Our Message Archive

October 2016

Sunday October 30

Ann and Dave by Lake Martha

I haven't had my camera out in the past couple of weeks so here is a photo of Ann and myself that our friend Susan took during our walk at Uniacke House a couple of weeks ago.

Yesterday Ann and I went to the Neptune Studio to see Small Things, a play about two very different women growing to appreciate each other in a small rural town. We both enjoyed it a lot. As none of the rest of our group also went, we had a nice dinner beforehand, just the two of us, at Talay Thai.

Ann has spent much of her last week before paid work starts getting caught up on unpaid work, in particular, trying to finish off the interior painting left over from our renovation. It turned out to be more time-consuming than expected as more preparatory work was need than we thought. However, the touch-ups of the kitchen and bathroom ceilings are now done. We are still planning to do the front hallway as well but that will have to wait a bit longer.

Sunday October 23

Fields in Hardwood Lands

Fields in Hardwood Lands on our bike ride last week

Ann had some good news this week: she has got another job as a decision support analyst at the IWK, the children's hospital in Halifax. It starts Nov. 1 for one year while someone is on a leave of absence.

This evening we had Dave and Chris, and Alison, Ted and Graham over for dinner. I roasted some lamb and made some lemon blueberry tarts (they're going in to my standard repertoire) while Ann handled all the veggies: roasted carrot and beet salad, sweet potatoes, herbed roast potatoes and maple Brussels sprouts. Add a couple of bottles of wine picked up at the Gaspereau Vineyard on the wine tour a few weeks ago and it was a very pleasant evening.

Sunday October 16

Near Carroll's Corner

Yesterday Ann, Karen and I went on another ride with the Ramblers, this time around the Enfield-Shubie Loop: from Enfield to Elmsdale, Carroll's Corner, Shubenacadie, Hardwood Lands and back to Enfield. We were looking forward to a fairly relaxed ride of about 40 kms but were treated instead to a 60 km ride whose first half was into a head-wind. It was very enjoyable nonetheless, just a bit more taxing than we were expecting. The fall leaves were in full glory so even the parts of the ride along normally boring tree-lined roads were very pretty. Afterward we stopped in a pub in Enfield for a beer before returning home.

This afternoon, Susan, Ann and I took our Syrian friends for a drive out of town to see the trees. We went to the Uniacke Estate Museum Park in Mount Uniacke where there is a very nice park with walking trails along the shores of Lake Martha. It was a beautiful fall day so it was nice to get out for a bit.

Tuesday October 11
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Cape Blomidon

Cape Blomidon seen from Ridge Road on our bike ride a couple of weeks ago.

We had a storm on Monday that knocked out power and caused flooding across the province. At home we fared fine, but our internet service went down so I couldn't upload this page. Power was also knocked out at work, so I got to take today off.

On Sunday, as usual, we hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house. At one point we thought that we would have seventeen at the table but, in the end, it was only fourteen: Ann, myself and James, who came home for the weekend; Ingrid, Mike, Alex and Maiga; Jim and Valerie; Carl and Roxanne; Susan and Larry; and Amina. We picked up an 8.5 kg (19 lb) free-range turkey at the market on Saturday morning which I roasted on Sunday afternoon. My contribution also included pumpkin pies and bread while everyone else took care of the vegetables and apple desserts. It was the first major test of our new kitchen which handled the task admirably.

Sunday October 2

Den Bosch

Boats on a canal in Den Bosch

I was in the Netherlands again last week, this time in 's-Hertogenbosch, or Den Bosch as it is usually called. I flew over late Saturday night with my colleague Holly, arriving in Schiphol in the early afternoon. Normally it is easy to get anywhere in The Netherlands by train, but that day all the Intercity trains were shut down for maintenance, so we had to catch a bus to the Bijlmer Arena, then train to Utrecht and then another to Den Bosch. The bus was fine, once we figured out where to catch it, but the trains were both jam-packed and we couldn't get seats. We were both quite tired and grumpy by the time we reached our hotel, so we just had a quick meal in the hotel restaurant before retiring.

I had meetings all day on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, but I had most of Wednesday off with a meeting only in the late afternoon. I spent most of the day wandering about the city. There is a nice Gothic cathedral as well as several canals including one that runs right under the city. It was originally a river but the buildings were gradually extended over it until it was effectively running underground. You can take a boat tour along it, but the commentary is only in Dutch, so I didn't go on it.

In the evenings we had some very nice dinners with the rest of our international colleagues who are, for the most part, a very convivial bunch. On Friday evening we transferred to a hotel near the airport but got there in sufficient time that we could go into Amsterdam for another nice dinner.

The flights home on Saturday morning were uneventful and we arrived roughly on time in the early afternoon. Ann immediately took me off to a barbecue for the Ramblers (they had all, including Ann, gone on a ride to Sambro and West Pennant earlier). We caught the tail end of the party, then came home for an early night.

On the Friday before I left, Ann and I went to Neptune to see Beauty and the Beast. We were originally scheduled to go the night I returned from my trip but we thought it would be best to change it so I wouldn't sleep through it all. That meant that none of our regular crowd was going the same night, so it was just Ann and I for dinner before the show; we had pizza at Morris East. The show was OK, if you you like sugary musicals, but they're not really my cup of tea.