Sunday, July 28, 2013

A Good Day's Hunting!

Well looky here...It's only 6.14 pm and I am updating in daylight...Shocker.
I am taking a day off today! Pretty exhausted from a long day out yesterday with Rachael on those back roads. We had a very good day's hunting and found 4 old houses, 3 of which we were able to get into, one via a window...again, which wasn't a pretty sight! A couple of the houses had some pretty cool stuff inside and one was extremely full of mould which wasn't at all pleasant, but at least entry was just via a door which was a blessed relief to me and my unbendy limbs!

I was contacted this week by a company in Nova Scotia (they have a gallery and sell posters and canvases) who are interested in working with me and buying my images. I am not entirely sure what it will entail yet or if in fact it will come to anything, but I will keep my fingers crossed and keep you posted.

Robert took his Gas Theory exam yesterday. All that study for 3 hours work. He thinks he did okay and will find out his results in about 15 days or so. So keep your fingers crossed for him!!

As I mentioned last week, next weekend is the Natal Day Bank Holiday weekend and Rob and I will be camping with Anne and Smiffy, so there will be no update next Sunday, hopefully by Tuesday or Wed I should have something up.

Until then I will leave you with some recent images.

Coat-Hanger. Not staged, found as was in an old farmhouse

Skates of Winters Past - Found inside the front door
of an old Farmhouse

Well ventilated. This old barn could definitely do
with a new roof!

The Old Store at Memory Lane Heritage Museum

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Long Johns & Pickles

It's that time of the weekend again when I am playing catch up and losing sleep.
It's been another scorching weather week. Yesterday humidity was at 81% and the temperature was around 34 degrees.

Friday night Rob and I went round to Anne and Smiffy's for dinner, the aim of the the gathering was to discuss our up coming camping trip in August. We are going to Kejimkujik National Park for the long weekend together with Anne's friend Kat and her daughter. I am not much of a camper as most of you back home know, but I am really looking forward to it, especially as I have never been to this park before and it is supposed to be very beautiful. We are all just hoping that the weather is as lovely as it is now...minus the humidity of course.

Saturday I spent that stifling day mostly indoors accomplishing nothing! It was one of those days where everything that could go wrong, did! No sooner had I got up Rob phoned me from the supermarket to tell me the brake lines had gone on the car (the Focus), we had to call the CAA and get it towed. Just hope it can be fixed tomorrow. Luckily my work pal Carolyn is giving me a lift into work in the morning. The rest of the day I spent trying to complete updating my online portfolio. It is long overdue and believe me it was a job and a half getting it done. So much faffing about.

My neighbour Christine popped round in the evening, she gave Rob and I a rather lovely lawn hammock that she didn't want as she has no room in her yard for it since she got her swing seat. This was very nice of her and I cannot wait to try it out...maybe tomorrow after work.

Today the temperature was a little better, but with no car and Robert revising for next weeks exam I was stranded a bit, thankfully Rachael came to the rescue and we headed off for a little drive, both of us didn't feel like doing too much, so we drove along the Eastern Shore stopping at Fisherman's Reserve and then onto Memory Lane. I realised today I have been there ever year since moving here.
They seem to be in the middle of fixing things up, but it was looking pretty good today.

We spent a long time wandering in and out of the buildings, and then in one of the barns I found this year's love! Two utterly adorable kittens...OMG they were so sweet. It was the little tabby that really caught my eye, for two pins I would have put him in my pocket. I found out later that they have named him Winston (Churchill) and one of the ladies is taking him home to live with her, but she plans to change his name to Ozzy...I am not so sure about that name, if anything he looks more of an Olly to me. The pretty little grey kitten (no name as yet) is also a boy and needs a home...Anyone?!!

Below are a few of my favourite shots from today. Click to view larger!

Long Johns & Pickles

The Miner's Office

The Old Soak :o)

This Year's Love!
I don't like the thought of them being split up :o(

Winston 'Tiger' Churchill

Sunday, July 14, 2013

Jail Time

Blimey I don't know where the time has gone. I am sitting here hot as hell typing this at midnight and it's annoying me.

I have stuff going on right now that I have no wish to bore people with at this moment in time, so I will just focus on the weekend. It was another scorcher. I did nothing Saturday (just for a change) but following a recent documentary Rob and I watched last week, we bought a 'Magic Bullet' juicer. A pretty impressive little machine that we hope will get some much needed nutrients into my body as I very rarely eat any fruit or vegetables. Since the weekend I seem to have drunk very little else apart from green vegetable sludge smoothies and fruit ones too. I have to confess that the Veggie ones look awful but now we are adding mint, they don't taste that bad. My body won't know what's hit it.

