August 2015
Sunday August 30
James in his dorm.
Ann and I are now officially empty nesters. Yesterday we drove James to Wolfville to start his next few years of study in computer science at Acadia University. That leaves, Ann and myself alone at home with only Louie left to stimulate our maternal and paternal instincts. James is quite ready for this new stage in his life; he has spent most of his free time over the past couple of months researching his options for courses and getting his new laptop set up the way he wants it (not without a few glitches along the way). Moving him in went relatively smoothly with only a short wait to get close enough to his residence to unpack his stuff. He will be sharing a dorm in Seminary House with Duncan who comes from Newmarket, Ontario the next town north of Aurora where I grew up. Seminary House is the oldest of the Acadia Residences which means that it is in the middle of most of the main buildings on campus: very convenient. It also has very high ceilings which make the dorms seem quite spacious though James' is only a little bigger than the one that Katy and Krista used to share in Dennis House.
After we had James settled we left him in the capable hands of the frosh week coordinators. Although we were invited to lunch in the cafeteria with the students, we were scared off by the level of energy in the room and retired to the Privet House on the Wolfville main drag for a quieter and more intimate meal, more fitting to our new status. We were back home again by mid-afternoon and, since then, have not been doing anything much of note, though we have begun the long hard chore of divesting ourselves of the clutter that has accumulated over the past 28 years, something that we have not been particularly good at in the past.
Monday August 24
Vogler's Cove during our bike ride a
few weeks ago.
(There are some more pictures
here.)
For a change we have had an uneventful week though we have not been idle. Since we have not been home much for the past few weekends, there were a lot of chores to catch up on. Luckily the weather has been pretty dismal, so it was I good time for chores; unfortunately, not so good for James who hasn't been getting as many hours painting as he might have if the weather had been better.
We did find the time to go to a house-warming party at Jocelyn's. The Dave Brothers Band were all there as well as our friend Brian, who is another banjo player, so I spent a lot of the time playing tunes: lots of fun.
Nancy's daughter Lauren was in town this week, so Ann took her out to lunch along with Ingrid, Margie and Jocelyn on Thursday. She was also at Jocelyn's party, so I had a chance to say hi when I wasn't busy playing music.
Monday August 17
Ann enjoying a latté in Lunenburg
Ann and I have been going away so many weekends this summer that it has been hard to keep this page up to date. Last weekend we went to the Lunenburg Folk Harbour Festival leaving on Thursday afternoon to be there in time for the evening show and coming back late on Sunday after the final show. Ingrid and Mike were kind enough to let us stay with them at their cottage on Heckmann's Island just outside Lunenburg. As well as the evening shows in the big tent on Blockhouse Hill, we went to quite a few afternoon shows and workshops. Every year that we go I see acts that I have never heard of before but that I really like. This year it was Cassie and Maggie MacDonald, sisters from Antigonish who play fiddle tunes, and RUNA, a band who are based in the US but have members from the US, Canada and Ireland; they are a Celtic band that specialize in modern versions of traditional ballads. Their fiddler, Maggie White, was amazingly good. But there were also a lot of other acts that we really enjoyed. On Friday morning we bicycled into town from the cottage to have a cup of coffee; that's when I took this picture.
This weekend we were off to PEI for another biking trip with the Nova Scotia Ramblers. We left after work on Thursday and drove via the Confederation Bridge to Charlottetown, arriving at our hotel at about 10:30 PM. The next morning we drove just out of town to York where we picked up the Confederation Trail which traverses the island. It was a gorgeous day, around 25C° and sunny. We followed it as far as Mount Stewart where we stopped for lunch in a small café called The Thoughtful Squash. On the way back we followed Highway 2 for most of the way against a headwind, picking up the trail again for the last few kilometres. Altogether we biked about 45 kms.
On the Confederation Trail near Tracadie
That evening we all got together for munchies around the pool; sufficient that we didn't need to have dinner. Ann then joined a group that drove to downtown Charlottetown and went for a long walk along the waterfront but I stayed behind and chatted with Mike for a while and played a few tunes on my mandolin before crashing early.
On Saturday, most people were leaving after the ride, so the start and end was the PEI end of the Confederation Bridge with the route taking us along the waterfront roads to Victoria by the Sea and back again, a total distance of about 43 kms. On Friday afternoon, Ann and I had stopped in at a sports store that had some good deals on bicycle clothing, so I bought some proper bicycle shorts to replace the ordinary shorts that I usually use. I decided to try them out on Saturday. Bad mistake! In the drive from Charlottetown to Borden-Carleton my thighs broke out in a nasty red rash, presumably from some toxic chemical that the shorts were treated with. In future I'll be more careful about washing new clothes before wearing them. So I returned to the hotel to get some different shorts while Ann did the first portion of the ride to Victoria. I met everyone there for lunch, then I rode back to Borden-Carleton while Ann and Ingrid drove there with their bikes to pick me up. It was another beautiful day, so the biking that we did do was very pleasant.
