A day in the life ...

Alarm went of at 6:30 a.m. today.  Ahhh retirement -- this is the life !  'cept Kaitlyn has to be at work at 7:30 a.m. and her job at Wendy's isn't on a bus route.  Well at least not one you can get to from here.  Usually she drives.  She needs the practice as she wants (and needs) to get her licence.

I drop her off an am back home by quarter to 8.

And I go back to bed. 

Slept in till almost 10.  That's really late for me.  Had some toast and tea and went to beach with Matt for 1 1/2 hours. It was a lovely mild day.  8 degrees !  Had a lovely walk.  The puppy, Sooki, must have walked almost 2 km with us.  We put two coats on her as she is just a baby and we don't want her to get chilled.  Sometimes Matt runs ahead and she just flies along keeping up with him.

After I brought Matt and pack home I went to Curves for my the first of my "free week" sessions.  I'm still getting the hang of of various machines but I like the system.  You go around a circuit of six or seven different machines and between each is step board where you mark time.  You only spend 30 seconds on each piece of equipment.  You do a circuit of the room 2 1/2 times.  Then you move on to the stretching station which is a large piece of equipment and you do three different stretches on each side.

By then it was 2:10 and I needed to pick up Kait at 2:30.  

After driving her home, I set off to Valu Village to look for a cheap computer mouse.  They didn't have any that'd been made since 1990 but I bought three tennis balls for the dogs.  I continued on to the MicMac Mall where I got a cheapo mouse at Source.   I have a laptop with a touch pad that I really like.  Unfortunately, I often leave my laptop open and the cats have broken the touch pad by sitting on it one time too many !

I stopped at Timmies around 3 pm and had a nice lunch while I read the paper.  I love their onion soup.  I also love getting a hot chocolate with a mint shot in it.  Try it some time. 

At Christmas I put a candy cane in my hot chocolate. 

Called chums Sandy and Don in Ontario and had a couple of nice chats.  I am only now realizing the importance of friends.  How could I not have "gotten" that ? 

Played a couple of games of Majong on the computer.

Right now I'm watching The Beatles in "Hard Day's Night".  It's amazing how a movie that you saw 35 years ago can really stick in your head.  'Course I did see it TWELVE times !

Well that's it.  A scintillating day in the life ...

          

A lovely Christmas Day

Today got off to a slow start as we woke one by one.  Overflowing stockings were spread around the living room.  Even the pets had stockings.               

Matt began the day by playing the piano a bit for us. 

                         

We made toast and tea and settled down to slowly open stockings and gifts.

We'd received some lovely gifts from Russ and Maureen and I got a fun "care package" from my friends Cindy and Sandy.  There were also gifts from Matt's mom and Sarah had brought gifts too from her family.

Christmas dinner was around 2 pm.  I was quite pleased as my roast potatoes didn't fall apart and were lovely and crispy brown.  I roasted a turkey breast for Matt, Sarah and her boyfriend, Todd.  Kait and I had President's Choice fake chicken breasts.  We had the usual brussel spouts, cauliflower, mashed potatoes and baked sweet potatoes.  Of course there was also stuffing, Yorkshire puddings (which puffed up perfectly) and veggie gravy. 

After the meal, Matt and I took the hounds over to Rainbow Haven Beach.  Poor Matt's boots leak so he has taken to wearing plastic bags on his feet inside his boots to combat the leaks.    

It was around zero C. and breezy.  We took the new ball that has strange sides causing it not to roll or bounce in a predicable fashion.  Quite amusing watching the dogs snapping in the air at where the ball SHOULD be but for some reason is not.

Matt ventured out onto the ice in the parking lot there.  At some point in his walk he realized that there was water visible under the ice and that made him rather nervous.  I'd been video taping him and couldn't stop laughing as he finally ending up crawling back to dry land.  

At some point during the day, Matt and Kait got dolled up for a couple pictures. 

Then after chuffing down some left-overs we settled into a marathon game of Monopoly that Kaitlyn won after about 4 hours !

It's after midnight now and I'm tired. 

But it's a good tired that you feel at the end of a long, fun day.

Night, night.

Crossing over ...

Drivers here in Nova Scotia are very different from those in Ontario. 

