A Quick Lesson

Actually, yesterday had a few lessons for me; and there were likely a few I missed along the road.

The first lesson happened shortly after finishing yesterday's blog entry, you know, the one where I started off saying how things are going to change with the blogging, worried with the stretching, and all that stuff.

Shortly after finishing the blog I found myself sitting on the couch waiting for others to be ready to go, and considering playing a bit of Candy Crush. Yes, Candy Crush. We all know it, and we likely all have mixed feelings about the thing. I play it from time to time, and this was looking to be one of those times. Then I asked myself: If you have time to play a game, why don't you have time to stretch? Well, I said, because... Because... Well, because...

Ya, exactly. So I stretched. Which wasn't actually as easy as it sounds. Once my head had told me that I didn't have time for it then I no longer wanted to do it. Frankly, I never want to do it. So to discover that there is time, and actually use it well, actually took some effort given what I had convinced myself of.

Turns out I had more time to blog too. Ah well.

The next lesson was one on the history of Cape Breton music, or, as Donna-Marie at the Celtic Music Interpretive Centre in Judique, Cape Breton refers to it, Scots music.

Right, we're in Cape Breton now. Much of the day was spent driving. Man this country is gorgeous.

At the Celtic Centre Donna-Marie gave our group of five (Philip, Heather and Meara being still on the road as they had had to make a detour) a history lesson on scots music. Sitting in this cozy office, Donna-Marie sat with her fiddle and played us through the various types of fiddle tunes such as marches, strathspeys, reels, jigs, and the list continues. She explained the differences in meter between them, how the first three I listed are often grouped together when performed at a Ceilidh, how the fiddle music originated from attempting to play music that had, until then, been being played on the bagpipes - hence the second string drone you hear from time to time with the fiddle music. We learned some of the history of Cape Breton with the Scots coming over in the 18th century having been essentially forced off their land so the English could raise sheep. It was a great 20 minutes. Yes, all of that in 20 minutes.

The next lesson was one I had already learned years ago. I love Cape Breton. No, I have never been here, and honestly don't know a lot about it, but for some reason, I have always loved the place and have wanted to be here. And so far, so good.

We checked in to our rooms at the Mabou River Inn. It's a nice place, and conveniently located a short walk, or even shorter drive if you're not sure where precisely you going before you set out, from The Red Shoe Pub in Mabou.

The Red Shoe Pub is owned by the Rankin family. Look them up if you don't know them. Fantastic family of musicians. Though I think that pretty much sums up Cape Breton. Between the MacIsaac's, the MacMasters, the Barra MacNeils. This list goes on. Again, look it up. The amount of musical talent coming from this little island per capita puts the rest of us to shame. You might think it's in the water, but it's in the kitchen. Music here for many people is part of growing up. It's engrained in how they socialize with their family and friends.

Anyway, we got a taste of this and a whole lot more at The Red Shoe Pub. Why? Well, because, this is where we spent the next five or so hours, eating good food, enjoying good beer, and listening first to Maggie Beaton and friends play:

 and then watching the Monday night jam session unfold:

Watching them all play together was amazing. Not everyone knew all the tunes being played, but you could see them watching and listening intently and figuring it out, and you could see whoever started the tune staring intently at the ones learning, almost willing them to know the music, as if they could just push it into the other players brains and fingers.

Much of this comes about from learning by rote. As I learned from Margaree (hope I'm spelling that right), one of the fiddlers/pianists (yep many people play them both really well), many of the fiddlers do not read music, in fact, many of the composers of Cape Breton music do not read music. You see it in some, and they're seeing it in the younger musicians, but it is mostly an aural tradition.

This is actually how I taught myself how to play the piano. First, at a very young age sitting beside my Dad on the piano bench tinkling (playing not peeing) away on the upper octaves as he played Scott Joplin, Fats Domino, and other ragtime greats; and then as a young teen, sitting at a piano in the auditorium at my school for countless hours every day (yes, skipping class) with headphones on listening to my favourite songs of the day and trying to piece them out on the keyboard, and then finally making up my own tunes.

And then this, my latest piano lesson, last night with Margaree at The Red Shoe Pub.

Like I said, I love this place.

Last Day in Lunenburg

I've been pretty good at writing every day, and I find that, while I intend to get my writing done in under and hour, that this doesn't happen. I'm probably clocking close to 90 minutes, and rising. Almost everyone here has now asked me over the past couple of days "Do you think you'll keep this up?" The answer is of course no. There are going to be points along the way in this coming year that daily writing of any kind, let alone for an hour, is going to prove to be challenging.

