The Heat Was On

Yep, you may have heard over in Blighty that we were experiencing some unusual weather this week. it got hotter and hotter until on Thursday we hit about 90 degrees. In one week we went from big coats and shoveling snow to summer shirts and sandals, my mind was boggling at this, it was too weird even by my standards. You will be pleased to know that whilst the UK is now getting some lovely hot weather we are back to about 8 degrees and I had my big coat on again today!

Other than the weather the week has been pretty uneventful, Cheryl and Deb came round again on Friday night to finalise the new logo for the new name 'Bella Donnas' and the website once again is underway.

Today Nancy and I went out for the day and ambled around the Aspotogan Peninsula. Nancy hasn't been there in many years, so it was quite exciting for her to rediscover the area. My favourite part of the loop is Northwest Cove, but we also followed a few back roads and found a few hidden coves and other gems. It was a great day and I have not long been home, hence the delay in the update.

I was troubled this week to hear that one of the major printing places Transcontinental is closing down and putting another 500 people out of work. I have seen no real signs of the economy picking up here in Nova Scotia, I had high hopes when the news broke about the ship building contracts being awarded to the Province, but as yet any knock on effect from this has failed to materialize...Good news if you are a ship builder or a welder though.

Totally unrelated to anything, I learned an interesting solution to a common problem this week...Ladies, if you ever get white deodorant marks on your black top whilst dressing, just pull out a nylon pop sock, scrunch it up and rub it on the marks...Magic, they are gone, it really does work.

Sorry to be so random, but sometimes when I write this the strangest snippets from the week pop into my brain.

Mill Cove, a hidden gem, found today.


Nothwest Cove


Fox Point

A Busy Week

I have no clue where the time has gone this week. Socially I have done nothing at all, but work has been full on crazy. With the kids off on March Break I thought the week would be quiet, but no, quite the opposite.

I met Deb and Nancy for lunch on Wednesday across the road from where I work in a little cafe. It was brief but the food was good. Nancy and I were unable to make Debs birthday bash a week ago, so it was nice to have a catch up.

Other than that it has just been work, work, work. I am still formulating ideas for the colour area of the showroom and have been gathering and collecting information and getting some of the prep work done. My boss really likes the ideas I have been throwing out and I am enjoying the challenge. She thinks I should be a design consultant...Who knows one day eh?

Rob and I ventured out briefly yesterday as the sun was shining, we headed along to Eastern Passage for a little walk and drove round some other areas of Dartmouth looking as potential houses to live in...I still cannot get past wanting to live in the one road though (the road where houses never come up for sale!).

I showed Rob Rainbow Haven Beach yesterday too, the weather was fabulous and dare I say it too hot for my big coat!

The good weather looks set to continue this week, hooray I say! Think we might have turned a corner on Winter now.

The bus drivers went back to work last Friday. I no longer feel any sympathy for them as they got a signing fee of $4000 each for going back to work with their new deal. Incredible, they inconvenience the whole of the City for over a month and then get rewarded for it. That signing fee would take me almost 5 months to earn on my low end income.

They are offering free bus and ferry rides until the end of the month...Well you know what they can do with that!

Fishermans Cove, Eastern Passage, taken yesterday


Amusing Sign found at West Berlin last weekend


Fishermans Friends, taken last weekend at Port Medway

Spring...Possibly!

Not much to report this week. The weather perked up yesterday and saw Rob and I going out for a drive for the first time in ages. We headed for Queens County and the Port Medway area. This is not really an area we have explored too much. I think we briefly went there years ago whilst on holiday over here. I was pleasantly surprised and found some quaint little nooks and crannies along the coast.

You can see from the images I have included that the sun was out and it was a balmy 3 degrees! Even though there is no snow on the ground you can see the grass is dead as can be, it looks like that everywhere her right now. I cannot wait for the leaves to start returning on the trees and the grass to get its colour back.

Work has been hectic this week and I haven't really had much time for anything else. We had a training session on different types of speciality papers and wall coverings this week, some of it was mind boggling and there is so much cool stuff out there. Our branch is going to be stepping up the colour side of things and is remodelling part of the show room to highlight this, Some of my images will be used to show how prints look on these materials and I will be one of the key people involved in how the display will look along with Sarah and Rebbecca.

The bus drivers are reportedly going back to the bargaining table soon...I won't hold my breath on that! Now the buses have been off the road for so long, it will be weird when they go back, I must say driving without them on the roads has been pleasant as you don't get stuck behind them every 5 minutes.

Another quick note on photography, I have submitted a few images to used in rotation in Sackville Library. They recently renovated and have a wall dedicated to our club members, so I shall have something up there soon.

Rob is as ever working hard and I believe he has an exam coming up soon. If he passes it, it will mean potentially he will be out on his own working rather than assisting.

TV...I haven't mentioned TV in a while. I am really enjoying the latest Celebrity Apprentice over here, plenty of angst and in-fighting, which is always fun to watch. The new series of the Voice also has me hooked. I am still not sure if it has started in the UK or not yet, but I reckon it will have some way to go to beat the US version. The new Dancing with the Stars starts this month, so I am looking forward to that and I am heavily into the new season of Survivor.

Birthday wishes go out to Marjorie this week. Hope you have a wonderful day!


The Old Port Medway Shop


Port Medway Lighthouse Park

Learning the Lingo

Well this week has been a week of mixed fortunes for sure!

On Monday night I went out with some of the girls to celebrate Cheryl's birthday in Downtown Halifax at a Thai restaurant. The food was amazing I must say and far better than any other Thai food I have eaten before. It was a great night and I was hoping to have a photo to post, but sadly Julie hasn't sent me them yet.

It's that time of year again when everyone here is doing their taxes. Rob has been busy for weeks collating all our information, most of it was pretty straight forward, we had to submit our T4's (P60's) for yearly earnings and then account for all the other stuff, including our house in the UK and sundry things we can claim on like health care, prescriptions etc. We headed off to the H & R block on Tuesday night and got the tax returns done. What we were not expecting was a tax bill at the end of it for $900 which we don't have! Last year we got money back, mostly because we hadn't worked a full year and we spruced up the house before we left, so on paper we made a loss with it. This year we showed a profit, even though we make no money out of the rental and it goes back into the mortgage. Total bummer.

So it looks like we will be back in poverty for a while now as we have some other hefty bills coming up, including a major car service and Hamish's check up.

On another down side, the brand that was born last week has died a death already. Cheryl just didn't really like the whole TriCreative thing and has opted for something completely different. As yet I am not sure what it will be but she was thinking either Ying and Yang or Belladonna. The creative side of it will be up to her now, which I am happy to let go of to be honest.

On the upside this week because the company I work for was bought out by a larger national company, there has been much talk of why the old Wade People (me included) are not on the same terms as the rest of the company when it comes to holiday entitlement. This has now been fixed so instead of the standard 2 weeks, I now get 3 weeks, which is much better obviously! There aren't many places around here, unless you work in government or teaching where you would get more than two weeks to start with and you have to work a good few years before it goes up to 3 and even more years to get to a maximum of 4.

Finally, I learned some Newfie lingo this week from Sarah at work. Streel...means Minger and my favourite...Twackin'...This means to go shopping but not buy anything, just window shop at stuff you can't afford. I seem to go Twackin' alot!

Summmer at Prospect

The Dorey Shop, Lunenburg