Gallery Opening in New Glasgow

Last weekend Greg and I checked out an art gallery opening at a great space in New Glasgow, The Celtic Circle:

It's a beautiful spot, I'm sure I've blogged about it before. It was previously a church now it's a multi-purpose spot:

Birthday!

It must have slipped my mind to actually post these pictures, I had them all ready the day after we celebrated Erika's birthday...but I must have been preoccupied.

A few weekend ago we surprised a friend on her birthday, it turns out however that those in attendance were not so skilled at throwing surprise parties. So it was a bit of an awkward SURPRISE initially, but it all worked out. There were party hats and noise makers involved, so of course it worked out!

Baily, the dog, was holding the birthday balloon...unbeknown to her:

Greg and I coloured matched, by accident of course:

Plant Sitting

Greg and I volunteered to plant sit our neighbour's peace lily while she was out of town over the holidays. Our instructions were: you will know when to water it, it will wilt.

So before heading out for our own Christmas vacation we filled up the plant with water and hoped for the best.

This is what we came home to:

This is most certainly not the plant we left and were hoping that this is just what wilting looks like. Thankfully we were right and after lots of water and less than 12 hours it came back:

A true Christmas miracle!

Frisbee In Pictou County

Since the spring Greg and I have been playing frisbee in Pictou County, it started as pick up and over the summer there was an organized league. Once September rolled around and students went back to school it went back to a core group of about 12 playing pick up each week.

With the time change happened in early November this really made playing challenging as it started to get dark much, much earlier! This called for a change of location and with the new Pictou County Wellness Centre opening it was excellent timing.

So now we play in the Wellness Centre and last weekend we spent some time promoting the sport and our 'league' at the Health and Wellness Fair at the Wellness Centre:

Small Town Living

Last month I had a package delivered by FedEx. It was quite the process as they tried to deliver it twice but we were at work both times and after the second time I was left with a phone number to call only to find out the package was now in Truro (45 minutes away) and they wouldn't be able to deliver it again - this was sorted out after a frustrating phone call and eventually the package was delivered to Greg at work.

Today there was another experience with the same FedEx delivery person, and again no one was home. This time something awesome happened and I can only believe it's a result of living in a small place and having a very thoughtful delivery person.

A note was left, normally it says something about a phone number to call or location to pick up the package that couldn't be delivered. This note was much, much better:

Greg did receive the delivery - at the library.

This was too good not to share. I hope you can enjoy it as much as we did.

Remembrance Day

We attended the Remembrance Day ceremony on Sunday on a beautiful, sunny day in New Glasgow. It was a lovely ceremony, I took a picture as the veterans and cadets were on their way back to the Legion.

Thank you veterans and troops!

Stroll About Town

Before the rain and wind took most of the leaves from the trees Greg and I took a stroll around town to enjoy the fall colours:

Left: our backyard. Right: Cenotaph on the West Side with a beautiful tree behind it

There is a pull up bar along the river, so the obvious took place:

Big Winner!

Yesterday was the last New Glasgow Farmer's Market of the year. There was a ton of stuff going on (face painting, free cider, music and lots of fresh produce) including a guess the weight of the pumpkin competition and the winner got this huge haul of produce.

I guessed the right weight (166lbs) and won the spread! They even delivered it to our house!

I've also learned there is a new feature in my phone camera since the most recent update and now I can take panoramic shots:

The haul: two 5lb bags of potatoes, kale, beets, greens, parsnips (two bags), carrots, brussel sprouts, onions, cabbage, peppers AND turnips!

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday this year and it was a pretty great decision, cooking and eating this much needs a 2 day recovery period.

To spruce the place up for fall we picked up some gourds from the market and I finally moved the dried hydrangeas to a vase:

Our neighbour gave us another bouquet of dahlias for our Thanksgiving centrepiece:

We ordered our turkey from the market and picked it up from the farm this past Tuesday, it was great to be able to pick it up from the farm rather than the freezer at the grocery store:

Our guests brought a diverse and yummy spread of food, we will have left overs for days (HOORAY!)

Neighbourly Flowers

This morning I was presented with a delightfully seasonal and thoughtful bouquet of flowers from one of our neighbours. She has one of the most beautiful gardens in New Glasgow and far beyond many I've seen elsewhere. We are really lucky to live next to her to appreciate the garden daily.

I took these with my iPhone, but they turned out okay I think:

End of Frisbee Season BBQ

Last Tuesday we played last frisbee game of the summer season. Hopefully there will be a fall/winter league to start soon!

To celebrate a great summer season...we didn't win any games but we had a great time...Greg and I hosted a BBQ.

The auto focus is broken on my regular lens so I swapped it for my old SLR lens, it turns out it's not the best at focusing!

Some of the team, plus a few extra!

Thanks for coming friends!