That evening Ann and I were on our own as everyone else had returned home. We decided to go for a nice dinner at the Lucy Maud Dining Room at the Culinary Institute, part of Holland College, where the students prepare the food and serve it. We had an excellent meal with a very nice view out over the Charlottetown waterfront.
On Sunday, we took the time to tour the eastern part of PEI, driving back through Mount Stewart, up to Savage Harbour, then to St. Peter's Bay, Fortune Bridge, Cardigan, Montague, Gaspereaux and Murray River, before ending up at the Wood Islands ferry terminal to catch the 2:45 PM ferry back to Nova Scotia. We took in lots of nice scenery along the way. On the ferry we were entertaine by a very proficient fiddler, Alycia Putnam, and bought her CD. We arrived home in time around dinner time.
Monday August 3
D'Escousse
In July of 1965, my parents rented a yacht in Charlottetown and our family sailed out of the Northumberland Strait, around Cape George, through the Strait of Canso, then along the south shore of Cape Breton Island toward the locks at St. Peters which lead into Bras d'Or Lake. Going through the strait between Isle Madame and Cape Breton, we had to pass under a bridge which needed to be opened to let us pass. The procedure to have the bridge opened was to row ashore, climb the hill to the local farm to summon the farmer and his horse. The horse walked in circles to drive a gear which opened the bridge. Unfortunately, on the day that we arrived it was very hot; hot enough that the metal bridge had expanded and would not open, despite the best efforts of the horse. We had to wait until the evening, by which time it was cool enough that the bridge could be opened. As it was now fairly late, we sailed a few more miles down the coast and docked at the wharf in D'Escousse for the night. When we arose in the morning, the whole town was on the wharf.
Last weekend, Ann and I were on Isle Madame again, almost exactly 50 years later, for a bicycle tour with the Nova Scotia Ramblers. I took Friday off and we drove to Arichat in the afternoon arriving in time for dinner. On Saturday, we toured Isle Madame itself with a side trip across a couple of narrow causeways and bridges to Janvrin Island, a smaller island to the west. The weather was cool and overcast, not great for taking pictures due to the poor light, but very comfortable for bicycling. The ride was led by Phyllis, who grew up on Isle Madame but now lives in Halifax, and that evening we were all (about 35 of us) invited to her sister's place in Petit de Grat for dinner: seafood chowder or chicken pie, with a surprise of fresh snow crab.
On Sunday, we explored Petit de Grat, the smaller island to the south. On the way we stopped at the house where Phyllis grew up. Her neighbour brought out smoked squid for everyone to try, then, at Little Anse, her friend Midget gave us all ice cream bars and seemed disappointed when no-one accepted the offer of a beer. When we stopped for lunch at a small park, a couple more of her friends came by with an accordion and guitar to serenade us and another, a photographer took pictures. Everyone on the islands seem to want to go out of their way to make us feel at home.
Most people left after the ride on Sunday, but a few, including Ann and myself, stayed until Monday. We all gathered for dinner at a small restaurant in Arichat. Ann and I drove home again on Monday, stopping for a nice lunch in Antigonish.
This weekend we were at it again going for a day-ride with the Ramblers along the south shore. We assembled at Rissers Beach, a provincial campground just east of Bridgewater, and rode to Mill Village and back, a distance of about 30 kms each way. Parts of the ride were incredibly beautiful. I was particularly taken by a small village called Vogler's Cove. At Mill Village we had lunch at the Riverbank General Store (also a café) on the bank of the Medway River.
Yesterday we had a day off but this morning Ann and I rode out to Eastern passage along the waterfront trail, had an ice cream at Fisherman's Cove, then returned the same way.
I've put a few more pictures from our Isle Madame trip here; they will probably only last for a week or two before they make way for some pictures from the south shore ride.
Two weeks ago was James' eighteenth birthday making him eligible to vote in the election that has just been called but not yet to drink in Nova Scotia. We prepared our traditional Eggs Benedict breakfast for him before heading off to work. In the late afternoon and evening he had a bunch of his friends over for dinner, cake and to watch a movie (Interstellar). They only got half-way through the movie before giving up and going to the park to play grounders.