Night on the Town

Saturday evening (April 23rd, 2011) we spent at a concert at the Osprey Arts Centre in Shelburne with our friend Gail. The performers were Erin Costelo and Ryan MacGrath, both musicians with wonderful voices. Erin plays piano while singing, Ryan guitar. They both write their own songs and it's always fun to hear the background of the songs as they are performed. Erin will be appearing at Harmony Bazaar this summer - it will be interesting to see how her musical style transfers to the great outdoors.

Unfortunately the crowd was very small - about 30 people including volunteers, most of them from the Lockeport area so gas-wise it would have been cheaper to have the concert somewhere here. But it was fun and we got to see several friends.

Catching up on news during the evening, I discovered that one of my good friends (Alice) has moved into beautiful downtown Lockeport from the Walls Lake area and that the Shelburne bookstore, The Whirligig, has been sold after being for sale for several years. Betty will finish out the month and then the new owners (more transplanted Ontario people) will reopen May 24th. Hopefully, they will continue to support the Osprey and sell tickets in their store.

What's Happening Now?

 Here are some shots of the work done this spring to bolster the dunes along the beach (work done by Harlow Construction). Stones/boulders have been added all along in front of Ocean Mist Cottages, down past the Little School Museum. On the road side, 2 sections of reinforcing boulders have been added. At the Beach Centre end of the beach, the dunes have been piled higher, apparently by scooping out the beach. Unfortunately only about 10% of the money required to do the whole beach properly was available, but I guess it's better than nothing - hopefully we'll survive a few more hurricanes before becoming an island.

 Peter's renovations of the little store between the Town & Country and the Legion look very nice - helps improve the Beech Street street-scape which is looking very nice along the north side of the street.

On the restaurant scene, The Parrots Pins is the only one operating right now -both the T&C ($79,900) and The White Gull ($1.5M - including the Marina) are still for sale. Peter will be doing something food related with his new building we hope. There of course are some offerings for take-out at The Town Market and Beech Street Studios little cafe.

The Bayman in Upper East Green Harbour soldiers on but rumour has it that The Chef's Table in Sable River will not be opening this year due to Zaari's bad back - hope that is wrong.

In Shelburne, both The Loyalist Inn and The SeaDog are open and offering weekend entertainment. Lothar's is for sale but still operating on occasion (Easter brunch and dinner (going to that!! - Lothar's roast lamb!), Mother's Day) - no word on whether he will open for the entire summer season. Charlotte Lane is firing up - opening Mother's Day weekend. Roli and Kath have had some postings to their revised web-site (did I ever mention that Charlotte Lane won the best small restaurant in NS award last fall? - It is such a gem!!). Luong's, Scotia Lunch, Mr. Fish and Sophia's are still there, as are the 2 pizza places, Subway and Tim Horton's and, of course, The Beandock, one of my favourite places. Don't know yet if the yacht club will have Mr. Fish offerings again this summer. The old Shelburne Pastry?Cafe has been bought by Heritage Hall, which has moved their offices to the top floor. Some of the Shelburne clients will be trained to run the cafe with simple soups and sandwiches (supposedly), no known date for when that part will open.

There don't seem to be a lot of changes around Lockeport since we left at the end of November. Bevin has re-opened Lockeport Pharmacy, totally renovated after the November 11th fire. It is very clean and modern with a generous area for the actual pharmacy work now across the back of the store. Very nice job! Bevin and Tatum now have another son, Daniel - so 3 little ones to bolster the school population in a couple of years.

I've been having foot problems like 7-8 years ago so I haven't really walked anywhere in town since we've been back. I'm relying on Wayne and Tim for pictures and info. I have made it to the Post Office and Harmony Bazaar again has an office on the ground floor of the government building. Good to see the organization keep going and growing. Tomorrow evening they are sponsoring (with Music Nova Scotia) a Bringing It Home concert with Erin Costello and Ryan McGrath  at the Osprey. Erin is appearing at Harmony Bazaar this summer (July 29-31). Advance tickets (which include a compilation CD) are on sale now.

We've attended 2 breakfasts since returning - the first one in Sable River as a fund-raiser for Jurnee Harlow and Kyle who are representing LRHS in August at a school raising in Kenya. The second was the (almost) monthly Legion breakfast here in Lockeport.

In the house, we are working on the north parlour (still) - currently scraping off old paint on trim before repainting. Wisely we have decided to hire Mike McCleod to do the crown moulding for us - 12 corners is just too many, we could waste a lot of wood! Tim did a good job of removing paint from the floor and plastering and priming while we were gone. Wayne just finished the top for the window seat so I now need to try and follow Kristina's instructions on how to make seat cushions for the space. We are working on a colour scheme for the rest of the room - debating painting the old coal fireplace some colour other than black, since it is non-operational it can be painted out. Maybe grey shades with white trim to make the mouldings pop - then do we make the fireplace darker or lighter? Hmmmmm.....

Today is my birthday and I made my wonderful Death By Chocolate cake (17oz of semisweet chocolate plus 4 tbsps of cocoa). Dawn Demings-Taylor is coming over to share some after dinner since it's her birthday too. Happy Birthday to us!

