Cold and Sunny

Last night we went to a concert at the Osprey - The Hupman Brothers with the full band including Caleb Miles on guitar and Ian Sherwood on sax - Ian just won the Nova Scotia Music Award for best musician of 2010. A fantastic show - the Osprey was sold out. Ryan and Scott released a new CD - Loveseat Vol 1 - volume 2 is coming in the new year. Can't wait.

It was a cool, blustery night driving in to Shelburne and by the time the show ended at 11:00PM it was snowing lightly (not seriously). This morning I awoke to a dusting on the car roofs and the flatter house roofs and down in the shade at the bottom of the yard but it's all gone now. Sabine posted a picture of their deck in Sable River and it looks like they got 1-2cm - Jane in Truro says they got 2 inches and it's very pretty. Let me go on record as preferring green to white. Wayne and Tim both got up late enough to miss the first snowfall.

One of the great things about last night's concert was that so many of the people we know here (that aren't summer people) were there. Had some nice visits with folks, met another blog reader. Lester passed on the info that the pharmacy fire on November 11th was indeed caused by the pop machine which literally went up in flames - since it was close to the front door it was caught on 2 of the security cameras. Apparently there was smoke damage to things like the lighting fixtures, besides ruining all the stock. So it will be a while till they are back in the store - the temporary place at 16 Spruce, across from the Town Office seems to be drawing the "crowds" away from the Beech/North intersection - went to the bank and it was empty - the tellers say they have realized they are not the big draw - LOL.

I spent Friday in Bridgewater (or mostly in Oak Hill at Atlantic Fabrics). Wayne and Tim are rebuilding our North Parlour - walls, ceiling, trim and a new window seat. I was shopping for materials for the cushion part of the seat which I'll make next spring when we get back from Florida. Forgot a calculator and had a lot of brain stretching to convert the actual bench size into cushion sizes I could wangle out of what foam was available, particularly since I wanted firm foam. Then I had to recalculate the amount of cording needed for piping and the amount of fabric. Of course the fabric I fell in love with had only 4 1/2 yards on the roll and I needed 9 - so compromise fabric was bought - it's actually quite nice - a charcoal with white and gold mix branches pattern, I'm going to pipe it in gold and cover the buttons in gold too. There were a few flurries driving to Bridgewater as I drove through Sable River and again in Danesville - hope serious winter holds off until we can get back to Ottawa. I always worry about the Cobequid Pass drive and the northern part of highway 20 in Quebec from Riviere-du-loup to Quebec City, where the winds blow off the St. Lawrence, causing white-outs.


I've been gradually doing my Christmas baking - some to leave here for Tim and the rest to pack off to Ottawa to my family (kids and grandkids) there. Just finished the red and green pinwheel dough - once it chills and is baked I am done until we get to Ottawa in about a week and a half and I have to ice my cakes and bonbons - may have to make Bob more pinwheels too since the recipe I used seemed to make about half the usual amount of dough. My traditional recipe is in a cookbook in Ottawa, so I used one from one of my Mom's cookbooks that is 75 or so years old.

Lots coming up this week - my last hooking of the fall on Tuesday, Thursday we have 9 guests coming for our annual American Thanksgiving (thanks to Aunt Grace and my mother-in-law, Tommie, (both now deceased) for getting us started so many years ago). Friday we'll be back to the Osprey for a Basement Theatre production of Hay Fever by Noel Coward, Saturday it's Irish Mythen at the Sea Dog Saloon. Sunday is our 35th anniversary but we're celebrating on Saturday since Wayne has hockey on Sunday evening in Barrington. Our present this year is an Ottawa Senators game when we are back in Ottawa.

We plan to head to Ottawa on the 29th of November and I plan to arrive on the 30th (I just have to convince the driver (Wayne) we're stopping overnight instead of driving 16-17 hours straight). Tim is staying in Lockeport to look after the house and cats so I may have news passed on occasionally over the winter - otherwise you'll be hearing about Canada's capital and the Pensacola area.