10 August for a week. So - you had all better get into training. And this year you have Joey to contend with as an extra member of the family!