My fear is of course, stopping. It's a fear because this is a new thing that I am trying to make as a habit and to do so requires a certain amount of discipline and committment that I tend to lack as I am not an overly intrinsically motivated individual in many respects. Give me a deadline damnit! Make me responsible to someone other than myself for this, whatever "this" happens to be. I'm totally good at that. This self-motivated one though, quite a bit tougher.

It's kinda like the gym. But whatever.

And the same is true for the morning stretching, which is also something I want to keep going.

Well today we are heading off for Cape Breton for a few days, and with eight of us in the house and wanting to leave by 9am, and stuff to be done, I broke with my carefully crafted and natient routine, and instead of stretching went straight for the shower, and am now writing what I hope to be a quick blog.

So I am nervous. I'm also busy justifying my choice, which is likely the sign of me feeling guilty about it. I'm also telling myself I can stretch tonight at the hotel, or in little ways along the way during the day. Again, we'll see how it goes.

Anyway, the point to all of this is that we'll see how the blogging goes when we actually get busy with stuff. And I'm guessing the next three days are going to be a test of that. I'm also curious about how this changes how Facebook and Twitter get used. I have a FB account which I kinda use. I made a Twitter account expressly for this trip, but aside from following (and ignoring) Neil Gaiman and Christopher Moore, I haven't done boo with it. Guess we'll see.

Now, if we were to ignore the above then the entry about yesterday would go something like this: (starting my timer)

Yesterday was a fun, if quiet day. It started quite late, which may have something to do with us all going to bed shortly before 3am earlier that morning. Breakfast ended up being around 2pm at a restaurant whose name I unfortunately do not remember (and know one is around right now to ask) with everyone except Philip and Meara present. The lot of breakfasting folk then headed off to Mahone Bay for a looksee and walk-about.

Mahone Bay is about 15 minutes away from Lunenburg and is quite lovely, though the word I would use to describe it would be quiet. In some ways too quiet. Good things happened though, including ice cream, where Meara and Philip happened to appear - nice timing by the way, and a pint at the Mug & Anchor - yes I can remember names of pubs. We then headed off to find a park to play some frisbee in. This was perfect as we were all feeling a little sluggish I think, and the tossing of the disc about was better for us then the nap we really felt we wanted. I'm using "we" alot, and it's not fair to put us all in the same mindset, as we weren't. Heather and Philip actually headed back to the house to get stuff done and for Heather to get a quick nap in as she has, on top of all this, been rather busy with work. So my apologies for the "we" and for generalizing the group dynamic. Consider it a casualty of trying to write quicker. That said that bit starting with "I'm using..." was just added in an edit as I spell and grammar check myself. Now back to the original draft.

Then it was off to celebrate Heather's birthday at Rime in Lunenburg. Did I mention that is was Heather's birthday? Dinner was wonderful. And my Dad should get a kick out of that name. Sorry Dad, no albatross present, and we did drink a great deal of water. Post dinner was a trip down to sit on the dock as Heather was very much wanting to. Another fine moment of peace, sitting on a bench, looking out over bay and listening to wind and the water. Then home for cake and getting the house in order for us all to head off to Cape Breton. A fine day in all.

Time.

So there we have it, there's me writing a little bit about yesterday. Feels kinda like a list. Gotta work on that.

The Origins of Orange

 Um...

Arthur?

Helloooooo?

Arthur?

Alright, so I can't speak for the rest of the province, nor the events leading up to Arthur visiting Lunenburg. What I can say though is that, by the time Arthur meandered on in to the home of the Bluenose, he had become the driest hurricane imaginable. No rain. Loads of wind, but no rain, or such little rain that you hardly noticed. And the wind had abated and was a mild 40-60 km/hr as opposed to Arthur's raging 120 km/hr gusts. Guess he was getting tired. It's been a long few days for the fellow. Perhaps he was no longer a hurricane. I'm not sure. What I was sure of though, as was everyone else in the house, was that we would not be spending the day crouching low in the house playing, as I had predicted, 10 matches of Apples to Apples, or Philip had suggested, having a crockinole tournament. We had certainly prepared for such an event. We had even gotten chips. Well, chips can be eaten in a car.

It was time to go and meet Arthur.

