There is no Buckfast in Airdrie

I have decided that Airdrie in Alberta is much nicer than Airdrie in Scotland. For any Airdrie Scots following the blog I will do the public apology later. For the Albertans following the blog Buckfast is a tonic wine the youth of Airdrie Scotland are famous for consuming.

Anyway enough of that I spent Thursday morning at Town hall and visited the HR dept they really focus on managing their culture and link this to recruitment to ensure they hire the right staff. Their philosophy is if they hire right they will have less problems in the long term.

After lunch we visit a citizens link service this is where they link a variety of public services for the community to link into.

I picked the interesting option in the evening and went to dinner with Rod Anderson the local MLA a bit like an MSP back home . He was hosting Iris Evans she is the finance and enterprise minister for the whole of Alberta for the scots following the blog she has John Swinney's job.

There was a dinner then Rod (Were pals by now I'll show you the photo) presented a speech and thanks for those attending. He spoke from the heart but was a bit schmoozy. He then introduced the right honorable Iris Evans she spoke for about 20 mins then took some questions. I had my hand right up and got the first question in. The MC passed me the roaming mike and I introduced myself to the other 42 tables having dinner with Iris.

Anyway after explaining who I was and why I was in Alberta I asked her to explain the huge gap in the social programme over here which is housing and then what was she going to do about it? She acknowledge that this was a problem and explained that the funding programme was being increased. She asked to meet me and we swapped business cards and took a photo. She said she wanted to come to Scotland to see how housing and homelessness is managed. I will send her an invitation by e-mail. I was quite chuffed there were 250 people there and only about 6 got to ask a question.

Today we went to Banff and went on the gondola, a lazy way to get to the mountain top. The scenery was stunning. I had been to Banff a few years ago but didn't take that trip. We had some lunch on the mountain top then went to a natural hot spring and stripped off for a dip!! Of course we put trunks on but not the spedos.

We are now back at Darren's house where I helped Joe form Thailand prep a Thai meal, at least I chopped his veg for him .

Any we are going to eat soon I have another party to go to.

Bye

Wallace.