I want to go out and warn them. "Don't go to Ontario.  Stay here,  you won't survive long in Ontario".

There aren't many stop signs here.  Instead there are cross walks for pedestrians.  There are cross walks every block or so.  Drivers see pedestrians so much as "thinking" about crossing and they stop.    One day when I was out walking, I went to cross a road.  Not at a crosswalk.  Didn't matter.  The damn cars stopped.  Just in case I was thinking about crossing.

They extend the same courtesy to other drivers.  Want to turn left onto a busy road ?  Before long, someone will stop and wave you across.   Stuck in the wrong lane on the "Circ" ? (speed limit 80 km) and need to cross over multiple lanes.  Slow down. Put on your indicator and I GUARANTEE you someone will let you in and no one behind you will honk because you slowed down.

No one honks impatiently here.  Friendly waves are the only hand gestures you see.

Driving in Nova Scotia is a living example of "Paying it forward".  Courtesty is the order of the day.

Red light runners ?  Heck no.  I'm surprised when someone cruises through an amber light !

So, if you happen to live in Ontario and see someone with Nova Scotia plates trying to get into your lane,  let them in and don't honk when they stop to let someone cross the road.  They're just "Paying it forward".

Critters 'n us ...

As you know, we have too many animals.
 

I have two dogs and three cats and Kaitlyn has two dogs and now Sarah has arrived with her two cats.

I know.  I know.  You don't have to say it.   

But there are days (like today) when I wouldn't get up off my butt and go outside if it weren't for the fact that I know the dogs need a run.

And they make me smile.  And stroking them lowers my blood pressure.  Of course, stroking one, probably would work just as well as stroking nine.

Considering what a varied group they are, they get on pretty well.  Of course, Sarah's cats haven't left her room since she arrived.  There is a fold up gate across her open door.  That keeps the dogs out.  Cats occassionally jump it to go sniff around in her room but so far her cats haven't jumped over and OUT.

The newest canine is Kait's puppy, Sooki.  Sooki is quite young and a goofy, clumsy puppy with sharp teeth and a passionate desire to play.  Trey (Kait's older Pit Bull) is merely an adolescent himself but shows infinite patience with her.  She jumps on him and bites him and pulls on his face and he handles her with the right amount of patience and firmness.

Did you know that these now-reviled dogs were once considered the ideal dog to have with children ?  Think back to the old "Our Gang" comedies.  That dog was a pit bull.   They were called the "nanny dog" in the U.S.

And then there's the cats ...   

Always pushing their noses into things, curling on your lap, insisting on attention ... making me smile.

A short drive on the Eastern Shore

Yesterday was cold and windy.  Probably minus 25 with the wind chill.  But the roads were clear and dry so I set out to re-explore the places that Amy Lynn showed me when she toured me around last week.  (Amy Lynn has a Blog called "Flandrum Hill".  I'd been following her Blog since BEFORE I came here and had been writing to her.  She very generously took me aroud to show me the things that she wishes someone had shown her back when she arrived in the area 20 years ago).

I wanted to re-find "Fisherman's      Reserve".  It's a beat up looking fishing cove where I'd seen a pack of feral cats. 

The cove ends in a very long strip of land snaking out into the ocean with a Gibralter-like mound at the end.  My hope had been to walk to the end of that strip.  Of course I would check first to see whether it was ever covered at high tide.  I needn't have worried. The dogs and I got out of the car and it was clear we wouldn't be making THAT walk.  I strolled around for 5 minutes with my camera stuffed deep into my coat pocket and only pulling it out quickly for a picture and then stuffing it back. 

BTW I have an excellent long warm coat.  I bought it at "Mark's Work Wearhouse" for mega bucks but it's been well worth it.  On  frigid day I don't even need a hat or scarf.  The hood on the coat is warm and there is a velcro neck closure.  Even the arms have extra fabric inside the cuffs to stop wind from entering.  I wasn't sure about paying close to $200 for a coat but I know now that it was an excellent move.