We all, but Heather who had to work, piled in to the two cars and set off. I with Philip and Meara taking the lead, and the boys with Marc and Sherri following close behind. Philip was to be our guide for the day, taking us along the coast to various beaches so that we could see, not only the holy splendour that is the coastal regions of the province of Nova Scotia in and around the Lunenburg area, but also Arthur playing in the ocean waves. Sure, there may be no rain, and the winds may have cut back a tad, but the waves, they were a' crashin' and we were off to see them.

First stop was Hirtles Beach.

As you can see, or maybe not as its just a picture and not video, the waves were fantastic. Arthur had certainly got them going. And I had the opportunity to learn what the signs at Peggy's Cove were referring to when they said that the black rocks were unsafe because of the danger of "sudden waves". We were all just standing there, watching them (the waves) come at us in, well, waves. All seemed fine. All seemed normal. And then all of a sudden we're running for higher ground to keep the water from getting up to our ankles. Philip had been the one closest and the water got up as high as his waist. Philip is a pretty tall guy. All the previous waves hadn't even come close to his toes. Philip was now quite wet. So yes, lesson for all you kids out there, and more importantly to people who think that these signs posted in Peggy's Cove and elsewhere aren't meant for them, or that you'll somehow be able to see it coming and get out of the way. You won't. Each year a few people get swept out to sea at Peggy's Cove because they choose to ignore these warnings. Darwin Award contender or not, don't be one of these people.

But lets hear it for towels, strong winds, and heated seats, as Philip was dry again in short order.

By the way, here is a selfie the boys did at the beach. They were going for The Joshua Tree look. Nice eye eh?

Our drive carried us along the coast of the LaHave river. LaHave is actually where Champlain first landed when arriving in the new world. While there he took the time to survey the area including Hirtles Beach where we had just been. Champlain soon upped and moved to what is now Quebec but LaHave, for a short time anyway, was the capital of New France. Apparently though they don't make a big deal of it. I wonder why?

What is made a big deal of in LaHave however is the LaHave Bakery.  And rightfully so.

It's a wonderfully charming place, with a simple and very tasty menu, and yummy bread and baked goods. And it smells great. What, I ask you, compares to the smell of a good bakery?

In the same building is a shop supporting local artists and artisans, so we took a look around it for a short while. I believe the find of the day was made by Philip and then purchased by Jake.

As I may have mentioned previously the boys are going to be doing school online during our travels. One of the course Jake is taking is visual art, which requires, amongst other things, a sketchbook in which you, yes, you guessed it, sketch stuff. We've already purchased a sketchbook for Jake from the local stationary and art supply shop near our home in Toronto. It's good, but it's your typical sketchbook. What we found at this lovely shop in LaHave however, well, this is a sketchbook that is worthy of travelling around the world and capturing one's images of said world. It's exquisite. It's also a bit bulky, and not necessarily the most practical sketchbook to bring along when you're trying to pack right. But it'll be totally worth it.

I play the piano. Kinda okay. Never studied it really, so self-taught with all the bad habits that come along with that. I also own a piano. And I like my piano. When I went shopping for what turned out to be it about 10 years ago I played about 40 different pianos within the price range I was looking for, until I found the one that  "fit". Every so often though I like to go into Remenyi's or some other piano place in Toronto and play some of the high-end concert grands they have kicking about. And you know what, I play better. I totally step up and am such a better player, and also become better at improvisation. It all flows in a different way. I can't possibly play at the level worthy of the instrument, but man dancing my fingers across those keys elevates me to a level my humble little piano couldn't do. I think this sketchbook could be like that. It's really nice. (No pressure dude.)

We decided to start heading back home along a different route.

Now, it's amazing what happens when you ask the right question. For example, at breakfast yesterday morning Noah asked the question "What came first? The colour orange, or the fruit orange?"

It turns out that the fruit came first. While entering into use in middle english via the old french "orenge", it finds it's roots in the sanskrit "naranga", meaning orange tree, and then up through the Persian "naranj" and well, you can see how it would happen. The place name Orange is actually named after a roman-celtic settlement Arausio, but don't ask me how that one happened. Importantly though, or perhaps not, the House of Orange, presumably in this place, adopted the colour of oranges in the 16th century, which eventually lead to it being associated with Protestantism. And somehow this explains why the Dutch modified carrots and why they all have such brightly coloured heads at the World Cup. Important stuff here people!

Philip looked it up while we were eating and filled us all in, but I admit to sneaking a peak at Wikipedia this morning to read through it a bit more.

