My dad lives in Canada, rather some way up North. His tales of the local lifestyle often strike as so incredibly far removed from what I am used to back home that it is hard to imagine what daily life must feel like for him. Should you wonder what he is doing over there, he is running a cottage resort called Mattawa Adventure Camp.

One example is that he is building a road on his property. No, not a garden lane, but one which required some 150 dump trucks full of rock and sand to be moved from A to B. The road is located on a river bed slope, seeing as he lives alongside a river, so there are a lot of boulders that need (re)moving. None of that subtlety that road construction in Holland needs: to get rid of the bigger ones, the preferred method is to drop multi-ton smaller ones on top of them!

Another striking example of just how close to actual real wilderness he lives is that his front yard is frequented by wild bears. The image here is taken today. Imagine waking up in the morning, looking outside and seeing this among you garden gnomes...

For some time, I have had a side interest in the mechanical aspects of cooking. More specifically: I just like to cut stuff. Preferably with a big blade.

I will not falsely claim any proper cooking skill, but I can at the very least handle a large knife.

When we moved into this house, we bought (along with all the other kitchen stuff) a knife set which included a large chef's knife. That does the job sort of OK, but I decided that I wanted to take a step up and get me a proper one, so I put it on my (rather short) birthday wishlist.

Here are two images of the knife that I bought from the money and gift certificate I got. Thanks to all who contributed!

Today is my 31st birthday. Last year's was rather snowed under by the fact that I had become a father less than two weeks before that, but this year I actually had the time to realise that it happened.

The thought I would like to record for posterity here is that I am now as old as I can first remember my father being. In other words: the earliest (though obviously vague) memory I have concerning my father's age was when he was as old as I am now. The strange thing is that I can't say that I feel like I'm on the other side of the gap now.