Sunday Rachael and I were back on the abandoned trail and we had a bit of a coup. An old jail we had discovered (through other images and research) was in our sights. It had been on the list for a few months now so we finally checked it out. We honestly thought that (like most of these places) we were going to find the whole place boarded up with no hope of getting in. Imagine our surprise when we found 'a very easy in!' Well I say easy, it would have been a lot easier if I were about 6 stone lighter, but never the less armed with torches ($4.10 dinky ones from a local garage...we were hardly Mulder and Scully), DIY masks, rubber boots, camera bags, tripods a blanket (don't ask) and not looking at all suspicious on a very hot Sunday afternoon we headed inside. My god was it dark in there on the first floor and the smell....I will leave that to your imagination, but thankfully as we worked our way up to levels two and three, the light and the air got much better. We took our shots as quickly as we could and I think I sweated my own body weight in fear. Rachael said I sounded like Darth Vader in my mask! I am not entirely sure my nerves are cut out for this kind of extreme photography hobby!

Relieved to get out, we continued on our way and we found several more houses and points of interest on our travels. In total we did over 5oo km and were knackered today.

That said, today was around 34 degrees I believe and I didn't feel like working all day so I took a rare half day holiday and gave Nancy a ring to see what she was up to, I headed over to hers for a catch up as she has just returned from vacation and we went to the lake to cool off. I spent all afternoon there with her and unfortunately now I am burnt to a crisp. Just hope it goes brown quickly.
No sooner had a returned home a friend from work popped round for a visit and she didn't leave until around 7.30 pm...and here we are! I will leave you with a couple of images from the weekend...
Enjoy!! (click to view larger)

Banged Up...Now that's what I call peeling paint!

Lock up! Scary!


The Old Farmhouse

Welcome to my Country Home...That's what the wallpaper
said inside!


Sunday, July 7, 2013

As Hot as the Gates of Hell

Oh yes my friends, those reading this that are here in the Maritimes will vouch that weather here these past few days has been unbelievably hot. Now there's nothing wrong with some sun, but it's the damn humidity that's killing me. Our sweat box of a house hasn't dropped below 85 degrees all weekend, it's impossible to do anything inside apart from sit and fall asleep within about 10 minutes.
I do believe on Friday it was 31 degrees but with the humidity factored in they were saying on the news that it was feeling more like 41 degrees, and I think they were right.

I took a weekend off back roading and caught up on some much needed sleep. The Canada Day Fireworks that were postponed last week went ahead on Friday night, Rob and I popped along to our usual spot and were joined by Smiffy and Anne (plus a friend of Anne's) to watch the spectacle. I thought they were impressive as always but over too soon.

Saturday evening Rachael, myself and Rob headed out to Hansport area to go and see the folk duo Breeze & Wilson. I don't know if you remember my story from a few weeks ago, but Rachael, Nancy and I had been caught poking around some old trucks down the driveway next to an abandoned house we had found. The owner of the trucks and the house and indeed his own lighthouse at the end of the drive, Raye, was such a nice man, and opened up the house for us to shoot inside, when we returned the keys to him he was hard at work down by his lighthouse building what looked like a pagoda of sorts, he had quite a bit to do on it as he had only really finished the base and it had no roof on it. It transpired he was building it to host this folk duo he had coming to play and that he was selling tickets (only 30 tickets), so Rachael and I bought three and couldn't wait to get back there and enjoy the music and the ambiance of the evening by the lighthouse and the sea. It was a wonderful evening, the music was so good (ending up buying all three cd's), Raye finished his...Pavillion the day before, and what an amazing job he had done. Breeze & Wilson are actually from the Midlands in the UK but have a hard core fan base in Nova Scotia. They sprinkled some humor in between the songs which made the whole event even more enjoyable. They mingled with their audience and Rachael and I chatted with both of them, lovely chaps.

Today, I have done nothing, I drank a few beers last night and was feeling particularly sluggish today. The house was once again as hot as hell, so at around 5.30pm Rob and I headed off to the lake for a dip to cool off. Much better...