Well, Noah was on a roll yesterday because the other question he asked was: "What happens when you throw a frisbee in a hurricane?" The answer it turns out is this:

Yep, along the way home we found a field and played frisbee with Arthur for a little bit. Arthur is not the best to play with. He tries to steal the frisbee a lot, and worse, his aim is lousy; but heck, he's a dry, quieting down hurricane, what do you want? What I will say though, is that it was much, much fun. So it's important to ask questions, and it's even more important to go and find the answers to them.

Frisbee, or it's non-trademarked equivalent, will be one of those things we'll be doing along the way as we travel. Both boys have played Ultimate at one point or another, and I have always wanted to be in a beach party movie from the 50's, so it should work out pretty well. Besides, they're flat, so pack easily. Why wouldn't you take one?

Home for dinner, a failed attempt at bowling (as their power went out just as I was about to toss my first ball), and back home for a couple of family-friendly rounds of Apples to Apples and a non-family-friendly mega-round of Cards Against Humanity.

I think I may need to caveat my comment about the importance of asking questions.

Batten Down the Hatches

Arthur was on its way, so first thing yesterday morning saw Philip and I tidying up the outside, getting everything, and I mean, everything put away. When you're expecting 120 km/hr winds, its best to batten things down rather than try and find them later.

I've never had a big backyard. Growing up in Toronto's westend and living in a house meant, for us anyway, having a modest backyard. Which was fine, we were busy playing in the street - something that is now, if not actually a finable offense, seriously frowned upon. Quite the shame really, as I don't think there was anything more fun as a kid then a group of us playing foot hockey with a tennis ball and using the sidewalk cement dividing lines as goalposts. Yes, lots of trips and skinned knees, and yes, lots of timeouts when someone who was actually paying attention yelled "car!". But all good fun, and easy to access.

It's amazing how much stuff one young girl and her friends can distribute across a large space in a short amount of time. Meara is a fine example of such a girl. I will guarantee you that collection time takes far, far longer than distribution time. I'm sure there's a formula for it. Have to ask Marc later. Needless to say Philip and I got the job done. Hatches consider yourself battened.

The boys of this particular crowd (Philip, Marc, Noah, Jake and myself) had been invited by Philip to join him at a pub The Knot Pub for his regular Friday lunch with a group of friends. What a great pub. What great friends. Normally there are about seven or eight of them that turn out, however this time there were only two others, Steve and Tom. I'm not sure quite what Steve does now, but I do know he originally hailed from Kent and has spent the past 25 years or so sailing various parts of the world, running restaurants, and the like. Tom I believe originally hailed from Maine and has been living in Lunenburg for quite some while. Tom is an optometrist. This figures into the story momentarily.

Philip had crab cakes. The rest of us had chowder. The Knot Pub makes amazing chowder. While there is a seafood chowder, there is also a mussel chowder. I had that one. It was delicious. And please, when thinking chowder do not envision the New England stuff slithering forth from a can of Chunky soup. This chowder was, well, the best chowder I've ever had. At this point I am thinking I should possibly get over my reluctance to photograph food as a picture would really be helping me out here.

Jake had woken up with a bit of blood in the white of his eye. This is the eye that is currently black. This is due to the trampoline incident that happened a few days back. I kinda brought it up before. Anyway, this is pretty typical behaviour for a black eye however it was still something to be a wee bit concerned about. And hey, look, there's Jake sitting beside an optometrist, both of them eating chowder. How's that for convenient?

Tom was marvelous. He was happy to take a quick look there at the pub, where he incidently pronounced Jake's black eye to be the most perfect black eye he has seen - which is saying something coming from a guy who looks at eyes all day long. He also gave a quick assurance that it was probably nothing more than a subconjunctival hemorrhage, which while long in name is short in concern and incidently isn't actually in the white of the eye but in this thin layer of skin in front of the eye. That said, just to be on the safe side, he offered to see us at his clinic later in the day. How cool is Tom? Tom is cool.

This worked out well as Philip was off to get a hair cut and Marc, the boys and I were off to another pub The Grand Banker, which has a beautiful view overlooking the harbour which we totally ignored as we had gone there to watch the Germany/France game. Noah's idea, and a good one. Yay Germany! During the game Marc and I busied ourselves trying a flight of local beers - not a fan of the smoked porter but the others six were great. At 2:40 Jake and I departed to make our way the arduous 2 minutes walk to Tom's office. And no, you're right, healthcare cannot get more convenient then it did for us yesterday.