I hadn't seen any cats.  As I was leaving, I rolled down the window and in a high voice called "here kitty, kitty" in that sing song way and a fluffy, short cat darted out from the breakwater.  That was it.  One cat where weeks ago I'd seen seven or eight.  I had a small bag of cat food in the back of the car. I rushed out and tore open one end of the bag and stuffed it under the rocks of the breakwater so the open end faced in.  What did I see?  A plate of cat food that another soft-hearted (headed) stranger had stuffed in there too.  The cat vanished into the rocks and I got back in my car and left.

I stopped occassionaly on the drive to take pictures.

Took at picture of a barn with the Acadian Flag. 

 

Here's a bit of the history of the Acadians that I snipped from Wikipedia:

During the seventeenth century, about sixty French families were established in Acadia. They developed friendly relations with the aboriginal Mi'kmaq, learning their hunting and fishing techniques. The Acadians lived mainly in the coastal regions, farming land reclaimed from the sea through diking. Living on the frontier between French and British territories, the Acadians found themselves on the front lines in each conflict between the powers. Acadia was passed repeatedly from one side to the other, and the Acadians learned to survive through an attitude of studied neutrality, refusing to take up arms for either side, and thus came to be referred to as the "French neutrals."

In the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, France ceded the portion of Acadia that is now Nova Scotia (minus Cape Breton Island) to the British for the last time. In 1730, the Acadians signed an oath swearing allegiance to the British Crown, but stipulating that Acadians would not have to take up arms against the French or Indians. But, in 1754 with the outbreak of tensions with France, the British government, no longer accepting the neutrality previously granted, demanded that the Acadians take an absolute oath of allegiance to the British monarch, which would require their taking up arms. Not wanting to take up arms against family members in French territory, and believing that the oath would compromise their Roman Catholic faith, the Acadians refused. Colonel Charles Lawrence ordered the mass deportation of the Acadians. Contemporary historian John Mack Faragher has used the late 20th century term, "ethnic cleansing", to describe the British actions.

So it's an area steeped in history.  Some of it rather shameful. 

Matt gets a piano.

Matt plays the piano.  He plays the piano beautifully.  I learned that last year when I visited his home in London at this time last year.  Sometimes after he joined us in Ontario, we'd visit the piano store at Portage Place Mall.   He'd sit down to play and people walking in the mall would stop to listen.

Matt needed a piano.  I could almost see his fingers twitching as we spoke about getting one.  Trouble is, pianos aren't cheap.  Or are they ?

We checked "kijiji" and search for "pianos dartmouth".    And found a piano.  A 104 year old piano that was looking for a good home.  And the price ?  It was free.  Free to a good home.  We went for a visit and Matt declared it to be a good piano.  We profously thanked the couple who were giving it away.

We arranged for "Doctor Piano" to pick it up and deliver it ($240).

It now sits in our front room.  Matt can barely walk by without sitting down and playing.  We flinch at the out-of-tune sound that comes out of it.

The tuner will be coming next Monday.

We're going to have wonderful music for Christmas. 

Let's go for a walk ...

Come with me for a walk.  It's not that cold today.  Maybe 6 or 7.  The lined waterproof coat will do.  Maybe some light gloves and walking shoes.  Clip Wendy and Chandler on the split leash and head out the door and down DeYoung Drive.  It's a short street, maybe six houses long.  Crossing over Calwell Road, DeYoung becomes Briarwood.  Briarwood is a couple of long blocks of semis and single family homes.  Semis on your left and singles mostly on your right.  When Briarwood ends at Cowbay Road cross over on the cross walk and bear right. 

This section of Cowbay Road holds many wonders.  Right on the corner is the recycling depot.  These are franchised, owner-operated depots that pay you for your refundable recyclables.  They pay you HALF of your deposit.  Where does the other half go? 

On your right is the car wash.  It consists of a tiny hut-like building, a gravel drive and a lady with a power washer. 

Next is a large four bay gas station with a "Circle K" store attached.  Keep walking and you'll pass the Chinese food resturant and the Tim Horton's.  Tie the dogs up while you drop into the Timmies for a quick pee and to pick up a small hot chocolate with a peppermint "shot".   Continuing on down the street, on your left is a mini mall with a dollar store, a Subway, the liquor store (not LCBO but NSLC) and a soon to be opened Valufoods grocery store (YIPEE). 

