Another take on the bouquet...

Very pleasing!!

On the way to Jasper last week...

From Alberta 2008 ...

.. another fantastic view of the rockies.

Just bouquets..

... no brickbats on Mothers' Day!! This was from Liz, Jason, Daniel, and Alexandra.

A rose among roses

A lovely bouquet from James and Nik - delivered to the door and in place for Mothers' Day!

Cricket lovely cricket...

... in Hinton. What an excellent hotel room - plug in Internet for the cricket streaming and wireless for the Eee-pcs!

This 20-20 league is fantastic. The Indian Premier League - 59 matches, one a day with two a day on weekends takes us up to the end of May, and the games are exciting without being the slog-fests that the formula suggests. With two individual centuries so far and high scores in the 240 range there's a lot of exciting action - not to mention the dancing girls or the slapping incident.

Watching these games in the super large Indian venues with up to seventy thousand spectators present and lots of world class players is really atmospheric. Of course the England players aren't there (what a surprise), but I think all the other test teams are represented with current players.

The league is set up like American sport with franchises based on eight Indian cities. I really like the names they have chosen, with about half of them having some royal connection and most of the others indicating sporting prowess. Bangalore Royal Challengers, Kolkata Night Riders, Kings XI Punjab, Chennai Super Kings, Delhi Daredevils, Rajasthan Royals, Mumbai Indians, and Deccan Chargers rule!!.

Not totally crackers...

but definitely crackers - interesting arrangement.

Alberta spring

The scene near Whitecourt. Snow almost gone, this is mud season, and there's always the threat of a last snowfall,but there's the promise of summer to come....