Weekend Breakfasts

This weekend was filled with delicious breakfast sandwiches! On Saturday we went to Baked Cafe in New Glasgow and I had a spinach, egg and other goodies on a pretzel. It was very, very yummy.

This inspired Sunday's sandwich breakfast of homemade egg mcmuffin's. We've made them before, but this time we made the english muffins from scratch as well. It turns out that english muffins are particularly easy to make. I followed this recipe.

An Excellent Weekend

**click the picture on the left for lots more pictures of camping and Pictou**

This past weekend flew by: we had visitors (Rick and Nick) from Friday to Saturday, an 80's themed birthday party on Friday night, a romp around Pictou on Saturday afternoon and camping on Saturday night. Sunday we even went back to the beach!

Here we are at the 80's birthday party - Greg went with a moustache and I went with a Molly Ringwald look....which is shockingly similar to what I would wear on any given day (minus the necklace) I also had on a jean skirt and chuck taylors.

Saturday morning we were up and at the Farmer's Market just as it was opening. I've never seen so many carrots in one place at one time! Greg had to water the flowers at the Library as well, Nick helped by posing with him:

Saturday afternoon, without a moustache, we went to Pictou to explore and grab a bite to eat. We went to The Stone Soup Cafe which was DELICIOUS! I had a lobster club sandwich and beef and vegetable soup - oh and a very pink drink with rum from Nova Scotia's Ironworks Distillery:

Exploring around Pictou was interesting, we spotted Nanny C's which we didn't stop in for lunch but I admire their modified Coke sign. We missed the Pictou Lobster Festival by a few weeks but there were fading lobsters on the sidewalks to remind us. And the ship is the Hector, apparently the first boat to the area full of about 200 Scots (which is crazy is you see how not big the boat is):

Yup, the lobster sidewalk again...whoopsie! This excellent sticker was spotted on a monster camper and was begging to be photographed. The last picture is of the lobster hatchery next to the light house, the had these four different stages of lobster as they develop. I must say until they get bigger the water really swirls these little guys and gals around:

We headed to Caribou Provincial Park for our camping adventure. Once we settled in we headed to the beach for some interesting dark skies - there was a bit of rain but it was still really, really warm:

Back at the campsite we were joined by more friends and got supper underway, lots of meat, salads and corn!

This lovely little girl hung out with us as well, looking adorable and acting like a puppy which included regularly rolling in the dirt and looking more spotted than black:

Johnny Miles Run

*click the photo on the left for lots more pictures*

This past weekend Greg and I participated in the Johnny Miles Marathon...but the 10km portion of the event. We had beautiful weather and it was great to take part in a run that we could walk to from our house!

An important part of any run, ensuring your bladder is empty. A pit stop at the port-a-potties. There were lots and lots of people milling about and the run was actually sold out with just over 2000 runners/walkers.

Greg and I before the run, I definitely wasn't wearing the long sleeve while running, it was a super hot morning!

I came in at 57:58, my personal best. Greg ran along with me and I'm sure if he was really trying to compete his time would be much better, but being the lovely guy he is he ran with me and helped bring my time down.

This is post run with another couple of medals to add to the pile. It's excellent to receive medals just for participating!

After we finished we joined in the crowd to cheer on the incoming runners.

We were both really keen to watch the marathon runners come in, particularly because we could AND because a runner was trying to win his 9th marathon. He's a local so the crowd was really loud when he came around the corner and down the finish line. It was a pretty big deal.

After putting in a good run and hanging out in the community all before noon we headed home for a hearty brunch. Monster breakfast sandwiches with egg, tomato, lettuce, cheese (lactose free!), bacon and avocado. Delicious! Oh and we got juice boxes from the run so we had those too:

Since the Euro Cup is on and we don't have cable we headed to one of the two sports bars in New Glasgow to watch the Netherlands and Portugal game. The place was pretty empty as most people were on the deck, it seems that soccer doesn't draw a crowd in this town.

Greg taking in the match:

Overall a great run and a great Sunday. Perhaps I'll try to get a new personal best next year.

A Delightful Saturday

*click the picture to the left for many more pictures*

This is the first weekend in awhile that Greg and I were home in New Glasgow. Somehow we managed to get a lot accomplished while relaxing quite a bit.

First up,  our first visit to the New Glasgow Farmers Market!

There was an open house at the Carmichael Museum that we checked out. The museum is a house jam packed with historical items from New Glasgow. There was also punch served and many, many treats. It was delightful. Oh and there was a penny farthing outside! That's a bicycle with one big wheel and one teeny tiny wheel - good trivia knowledge. You're welcome.

There is a garden behind the museum, many flowers aren't quite out in full bloom yet, but this one was just lovely!

Later on Saturday Greg unpacked a bin of childhood treasures, we had a good laugh over some items, such as these royal seals!