Tom saw Jake pretty quickly and in those 15 minutes or so in his office I learned more about the human eye and the history of optometry and why certain things are the way they are then I have in my life. And here's the thing. Active listening is really underrated. I mean, think of all the things you hear on a daily basis, and ask yourself how much of that information you retain? If you're anything like me it's an astoundingly low percentage. This writing thing though has got me listening even more than usual, and, more importantly, trying to retain as much as I can. Sadly it's still an astounding low percentage. But it's improving, and I'm hoping it continues to go up. So sure, maybe I don't need to know that the reason why machines that measure the pressure in your eyeball are calibrated for a cornea thickness of about 550 nanometers is because, based upon the cadaver eyeballs they measured initially optometrist thought that all corneas are about that. Turns out a healthy cornea can be anywhere from 540 to 560. Guess we're just a little more alike when we're dead? It's fun knowing it though. And who knows when it may come in handy. Information is funny that way. It's amazing what we know that we don't even know we know until we need to use it, and suddenly, there it is on the tip of our tongue making us sound cleverer than we actually are.

After a successful visit with Tom, success because Jake's eye is totally fine, not because I learned that there really is no difference between 20 feet and infinity when measuring refraction and visual acuity, or something like that (like I said, not retaining much), Jake and I met up with Marc and Noah and went out for a walk along the waterfront where we eventually happened upon the Bluenose II. Yes, the Bluenose, that ship on the back of the dime. It's home is Lunenburg, and having recently had a lot of work done to "restore" it, it continues to wait for additional changes to its steering mechanism before it is deemed sea worthy. This is actually a reasonably sized controversy as I understand it as the shipwrights in Lunenburg were not used to do the work - it was farmed out to a US consulting group and some other groups in Ontario. Those groups did not actually consult with the captain and crew as for some reason many consultants like to not ask the end user for their opinions  I mean, why would they know anything, right? Right?

But the waste of millions of dollars, and loss of the Bluenose II being at sea meant a big win for the four of us because we got to see it up close and also got a chance to chat with Gale, a member of the crew who happened along and was happy enough to chat with us about this wonderful schooner. I will say that the above editorial about what's been going on did not come from Gale but from other chats I've had with Philip and the gang. Gale steered us clear of such topics. I'm sure she'll handle the Bluenose with an equal finesse, assuming of course they fix the steering. And no matter what anyone says, she is a gorgeous vessel.

We ended up having to breakout of where the Bluenose was, the gates having been locked up while we were still in. Fences are made to be climbed though.

Having escaped, we returned home for a quiet evening and late dinner of that ceviche I mentioned Philip had been making. So simple yet so delicious. Fresh scallops, cut and marinated in lemon for about 24 hours, combined with diced tomato and fresh basil. Oh so good. I think it might have to do with us eating this on Friday and the scallops still having been in the sea on Wednesday. Could be wrong though. Ya never know.

With Arthur expected to come a knockin' sometime late in the night we did a final internal battening down, fortified ourselves with a touch of rum from The Ironworks Distillery, and turned in to await the storm.

Markets, Pipes, and Hobbit Holes

Thursday was a great day. Thursday started with Philip and I walking down to the farmer's market that happens at the arena near his home each Thursday morning. Good thing we didn't try this the day before. We started with the seafood truck parked in the lot outside the arena. The fellow was on the phone when we approached, but was soon done. The usual pleasantries were exchanged and when Philip asked how the gentleman was doing today the answer was a refreshingly honest "Not so good". You see, there's a hurricane coming. It's due late tonight, and into tomorrow. It's name is Arthur. We're hoping it will cut down to a tropical storm level (meaning that the 'eye' has collapsed I learned), but the winds are still expected to be up and around 120 km/hr.

So his "not so good" was coming from a very real place. His boats were all coming in early, and at once, which meant that there was suddenly lots of stock. Given that other boats were also likely coming in, it means that they'll all likely not be able to sell all of their stock. Too much in too little a time. Meanwhile his various crews are calling in to find out what the plan will be. Will they be going out Saturday? What does he think is going to happen?

Apparently tracking a hurricane is no easy business, and predicting what is going to happen as it travels up the coast, across water, across land, (I'm out of options) is somewhat of a crap shoot. There may be a hurricane tomorrow, there may not. It could suddenly curve left and miss this part of Nova Scotia all together. Last year they predicted it would be a really hard hurricane season, and it wasn't. This year they've predicted it would be a light season and the first one is coming in the beginning of July. They normally start late summer. So ya, who knows. I certainly don't. But I can understand how the uncertainty can make for a "not so good" day for a man whose livelihood is dependent upon the weather.

