George Bernard Shaw once said that England and America were two countries separated by a common language. It's becoming clear that when he said that Canada was part of Great Britain. To start with, I think we've mentioned before that the last letter of the alphabet, (Z pronounce zee) is pronounced zed up here. Marsha is getting pretty good at it but I'm having trouble remembering, which is a sure sign to the natives that I'm an immigrant. We've also been finding that many of the products we were unable to find since we moved here ARE in fact available. It's just that they have different names. For example Tater Tots. We asked at several stores but they'd never heard of them. Then we discovered Tasti-Taters. Same exact thing, just with a different name. Then there was Malt o'Meal cereal (sort of like Cream of Wheat but vastly better). We even asked people to bring up a box because we couldn't find it here. Then just this week we found that it IS available, but it's called Wheatlets and it's only sold in bulk. Such is the price of living in a different country. At least they speak English here, eh?

There's other differences as well. We're really looking forward to this Tuesday. Why? Well as some of you know, Wednesday is Ash Wednesday. I'm not quite sure what Ash Wednesday is, probably because we have a gas fireplace, but apparently it is significant to a large percentage of the people up here. Anyway, the Tuesday before that is Shrove Tuesday. We can tell that Shrove Tuesday is almost here because of all the Curling matches on TV. The sight of people Shroving stones around the ice is a sure sign Easter and then Spring are not far away.

Shrove Tuesday is celebrated in many ways around the world. In New Orleans it is the last day of Mardi Gras. There it's known as Fat Tuesday, I guess because that's the day that all the fat guys party down shirtless. Up here on the other hand it's known as Pancake Tuesday. Now, I understand that Pancake Tuesday sounds like something Denny's would schedule. But seriously all over the place there are Pancake Breakfasts at Churches and Legion Halls, and Senior Centres, and Community Centres. Amazingly enough, Denny's is about the ONLY place that is not having a Pancake Tuesday event.

Apparently the derivation gets back to Lent. With all the fasting for Lent people realized that they needed to use up their stocks of Eggs, Milk, Flour, Bacon, Sausage, and such. They started having a party before the fasting started. In the Mediterranean areas and then Rio, Latin America, and New Orleans it evolved into Mardi Gras with dancing girls, and lots of skin, and music and drinking, and general debauchery. In England, Norther Europe and then Canada, it became Pancake Tuesday where little old ladies give everyone disks of fried paste.

Boy do we know how to have a good time or what?

Actually there's more to Pancake Tuesday then just syrup sodden disks. There are also pancake races. These have evolved over time. Originally pancakes from neighbouring towns would line up and see which was faster over a ten metre course. The time for the first one was…forever because left to their own devices pancakes don't tend to move much. Later on it evolved to people running a race while flipping a pancake in a frying pan. These have become very competitive. In fact the champion at the Black Lake Saskatuwan races a few years ago was disqualified when the pancake was found to contain a performance enhancing substance…chocolate chips.

Personally, I think I'm going to be giving up the clothes dryer for Lent.  

Doug & Marsha

PIX: I was driving around one day and saw these guys on the lawn of a trucking company. Wild bunnies: A sure sign of spring.