April 2 found our family out on the Gananoque river with friends canoeing in T-shirts on a sunny 26 degree day.  We are going to have fun exploring the many waterways in the region this season. Not quite Georgian Bay/ inner lake system of Parry Sound backcountry we are used to but it has it's beauty in a more urban envrironment. 

A week later I was out solo in my sea kayak on eastern lake Ontario.  The wind was blowing 25 KN from the west, air T was 9 degrees and the waves werer 1.5 m.  Quite  a switch from just a week before!  Still lots of fun but was cautious being my first sea kayak of the season.  Didn't need to be calling the coast guard to come rescue some poor hypothermic, exhausted, capsized paddler in the water.  I did have a few good surfs but kept it to a minimum considering there was no safety boat - ANYWHERE - no boats out today - actually most boats are not even in the water at the marinas.

Well it's been a while since last post cause my life has been crazy - I accepted the position of Executive Director of Paddle Canada - officially started part-time yesterday (by default really since all the files and computer are here in my office) and will go full time in Jan 2010.  I'm still doing a bit of work for WS and 1000 IKC so wanted to finish some marketing and development projects that I'd started for each of them. 

Adrienne are dreaming of a nice office in a new house somewhere in Kingston - we are meeting with the bank and real estate agents already this week. 

I'm excited to start working with a board of directors that's all over Canada.  They are good people.  My biggest challenge will be getting a handle on financials. 

Lots of emails of congrats have been flowing in today via personal, white squall and paddle canada streams... 

Here is an excerpt from what Blair Doyle - PC Prez sent out yesterday in a newsletter:


You will see some changes as we move along to 2010 and feel free to offer Graham and any us some thoughts on how to serve you better.

Also see interview I did with David Johnston from PaddlingInstructor.com

Just spent 3 hours in my son's kindergarten class helping out this morning.  I'm going to try to help whenever I can each week a bit.  It's kind of fun, however I have the utmost respect now for the patience and the task of being an early years teacher!!!  At daycare Owen has 3 or more staff looking after about 15 of them... Here in school he has one teacher looking after over 15 of them!  The ratio I was told is 1:20 unless there is a special needs kid , in which case they'll get a Educational Assitant assigned to that kid.  Two of the kids in my son's class are borderline cases.  If I hadn't been there today, Madame Hillary would not have got half the things done... too much disruption by these two kids... wow!  The teachers do get a break at lunch, where 4 or 5 older students come into classroom and have lunch with them, help out, and then get them organized to go outside.I'm actually tired out, after only putting in half a day.     

Last week I went to a vegetarian cooking class at the Liason College of Culinary Arts here in Kingston.  We got to wear nice aprons and use really, really sharp knives plus use fancy tools like spice grinders and a massive 10 burner gas stove.  We made dishes like Morrocan Stew, Rice Burgers, Rice and Beans, Tabouleh Salad and Pad Thai.  For desert we all got to practice cooking crepes and rolled filled them with lots of fresh apples that had been cooked in tons of clarified butter and vanilla sugar --- mmm...  There were only 6 of us in the class and one instructor and a helper.  It was a lot of fun.  The best part was sitting down iafterwards to eat it all with a glass of wine.