Afternoon Tea, Harbour Seals, SPCA stint, and Cookie Packing!!

Last Sunday (after a day of baking on Saturday!), we invited some of our new friends to the house for Afternoon Tea.
The freshly baked scones, strawberry jam and cream went down well with copious quantities of tea! We spent a very pleasant few hours getting to know everyone, talking about families, friends, holidays and more. Our guests brought gifts of wine, table decorations, and home made cookies! A good time was had by all.

On Monday we took the dog, Angus for a run along the beach, Qualicum Beach which is a stone's throw from the house.
We walked the length of the beach and noticed some harbour seals, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbor_Seal out in the water, they followed us until we got to the end of the stretch that we walk with Angus.

As we went to put Angus on his lead, we disturbed a young seal, well camouflaged amongst the pebbles and sand - not sure who was more startled us or him! Anyhow, he was fine and made his way back in to the water, we watched him reunite with a couple of larger seals we assumed were Mum & Dad.

It was great to see the seals bobbing about in the water, some of them lying on their backs and enjoying the morning sunshine but we felt especially priviliged when we encountered the young seal up close and personal. Special.

Tuesday 8th December and our second session at the SPCA volunteering with the cats. We also had a "Buddy Up" session with an experienced dog volunteer so that we can cover someone who will be away on holiday from 8th January until end March. We walked a couple of dogs with Janet, the volunteer, and she also showed us how to get the dogs out and back in to their kennels. It was an icy cold day but we were all wrapped up so didn't feel too cold when out walking the dogs - back in the cat adoption room(s) we shed our many layers and spent a couple of hours grooming, playing and petting the cats that are awaiting new homes.

Thursday 10th December saw us make an early start as we headed out to the local United Church where we had volunteered to help with wrapping homemade cookies which are then delivered to various members of the community. Della was expert at bow making/tying and I just about managed to get the trays of biscuits into the Glad Wrap without spilling any(!) so between the two of us we did quite well!! We had a good laugh and also got to eat some goodies and enjoy some warm apple cider too!!