Newsflash from Lockeport

We're in Florida for another 10 days or so, then heading home via South Carolina (visit with old friend from my university days), then Ottawa (3 of our sons and their families) so we'll be back in Lockeport mid-April or so.


I was just chatting on FaceBook with our son in Lockeport and he said:

"It's been really nice the past week or so. 10-15 degrees and sunny during the day. They've been moving some stones around on the beach. I'm sure they're trying to do something, but to me it looks like dad with a backhoe. They're just moving rocks from one spot to another."

I interpret this as meaning something is being done about protecting/reinforcing the dunes so the causeway won't wash out  Good news!

Hay Fever

Last night we attended the Basement Theatre's opening performance of Noel Coward's "Hay Fever" at the Osprey. Excellent set (several Shelburne homes must be missing a few antiques for a while) and costumes, good acting, lots of fun!

Judy Day as Judith Bliss, Pat Melanson as Sandy Tyrell and Angela Johnson as Myra Arundel were particularly good, as was May Lee Gonzaga as the maid, Clara. Appropriate 1920's music was played beforehand and during the intermissions.

A wonderful directorial debut for Ian Anderson - thanks!

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.

November News

Well, as usual for this time of year, we are back to very few restaurants. In Lockeport, only the Parrot's Pins is open now (Tuesday-Saturday). The White Gull and Town & Country (A-1 Pizza this summer) are closed and both up for sale again/still. Although A-1 seemed to be doing well leasing the T&C, apparently the family member running it has moved to the Valley or something, so they gave up the lease. The Town market offers some take-out meals and the Lydgate Corner Store has some sandwiches and such

The Chef's Table in Sable River is closed and may not reopen in the spring since Zaari is opening a restaurant in Liverpool near the Best Western. The Bayman in Upper East Green Harbour remains open 7 days/week as usual (we won one of their excellent pizzas for our Hallowe'en costumes!)

In Shelburne, Lothar's closed in early September as Lothar was asked to return to Halifax to do the catering on a movie set - the restaurant is now for sale. As is the old Shelburne Cafe/Pastry next door (still). Charlotte Lane closed very briefly for medical reasons (Roland) but he's all fixed up and they are back in business until Christmas (Tuesday-Saturday). The Loyalist Inn has a liquor license as of late September and is now open for all 3 meals 7 days a week - and looks very nice since the renovations - of course it's for sale too.

The BeanDock, Luong's, Scotia Lunch and Sophia's are all going strong. Sophia's is closed Sunday, Luong's Monday and I think Monique closes the BeanDock on Sunday as well. The SeaDog is still open and presenting entertainment one evening most weeks - this is continuing until at least November 27th (Irish Mythen show). It will likely be closing down for a while as soon as Christmas party season is over.

The Quarterdeck and Seaside Seafoods in Hunt's Point are both closed for the season - very early for Seaside this year.

Port Mouton's restaurant seems to be closed - hard to tell when it's also the office for the cabins, the liquor store and a convenience store.

On the encouraging side, Peter Swim has bought the building in Lockeport between the Town & Country and the Legion and is renovating it - rumour has it it will be an ice-cream parlour next summer.

Yesterday, a new business opened in Lockeport - Vanessa's Flowers and Gifts - in the bottom floor of the building that housed the Little School Museum this summer (under Donna Crosby's apartment). Vanessa has fresh flowers and lots of very nice gift-ware - particularly candles, Christmas items, vases, picture frames etc. Lovely presentation - I hope she is successful. One thing that may help her this year is that there was a fire Thursday morning in the pharmacy and there apparently was a lot of smoke damage although the structure seems to be okay. It was an electrical fire and the shop was closed for Remembrance Day so I guess it smoldered for a while before setting off the alarm. It looks like Bevin has grabbed the bottom floor of the Masons' building to use as a temporary pharmacy - Bell Aliant and Lester (our electrician) were working in there this morning and an alarm company was there yesterday. Hope they get it up and running - we'll need to renew our prescriptions before we leave for Ottawa and Florida in a couple of weeks.

Recently the weather has been simply AWFUL - buckets of rain and very strong winds. The flooding has been terrible and who knows how much infrastructure damage will be revealed when it finally recedes. We went out to dinner in Liverpool at Lane's Privateer Inn (always open, thank God) last night with Gail who lives in Little Port L'Hebert down the East Sable Road - she has to drive through water to get out to the highway for the last week or so. The same is true of the West Sable Road and many others - not to mention the already obviously washed out roads in Yarmouth county, the washed away Tusket bridge and all the flooded homes and cottages. A theory is developing that the extreme flooding is a direct consequence of the interior clear-cutting in Nova Scotia - there is nothing left to contain the run-off.

Today is beautiful though - mid teens, clear blue sky, no wind - a very welcome break.