So we bought about 5lbs of scallops that we'll be eating tonight. Some will be wrapped in bacon we got from the market from Philip's "pig guy", and the rest done up as a ceviche. And then we wandered into the market, picked up fresh vegetables, bread, eggs, goat squeaky cheese; relaxed with a coffee and people watched for a bit before heading back home.

The afternoon saw Marc, Sherri, Noah, Jake and I heading off to Halifax by way of Peggy's Cove. I've had the opportunity to drive along a similar route one time when I was Halifax, however I've never actually been to Peggy's Cove so this indirect route that we decided upon after having already hit the road to Halifax was a welcome one.

That's Jake.

At Peggy's Cove we basically beelined directly to the rocks around the lighthouse, so I can't really say anything useful about Peggy's Cove as a town, other than what I saw as we drove up the hill to park by the information centre was picturesque to say the least. Sitting on granite worn smooth by the water and watching said water crash up against said rock was the most peaceful moment of this trip thus far. I'm looking forward to many more of these moments. What I can't decide though is which is more hypnotic: watching the flames of a camp fire, or the waves crashing. More data required.

We headed on for Halifax, Marc seeming to very much enjoy the windy coastal roads. Seeing all of these homes, docks and small boats along the way I was reminded of the conversation with the fella we had bought scallops from that morning. Everyone is going to be affected in some very real way by Arthur. I think of the griping I hear about weather in Toronto, and while I will admit that there have been times when the weather has definitely had significant negative impact, I somehow don't think it is anywhere near as "real" this. If that makes any sense.

On to Halifax where we lunched on fish and chips from the first food truck we saw down by the boardwalk. I think Noah put it best when he commented that the fish was like butter. A walk along the boardwalk had us conveniently at a Cape Breton tourist centre; convenient because this is where we are going for a few days starting Monday and we hadn't planned a bit of it yet. The folk there were extremely helpful and we walked away with a few booklets and a map with too many things circled on it for us to see in the three days we will be there. No problem, we'll figure it out.

Marc, the boys and I then continued on to the Halifax Citadel, the first of the forts built around Halifax during the war of 1812, and designed to protect the city, not from sea attacks, but from land attacks. It now protects the city from the university. There are, or at least were, other forts much closer to the ocean that do the job of protecting from that side of things. The current Citadel was actually built post the war of 1812 when the British decided they wanted a more permanent fortress there. (Or at least that is what I recall from reading one of the many plaques. - I like plaques.)

I have concluded though that defense of Halifax was actually placed into the hands of Hobbits. I provide the following photo of a hobbit hole as evidence.

Though I could be wrong. Sadly history does not speak of the heroism of Hobbits and the role they played in defending Halifax from US invasion. Okay, I'm likely wrong.

Oh, and I got to hear bagpipes. I LOVE bagpipes. This made me very happy again. And peaceful. Yes, bagpipes are peaceful. They're relaxing to listen to. Seriously.

Sherri had not joined us at the Citadel so we went off to meet her at a tea shop and en route we got to hear the pipes again. Then it was back in the car and off to Lunenburg for a late dinner and an initial planning session for our trip to Cape Breton.

There are so many things to see and do in Cape Breton.  Music, food, parks, towns, inland sea, historic sites, miner musuems. How to make choices? I actually don't know the answer. There are too many possibilities. It's kinda like a mini version of the choices we have ahead for the year. We can't do it all. So we pick things, or we keep it loose and see what presents itself in any given moment, and we do our best to remind ourselves to not be disappointed by what didn't happen, and just pour ourselves into the things that do.

As a friend reminded me via a Facebook message yesterday: "Be prepared to modify your plan."

Paddling Pugilist

I have no idea how to punch someone in the face, and because of this my shoulders are killing me this morning. Based upon yesterday evening, if I were trying to punch someone in the face using my right arm, I would more than likely grab their belt and toss them behind me with my left. Likely a good technique for judo, but totally wrong when it comes to sea kayaking.

Yep, sea kayaking. Did I mention that Philip works from time to time as a guide? And he is an excellent teacher to boot. I am just a poor pupil - there is a litany of educational professionals who will attest to that I am sure.