Keep heading down the street.  Dog leash in left hand.  Hot chocolate in right.  Turn left at Quigley's Corner and head briefly up the Shore Road.  Cross over the road and you're at Fisherman's Cove.

 There always was a fishing harbour here but a few years back the tourism folk came up with the idea of making it a tourist destination.  They rebuilt the buildings to look like authentic fishing huts and many locals sold their boats and invested in stores.  Unfortunately the tourists are only here for about eight weeks a year and many stores have a  "For Lease" sign in the window. 

There are two year-round restaurants, a pub that's open Thursday, Friday and Saturday in the winter and a couple of stores selling fresh fish, lobster and scallops.

    

Walk down to the end of the cove and look up the harbour past the oil tanks toward Halifax.  Breathe in the cool sea air.  Pat the dogs.  Pick up the leash, sip the last of the hot chocolate and head back home.  

Family game night.

Kait and Matt bought a Monopoly game as an early Christmas present for us all. 

It's been a long time since I've played Monopoly and apparently the rules I played by in the past may not have been right.   Apparently when you land on an unowned property you either have to buy it or put it up for auction.  Is that how you learned to play it ?  In the past we treated it as something optional.  You could buy it if you wanted but weren't obliged.  Also in the past, fines that were paid were dumped on the centre of the board and then if someone landed on "free parking" they got to take the lot. 

In the current version, fines go to the bank.  But I think I've talked the kids into going the "free parking" route.  There also is a new way to speed up the game that involves a third die.  We're going to try the fast route next game. 

Today's game took 3 1/2 hours. 

As you can see from the pics I was doing really well for much of the game but then Matt put up a few hotels and Kait and I were soon bankrupt. 

It was a fun game and as you can also see, the food kept coming.

This picture was taken during the game. Can you figure out what you're seeing ?  Operators are standing by.  Email me with your guess.

Painting pictures with words

The winds have been terrific today.  I would think well over 60 km.  Driving on Portland I saw an older lady hanging onto a post at a bus stop !   Even the locals were talking about the wind. 

After a walk on the Shearwater Trail with Wendy and Chandler (I was glad it was in a treed area and not out in the open),  I drove down Cow Bay Road to look at the ocean.  There are several places to pull over and just look.  So I pointed my car, parked,  and I looked.  The waves were breaking far off shore but the wind was going the opposite direction tearing the peaks off the waves and turning them into a frigid mist that was whipped back the way it had just come. 

It's wonderful to watch but  don't worry, I'd never venture near the rocky shore on a day like this.

A chilly beach walk ...

We went for a nice walk to Rainbow Haven Beach yesterday.  We took Sooki in her new coat. She walked along the beach with us until she got too cold. Kait picked her up and wrapped her in a blanket.  It was a lovely day.

There are always interesting things to see.  I found this. Is it a sea anemone ?  It was too cold to carry it back to the car.  I hadn't put gloves under my mitts so my hand was freezing.  So I took at pic of  it and just put it back on the beach

Rainbow Haven is an amazing spot.  A huge expanse of beach that gets even bigger at low tide.

If you come for a visit Rainbow Haven is at the top of the list of the places I'd show you.

Sooki goes to Kindergarten

Yesterday was Sooki's first day of Kindergarten.  She was the smallest kid in the class.  Part of the class was spent trying to inscrease the eight puppies self confidence.  They learned to  step onto a raised mat and over a pole and go through a crinkly tube.  Most were timid at first and but got better the more bribes were received.  Sooki was so not bothered by the tube that she went through when it wasn't even her turn.

Part of the class was just socializing with the other puppies and their moms or dads.  Aside from a funny little Shitzu pup that ran in excited circles, Sooki was smaller than everyone. 

Sooki, Bulldog, brown Lab & the bully Boxer

The class trouble-maker was a boxer who just wanted to flatten the other dogs and establish dominance.  Sometimes Sooki hid between her mom (Kait) and (Matt) and tried not to be a bother.

One excercise involved just picking up someone else's dog and holding it.  Sooki liked that one. 

Sooki has four more classes.  She already knows how to sit and really is a confident little dog.  It's just really important that she be well socialized at an early age.

I'm puzzled ...

