Cousin Rod has a deep fat fryer...

Cousin Rod has a deep fat fryer. You don’t use it in the kitchen. You don’t use it on the verandah by the barbecue. You carry it into the middle of the garden and use it there.

Cousin Rod and the deep fat fryer

Fired by the high flames from a bottle of gas, you don’t use it to cook chips (fries), or filleted fish, or onion rings or chicken nuggets. You plunge a whole turkey into the two or three gallons of hot oil. Allow ten minutes per lb plus ten minutes and you’ve cooked a big bird in half the usual time.

Actually, that’s what they do for Thanksgiving. Yesterday at our barbecue we had two whole chickens. They were delicious.

The Union Jack welcomed us
to Rod and Shelley's home

We also had aubergine (eggplant) dip, chilli cheese dip, cream cheese and red pepper dip, various kinds of bread sticks and crisps (chips), fresh raw vegetables, a pile of large prawns (shrimp), loads of barbecued ribs, coleslaw, local corn on the cob, fruity salad with fresh broccoli from their garden, scalloped potatoes, green salad, baked beans (homemade, like Heinz never imagined them) and more…

Followed by strawberry pie, lemon meringue pie, apple crisp, raspberry pie… and more. Yep, we had a feast.

The afternoon/evening was hosted by Cousin Rod and his partner Shelley. As we drove into their road we knew instantly which house it was - the one with the Union Jack flying alongside the Canadian flag.

Shelley is a lovely woman. Really friendly and very attractive with gorgeous dark hair. We also met her two children, Rudy and Victoria. Nice kids. Their house is great – big and airy with lots of open plan space and with big gardens front and back.

Roger with most of the assembled
company, although I've cut Cousin
Billy and Mary-Lou off the edge!

Everyone from this corner of Canada was there – Aunt Diane with Billy, who’s living with her in London at the moment; Chip and Lianne and Samantha from Mount Albert; Maureen and Randy from Windsor; us and Aunt Marj from London; Rod and Shelley and family from St Thomas; and Shelley’s parents Mary-Lou and her husband whose name begins with B (I’ll remember later, think it could be Blair, which is maybe why I've blanked it out) – and the dogs Ben, Redding and Max.

Sadly we didn’t get to see Billy’s children Kyle and Ashley or Kaitlin, who is living with her mum Jodey in Montreal. But we may see Kyle and Ashley tomorrow. Kaitlin next time I hope.

The St Thomas elephant

After the party Marj drove us into St Thomas, where Roger saw the big elephant statue that the Pryors all saw in 2005. (The elephant escaped from a circus and was killed on the railway, I think about 100 years ago). Then we went to Port Stanley beach on Lake Eyrie, where Roger saw the lifeguard station on stilts which features in a ‘famous’ picture of Daddy Roy.

Readers – bear with me. This blog is detailed. It is, of course, for everyone. But it is primarily for my Daddy, whose family this is, and for Mummy and Brother Nick and Brother John and family who, strange to say, will actually find all this detail interesting!