Happy New Year!!

I am back! It feels like forever since I did an update on here. Happy New Year to you all.

My brother coming to visit over the holidays made Christmas special for Rob and I, it was great having him here and although it's Winter, the weather wasn't so bad apart from a couple of days. The day after he arrived the snow came down, he helped me dig out the path and the car and we took the ferry across to Halifax, the snow didn't let up for most of the day and Clive had to invest in a hat...He also bought me one for Christmas, I will post a shot of this on my head in due course which I know all of you will find amusing.

Christmas Eve Rob and I showed Clive some of the South Shore, including all my favourites, Mahone Bay, Blue Rocks, Lunenburg and Stonehurst...Which I think had to be the coldest place on earth that day, crossing the small foot bridge there we all instantly went numb with the wind chill.

In contrast, Christmas Day was quite different, the sun was shining, and although the temperature was minus 10 there was no wind at all and it certainly felt much warmer. We wound our way around the Peggy's Cove loop (Route 333) stopping at many places along the way and ending up at Peggy's. Everything looked like a Winter wonderland, very pretty and I had never seen it all in the snow before.

On the way home we stopped off at Deb's for a quick drink and a Mince pie, then finally back home for a late Christmas dinner and some present opening. We wanted to do something Canadian with Clive, so one of his presents was a ticket to a Hockey match on December 27th, The Halifax Mooseheads vs the PEI Rockets at the Metro Centre. The Metro Centre is the largest venue in Halifax for events like this and concerts etc. The game was great, plenty of action and even a fist fight on the ice at one point. What astounded us the most though was the utter disregard for the PEI team. When Halifax scored the fanfare and celebrations were unmissable, but when PEI scored you could hear a pin drop, they were even booed after one goal. The outcome was inevitable and The Mooseheads won in the end.

We did quite a lot in a short time and of course took Clive out for Fish and Chips at Wharf Wraps, which I think we all enjoyed, we also took a drive around in the evening to check out some of the Christmas Lights, I thought some in Dartmouth were impressive until we found the battle of the lights in Halifax at two stunningly large houses in a rather posh part of town. Apparently they do this every year and take donations for the food banks. Our favourite is featured below.

As quickly at Clive came he was gone. We took up to the airport on Thursday night and said goodbye, which did not come easy for me I can tell you. Since then it's been quite dull. I was working Friday, New Year's Eve came and went and Rob and I did nothing apart from watch movies and eat chocolate. We did briefly contemplate heading down town to watch the bands and the celebrations, but it was raining most of the evening and that alone was enough to put me off so we watched it on telly instead.

Clive thanks for coming and for everything you did on the IT front. Now next time come back in Summer!

Smile...You're at Peggy's and it's minus 10 degeees!

Snowy Lobster Traps at Peggy's

Winter at Blue Rocks

Now that's what I call Christmas Lights!

Seasons Greetings

Another week done and dusted and this will be my last blog entry this side of Christmas. My brother will be here next week and I can't wait! We will be busy out and about hopefully weather permitting, so there will be no time for blogging.

This week has been pretty uneventful, Robert has again been working hellishly long hours and has not been getting home till late in the evenings, so he is pretty knackered.

Saturday evening we attending a party at Anne's house (Anne is another member of the camera club)...Nice spread and good company. A few of the regulars also attended including Cheryl and Deb. Anne lives in Dartmouth and her area was full of some pretty amazing Christmas lights. I have been enjoying seeing many of the houses lit up beautifully. I intend to get out and capture some of the more elaborate ones over the holidays. Until then here's one that caught my eye earlier, taken with my little point and shoot camera.

It's nearly Christmas and I don't think I have mentioned the resident deer much. In case any of you were wondering, they have been about, not as much though sadly. I had 4 of them outside the front door the other night, so I fed them an apple, as I was chucking the slices, suddenly from around the corner of my house the stag came bounding along...frightened the life out of me...and the other deer, the promptly butted them out of the way and took most of the apple for himself. So rare to see him, first time for me and I wasn't getting to near to those antlers I can tell you. He is not massively big but I reckon he could do some damage.

I have been scouting the Christmas TV in the UK...OMG, I didn't think it could get any worse, but this year has to be truly the worst yet. There is hardly anything worth watching, so I hope you all have your board games at the ready.

Whatever you are doing and whoever you are with, Robert and I wish you all a Very merry and peaceful Christmas.

Ho Ho Ho, How very Festive!

Beautiful Blue Rocks

Wind and Shopping

Well we are still here and hanging on to some good weather. A slight blip this week with some extreme wind, which they called a weather bomb. Gusting winds of 100km per hour were just a tad tricky to walk about in and for me it was a little hairy crossing the bridge!

Rob and I attended Camera Club on Wednesday, it has been quite a while since Rob has been able to attend, so it was nice for him to catch up with a few people.

On Thursday night we went shopping, we didn't leave until about 7pm and didn't get back until about 10.30pm. the trouble is with shopping here, particularly in Walmart, is there is so much to look at, Rob says constantly he hates going shopping with me as I am like a Magpie, anything shiny seems to catch my eye. Some of the Christmas decorations were on sale and I picked up a few bits to add to my tree.

Saturday night Cheryl came round, her PC is being repaired so I said she could edit some images round my place for Suzanne (the shoot we did last weekend). It was good fun watching her and sharing techniques. I also introduced her so some British telly which she loved!

Bit of a quiet week news wise, so apologies for the short entry. I can't imagine there will be too much on the agenda between now and Christmas.

More from Peggy's...Not many photos to post lately!

Christmas Lights

Well I must say it's been another rather non-eventful week, so this could be my shortest blog entry to date.

The weather hasn't been too bad at all, a mixture of sun and cloud, the temperatures are getting cooler again now though so it's definitely time to don the big coats!

Rob and I bought some new lights for the Christmas Tree this week, it didn't have nearly enough last year and we got so sick of trying to find replacement bulbs that we have changed to white LED lights this time.

After much huffing and puffing by me and several hours later, my tree was up on Friday night. I have no clue why it always takes me so long as I am certainly not particular about placement of ornaments or anything, but I can never get through it in under 3 hours.

In other news this week, I finally got an appointment date for my sonogram, it's not until the 16th of January, I shall just have to shuffle on until then, and after that I just hope they find out what's wrong quickly so I can hopefully start to rectify it.

I invited Cheryl out with me on Saturday to do a family portrait session with one of my co workers Suzanne. She asked me a few weeks ago to do it and I thought it would be good practice for me, but never having done children in the mix before I needed back up. The light was a real challenge and so was getting all to look and smile at the same time, but we got a few shots that weren't bad.

Cheryl, myself and Deb are planning to start a collaboration from next Spring, to do Weddings, Portraits and Trash the Dress shoots on weekends. We think that being 3 women and having a unique selling point of having 3 photographers at a session plus a competitive price point will hopefully bring in the bookings and cash. We are at present formulating names for the venture so we can start on the website. Deb and I already possibly have another session already and Cheryl is lining up a few weddings.

My first attempt at a Family Portrait


A shot from Mount Uniake Area a couple of weeks ago.