There was a meeting last week to discuss the future of the Little School Museum (it was going to be moved into the middle of town after the ravages of Hurricane Bill last year). Harlow's didn't seem to feel it was going to survive an attempted move and the front porch and back annex would not have been moved anyway. So the town citizens decided to go back to the previous plan to raise the building a few feet (above where the flooding occurs during storms) since it appears that the Town will be able to do some repair work to the rapidly disappearing dunes behind the Museum (and in other parts of the beach too) - permission for the work has been granted by the powers that be in Halifax and Ottawa, big rocks are available, now they're working on conning some level of government into funding the whole thing. Historically the Little School has always sat where it is and people really wanted to keep it where it is - time will tell if this is the right decision. The Town also plans to look at some pumping system to direct water to the back harbour before it can accumulate into deep puddles or lakes.

An additional item of interest at that meeting was that there seems to be growing support for a Lockeport Museum to house all the many items in storage that are not-school related and for which there is simply not enough room in the Little School. This would be good news for the Historical Society which is also looking for a more suitable home.

That's all for now folks!

Harmony Bazaar 2010

Harmony Bazaar 2010 Headliners - Quartette
L to R
Caitlin, Gwen, Cindy, Sylvia (now 69 yrs young)

A truly fabulous weekend!! Thank you to Errin Williams-Spidle and the rest of the Harmony Bazaar Board of Directors/Committee for yet another wonderful festival - they get better every year.

Welcome Tea - first guest Alice Lloyd

Friday's events began with a Welcome Tea in the Anglican Church Hall. The tea was put on by the Ragged Island Historical Society - scones, clotted cream, lemon curd, jam, fancy tea sandwiches, raw veggies, fancy desserts, tea, coffee, lemonade. Even if I did make some of it myself, I must say the food was very good and visually very appealing.

Guests entered through the church itself where we were playing a selection of CD's by some of the musicians performing this year at the festival. By sheer coincidence, Irish Mythen's CD was playing when she arrived for the tea and Pat Watson's was playing when she came in.

We could have accommodated 72 guests - we had perhaps half that number - we'll need to reassess for next year considering the amount of preparation involved.

Friday's Rising Stars Stage - hosted by Christina Martin (L), Kate Surette, Molly Thomason, Natalie Lynn

Performances began at 7:00PM on our beautiful new stage - those musicians who had been part of HB in previous years were very impressed with the new facility. The weather was wonderful, warm, sunny, little breeze (very helpful to the mosquitoes in finding their targets). When the sun went down, we had a lovely full moon shining down on the stage. There was a good crowd on hand too. The area directly in front of the stage has been concreted over - no more gravel underfoot or mud. The town has also bought another 200 patio chairs so seating was comfortable, easy to stack and move around. Saturday was another great weather day.There is also a wonderful system of 16 ft square canvas walls designed to be hung around the pavilion walls on huge grommets to keep out wind and rain from the audience when needed - a marvellous addition and used fully on Sunday during the windy, foggy, rain storm.

The festival headliners this year were the group "Quartette" - Sylvia Tyson, Cindy Church, Caitlin Handford and Gwen Swick. Their performance closed out the Saturday lineup - a lovely professional concert, particularly pleasing to me were their a cappella songs with their amazing harmonies.
But there were TONS of other wonderful artists on the bill - irrepressible Irish Mythen performed all 3 days, including a CD release Friday evening - she loves to encourage the younger musicians and to bring her friends (new and old) onto the stage to perform with her. She and Coco Love Alcorn and Theresa Doyle were outstanding together
.

Friday - Christina with Coco Love Alcorn, Irish Mythen and Theresa Doyle

We had offered to billet 2 performers and were thrilled with our assigned guests - Christina Martin and Norma MacDonald. Both are very talented and very nice young women - we hope they will return to visit us again. Christina's partner, Dale Murray, from Cuff the Duke stayed with us too. (Christina has decided to join our family so we now have a fourth Chris boys.)

Norma MacDonald hosting the Home Grown Showcase Saturday afternoon


Christina and Dale - Saturday evening

There were 2 breakfasts provided by the Legion and a baked beans and Ham traditional dinner provided by the IODE Saturday evening. Also, at noon Sunday, there was a BBQ and corn boil by the Sable River Volunteer Fire Department. Sunday, an Aboriginal morning sun ceremony was held at the Beach Centre (too much fog and then rain for being out on the beach unfortunately). There were also a craft fair and a vocal workshop and chances for aspiring musicians to meet with industry professionals for advice and some coaching. Saturday there was a late night after-hours dance (we missed that but Tim was working security for it).

Other than the tea Friday, our only real work was on Sunday setting up the Green Room (there is a real one now in the new stage building with a lovely washroom for performers (shower and all), a kitchen area with sink, cupboards, fridge etc. and a lounge area and there are 2 washrooms for the audience on one end of the building as well. The rest of the year, the space will be used by the First Responders (and there is a garage area for their vehicle as well). Because of the weather the entire Sunday show was moved into the Pavilion area so Wayne helped pack up and move the electronics to the smaller protected venue.

We had a marvelous weekend - great shows, good friends, wonderful house guests. Looking forward to next year's Harmony Bazaar - plan to be in Lockeport for the last full weekend in July!

PS - for supper on Sunday we headed out to Sandy Point Community Centre for a creamed lobster dinner - another great meal with the added highlight of a minck whale frolicking in the harbour around the lighthouse - neat!!