Back in the Saddle Again!

Once again I've been getting complaints about my lack of output. Of course we were away from Lockeport for over 5 months between visiting Ottawa for the birth of grandchild number 4 (Benjamin Theodore Henry Cooper, December 4th, 2011),
 Christmas, our 3 months in Perdido Key, FL, and a return vsist to Ottawa to re-visit Ben,  and all the rest of the family. We have now been back in Lockeport for over 2 weeks so I guess it's time to get off my duff.

There have been a few changes during our absence - nothing too major but here are a few pictures.

 The beginnings of a new B&B next to the Legion on Beech St. Apparently they plan to use the kitchen and dining area of the little building Peter had renovated as a soup/sandwich place as well as feeding the B&B customers - at the rate building is progressing it may be open next year.

 The new gazebo kitty-corner from Town Hall - hopefully it will look better with some landscaping and flowers. It seems to be the same  model as in front of the high-school - I guess I expected something more of the dimensions of a band-stand gazebo - this is quite disappointing to me.

The new walkways and porch to the Little School Museum are complete - looks good, hope it's all enough if we get hit by more hurricane waters. Howard and Anne were painting the inside of the museum this week - now Cheryl has to move all the displays in and set them up yet again.

This is the current mess across from Fred's house where the crumby old trailers were finally removed. It still doesn't look very nice - I assume this stuff will be removed too eventually.

Other changes - Vanessa has closed her gift shop, all three local restaurants are for sale (yet the new B&B will include a restaurant - strange). At least the Parrot's Pins remains open (and serving delicious food as usual). Liz is advertising for servers for the summer so I guess The White Gull will be reopening too.  According to the last census (2011), our population is down to 585 or so - steadily declining. When we bought our house in 2002 the population was 702.