Yesterday was a nice relaxing day. Out and about in Lunenburg for awhile. Jake was feeling a bit off so he and I headed home and relaxed to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I will forego telling you what filled in the blank for Harry Potter and the ****** when we were playing Cards Against Humanity later last night. Oh, and to tie a bow on why Jake was feeling a bit off, and Privacy Point #1 from yesterday's post, you can check this out.

Everyone else got home mid afternoon and a little while later, with Jake feeling much better, and the cars all packed up, we headed to Pleasant Paddling in Blue Rocks NS, which is, as promised by their brochure, minutes from Lunenburg.

It was, in a word, fantastic.

We arrived shortly after 5pm or so. Craig, the owner and operator, was just coming in with a tour of folk that I think were from Texas. Philip had started to get us sorted out, signing papers, collecting gear, and all that. Soon enough we had pulled four double kayaks down to the water, had our PFD's nicely zipped up, and were standing on the road learning the basics of kayak paddling. Note: these are not weapons.

Kayaking is a fun experience, one which I enjoyed immensely despite my poor form. And this was one of the few definite things we wanted to do while in Lunenburg, so I am very, very happy that we were all able to do it. You see, for the past few years, Marc, Noah, Jake, and I have been going on canoe trips in Algonquin. Portaging. Four or so days, different camp site each night. Paddle. Hike with a canoe on your head. Paddle. More hiking. Paddle. Get stuck on a beaver damn you should have avoided and swamp the canoe. Paddle. Set up camp. With the boys and I leaving the country July 15th, our canoe trip is not going to happen, so the opportunity for us to spend some time on the water together with Marc was very important. We've actually planned to have the four of us and Philip do an overnight on Sacrifice Island this coming weekend however there is apparently a hurricane coming in - they're starting early this year - so we've thought better of that and have decided to skip the camping.

But yesterday evening on the water was great. I've never been kayaking before, and it did not disappoint, despite me paddling like a canoer and not a kayaker. I highly recommend it, and hopefully I'll one day develop the correct technique and not feel like Quasimodo the next day, despite stretching last night and this morning. Yes, I'm trying to stretch more often. It's a thing I'm trying to make a thing. Lord knows my legs are so damn tight that I need the next several month to get into some kind of reasonable shape or I will totally hobble myself should we try for the Everest Base Camp trek we've been talking about doing in Nepal. More on that in about eight months.

We were out for nearly four hours in total. Paddling through some of the many islands that make up Blue Rocks, stopping for dinner a la Coleman stove on Heckmans Island, and then paddling back. Along the way Philip was an excellent guide, providing us with some of the history of Blue Rocks, both geological and social. Slate and sandstone that is so craggy it looks like tree bark. The house that was Tom Selleck's character Jesse Stone's house in the Jesse Stone tv movies. Apparently this landmark attracts a certain demographic of paddling tourist. And apparently Magnum PI once, or possibly still has, property in NS. Neat. I really liked Magnum. Zeus! Apollo! Run Magnum Run! Seals. We couldn't get closer than 200 metres to them as we didn't want to disturb, but there they were in all their glory. Seals. Passing under the last remaining bridge connecting a couple of the Blue Rock Islands.

There used to be many bridges connecting the islands together. The height of the community was the 20's, with fishing and agriculture being the primary forms of business, or so I am told. Hurricanes in 1926-27, awhile before there were hurricane warnings, marked the beginning of the communities decline, however it's decline can be attributed to what I suspect the decline of many of these smaller communities across Canada and the rest of the world can be attributed to - "modern living". The school in Lunenburg was better than the local one. Better motors on boats made it easier for people to live further from where they worked. No longer did you need to be right on the water where you fished. There are still homes on several of the islands, and some lovely ones based upon our paddle by, but the bridges are gone. Lack of use leads to disrepair leads to collapse, and now there is one.

It's a beautiful part of Canada, and I am very happy we got the opportunity to paddle around a small piece of it. I'm looking forward to coming back and paddling through more. But first I need to learn how to punch someone in the face.

Happy Canada Day

Yes, this post is a day late, but I find myself forming the habit of writing in the morning about the previous day, and yesterday morning I didn't feel quite up to writing so, for two, I think, very good reasons, today is the day I wish everyone Happy Canada Day from Lunenburg Nova Scotia.