I've been working on a puzzle for a couple of days.   It was only a 300 piece puzzle.  The last puzzle I bought had 750 pieces and never got finished !  So I've learned a couple of things.

1. I like doing puzzles if they have only 300 pieces. 
2. I need to get puzzles with bigger pieces so I can see where the damn piece goes
3. Don't leave the puzzle out if you've got cats.

 I have one of those felt roller things that let you roll up a puzzle you're working on and put it away till another day.   I hate the way that puzzles take over the table till the puzzle's finished.  Unfortunately I didn't always bother to roll up the puzzle and put it away.

So I worked on this puzzle for several days and finally got it finished.  Well.  Almost finished.  The damn cats had been taking delight in flicking puzzle pieces around.

Here's the finished product.

DAMN CATS !

We get a Christmas tree.

Yesterday we (me, Matt & Kait) went to look at a piano that Matt had found FOR FREE on Kijiji.  It was 100 years old and though in need of tuning, Matt declared it had a "nice touch".   It was in Cole Harbour, which is a fifteen minute drive away.  Right now I'm looking into booking a piano mover and though they can move it next Monday they may not be able to tune it until after Christmas !

While out, Kaitlyn put applications in at several more places that had posted help wanted signs.

From there we went to the local Fire Station to choose a Christmas tree.  The trees were all quite lovely and we spent all of 3 minutes to find the "perfect" tree !   I bought a tree stand at Canadian Tire that cost more than the darn tree but it works really well.    Happily I caught a program last night that declared farmed Christmas Trees to be more environmentally friendly than artificial trees.  Who knew ?   For years I insisted on a fake tree thinking I was saving the environment.  Oh and we had a cat at the time who ate pine needles.

May I be the first to wish you a Merry Christmas !

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww

So we've established that the nut doesn't fall far from the tree. 

Kaitlyn shares my love of dogs and also my inability to know when to STOP acquiring them.  And so it was, that two days after moving into our home and six days BEFORE the furniture arrived, she got a new puppy, Sooki.

Sooki is a Red-nosed Pitbull.  Sorta like Rudolph.  Kait's other dog, Trey, is an Am Staff cross.  So along comes this teeny little puppy to join Wendy, Chandler and Trey. 

Trey is large and goofy and powerful and still a pup himself at 10 months old.  But he immediatly adjusts his play style to ensure he doesn't hurt Sooki.  The pic of him and Sooki "face fighting" looks nasty but it's all show and a funny one at that.

It's very sweet to see how gentle he is with Sooki. 

Wendy, meanwhile who's never been fond of dogs, in spite of the fact she IS one, has to be carefully watched.  She'll hold Sooki down with a paw and nibble on the pup as she was a cob of corn.  But if Wendy is not feeling playful and puppy starts pestering, Wendy will turn and SNAP !

Chandler's style of play has always been strange.  He growls when he's happy so the sound effects when he's playing can be alarming.  He SOUNDS mean.  In truth he's a bit nervous of the puppy.  He sorta jumps play-growling at the pup and then jumps away.  Sooki doesn't know what to make of all the growling and usually flips on her back in a "don't kill me" gesture.

A message on the window.

We got up this morning to discover this mysterious message on the front window.

A researcher from Dalhousie University was stunned by this amazing image.  "I've never seen anything like it", he is quoted as saying. 

A paranormal investigator who specializes in messages left on windows has declared it to be a legitimate message.

Apparently "Matt IS cool" 

Matt goes out ...

My daughter, Kait's, boyfriend lives with us.  Matt is from London, England.  Winter in Nova Scotia is going to be quite the experience for Matt. 

But yesterdaay when there was teeming rain and driving winds it was newcomer Matt, and not we hearty Canucks who decided to go out for a walk.  He bundled up (including wearing Kait's rain pants) and ventured out into storm.  Rain was pelting up the street in WAVES and Matt leaned into the wind and disappeared down the street.

Turns out he walked all the way to Fisherman's Cove.

Later as I watched garbage pails blowing around the streets I decided we better go find Matt.  We met hiim in the car as he was walking back up Briarwood.  We picked him up and drove back to the shore to watch the waves rolling in.  Matt briefly got out of the car to experience the power of the wind.  Sitting parked there we could feel the wind gently rocking the car.