We arrived two nights ago shortly after 7pm having spent the day driving through New Brunswick where we got to travel across the Hartland covered bridge not once, but twice! Yes people, twice! Why do you care? Why am I excited? Why twice for heaven's sake? Well, the Hartland covered bridge, at 391 metres, is the world's longest covered bridge. While crossing it was not required to get us where we we were going, hence crossing it again, it was a required activity, well, just cuz. I'm sure you understand. The boys and I made the return crossing by foot.

Look! Now with pictures! I finally took the time to find an easy to use resize app for my android tablet. See, I didn't want to be uploading all of these 6Mb pictures to the blog. You may not care about how your bandwidth gets used, but I certainly do. Anyway, most of the free photo editors I had found in Google Play don't actually resize images. Yes I am about to complain about something that is free, but don't get me started on what the actual price of "free" is these days when it comes to services and apps available online And you wonder why so many people seem to have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement.

Are blog and rant synonymous?

Anyway, I finally got clever, actually my friend Marc did and I was listening, so I searched under image resize and low and behold Resized. Tada! Easy to install, easy to use, and now I can break up the monotony of my endless babble with pretty pictures of stuff along the way.

The taller one is Noah. The one you can see is Jake. I'm the one taking the picture. Expect this to be a trend in the coming year, unless of course Jake has an enormous growth spurt. Could happen.

Anyway, we travelled across the bridge a couple of times. Sherri even got a certificate for proof. The Lion's Club offers them for $2.00 as a fundraiser. An excellent investment if you're looking for some sort of certificate to frame and hang behind your desk in case you're wanting to add a bit of professionalism into your working atmosphere, assuming of course you have a desk. As long as no one reads it you should be okay.

I digress. You may have noticed.

We stopped for a late lunch at Catch 22 in Moncton. This may be old news if we're friends on Facebook. Fish 'n Chips and Lobster rolls all around. Very good. Highly recommended.

We arrived at our friends Philip and Heather's in Lunenburg, as I mentioned already, about 7ish. Philip and Heather are friends of all of ours going back various spans depending on if you're Marc, Sherri, me or Noah and Jake. Suffice to say they are wonderful people we love to spend time with and have gotten to do so pretty consistently the past few New Years when they visit Kitchener, but the boys and I have never been out to visit them before. Hence one of the reasons for coming out east.

Now, I'm not sure how to handle this part, so bear with me. I'm quite aware of the fact that what I write in this blog is not just about me, it is about who I am with, and who we may meet along the way. Things happen to each of us. Some of them are shared, some of them are unique to the individual. While I get to choose what I write about for my own experiences here, I don't believe I have carte blanche to write about everyone else. So I ask first, and if the answer is "no thank you" then I don't write about it. And that is what happened at this point.  That said I need to cap off the end of the first evening in Lunenburg (or perhaps I don't and am just not a good enough writer to figure out how to gracefully seque into yesterday) and I don't want to lie and say we had a nice quiet evening chatting because we didn't. Perhaps at a point in the future I'll be able to fill this in, but for now I'll just label this point Privacy Point #1 and move on. Oh, I will add though that everyone is okay, and that there is nothing at all for anyone to worry about. Promise.

Canada Day was a quiet day for us, and apparently that is true for much of Lunenburg, and the rest of Nova Scotia. Who knew? Bu there you go.

We spent the day hanging out at Philip and Heather's (a theme for the coming week by the way) and were joined by their friends (in fine east coast tradition now our friends too) Craig, his daughter Betsy, and Chris and Selena, and their kids Astrid, Julian and Sevy. The kids are all in and around Meara's age (that's Philip and Heather's daughter) and they spent the day doing what little kids do  - trampoline, pool, running, screaming. Good times. Quiet is a relative term I guess.

Craig is an arbourist turned distiller at Ironworks Distillery here in Lunenburg. Chris is a hydrogeologist who does ocean surveys and is off to the arctic soon to chart some of our northern sovereign waters, and Selena just finished a very busy two months being one of the production managers for the Right Some Good festival that just happened in Halifax. Basically they all do seriously cool things and were a lot of fun to spend Canada Day with.

Like all good Canada Days there was a barbeque, but there were also lots of mussels, a favourite of everyone's. These were done by Philip. A few different broths, one whose base was Goat Scrotum, a stout beer that Philip has been brewing. Did I mention he was an amatuer brewer? See, cool people. Fun conversation, great food. A wonderful day that ended sitting around the fire pit in the backyard being eaten alive by mosquitoes.

So it was a quiet day, and one which, after a few days of driving, we were all happy to have I suspect.

Happy Birthday Canada. We'll miss you when we go.