I think I should perhaps also mention (especially to my friends back in the UK), I have coloured my hair...Not the usual colours, I have gone bright blond...completely blond, no dark hair whatsoever. I think it has shocked a few here (especially at work), and I suspect if you guys saw it you would be a little shocked too...lol.

Belated birthday wishes go to my firend Kim, hope you had an enjobale day and I hope the new job is panning out well for you.

Canada Day fireworks posponed from last weekend

The Bright Lights of Halifax

Raye's Gorgeous Pavillion/Multi Purpose area :o)

Breeze and Wilson




Monday, July 1, 2013

Happy Canada Day!

It's been a bank holiday weekend here in Canada as the country celebrates Canada Day. Unfortunately this weekend has been a bit of a washout to say the least. I planned to go out on Saturday with Rachael but we ended up postponing until Sunday as torrential rain all day made doing anything a complete waste of time. After our plans had been canceled I went straight back to bed and didn't move until about 3 pm...which was bliss.

Robert and I ordered a new Samsung (front loading) washing machine and tumble dryer a couple weekends ago at Sears, they balls up the delivery last weekend, but thankfully it arrived this Saturday...Not that I had much to do with it, as I was sleeping. The machines are beautiful. So much bigger than the washers and dryers in the UK. They are very hi tech and unbelievably quiet. We figured it was about time we bought rather than keep on renting the cheap and rather crap appliances we had as part of our rental package as it turns out we have paid for the damn things twice over by renting them, and the top loader washing machine with the agitator kept shredding my underwear even on the delicates setting (which they aren't...delicate that is...lol).

Sunday, I was up and out early Rachael, we were determined to get out and about come rain or shine as we took a break last weekend from photography. We had a couple of leads on places we wanted to find, the first was an abandoned textile factory, we located it no problem, what we didn't plan on was bumping into anyone else there. We had been scoping out the perimeter for a while when another car pulled up, we though we might be in trouble, so we pulled out the old map and started our fake pointing & 'oh dear we're lost' routine (badly I might add). Then out of the other car comes a rather glamorous mum a dad and 3 kids, off they go with their iPhones, walking the perimeter...Doing the exact same thing as us and if at all possible looking even more conspicuous than us. we finally got out of our car put on our rubber boots and started walking round with our cameras in the opposite direction until we were face to face with them...they said hello, we said hello and that was that! That's the thing about Urban Exploring, you never know who or what you will find.

After the factory we moved on heading in the general direction of Annapolis Royal, we found another lovely old house on route which a a superb 'falling down' barn behind it as well as a tiny little crooked hut/shed. The owner came and chatted to us for a long time and the little shed was in actual fact his Great Uncle's old workshop where he made harnesses for horses. I found it hard to believe that something so small was a workshop. (Both of these finds you can see below).

After stopping briefly in Annapolis Royal, we headed to our next location, we found the house we had been searching for, pulled on our rubber boots and headed up the very overgrown path to it. The front door had a panel missing at the bottom. Rachael enquires, 'Can you get through there?' to which I reply, 'I don't know, do you think I can get through there?' She says 'yes', so off I go, what transpired was a bit of a mess to say the least. My boobs and I could not manage to get through the opening, my arse was stuck in the air and all I could hear was Rachael laughing. I reversed out and she decided to have a go, with a bit of effort she made it through, I must say I was impressed as at one point it definitely looked doubtful. I ventured round to a side window and chatted to her on the inside while she poked about, but there wasn't that much to see in all honesty and the floor was really rotten and damp, so I urged she come back out...NOW that was funny! She came out backwards, with me hanging on to her legs and guiding them toward the crooked front doorstep, arse in my face, and me then grabbing on to her waistband to ensure she didn't slip. I all but lost what little strength I have in my arms laughing so hard...Honestly if I could have stepped back and watched the entire episode of 'two fat ladies and a hole in a door', it would have made great viewing for sure.

Once back at the car we took off our boots, Rachael had managed to step in something very unpleasant and the whole car stunk. we trundled on our way trying not to breathe too much, and then we heard a knocking sound.
We stopped to investigate and my exhaust pipe had come loose at the back end from its bracket, and was bouncing around. We knew this wasn't good especially as we were at least 2.5hrs away from home. We phoned Rob and he said to try and secure it, so we headed (very slowly) to the nearest garage. having bought some bungy ropes, I approached an older gentleman who was in there paying for his petrol, I asked if he could help and out he came, took a look and said he knew the neighbours behind the garage and would go and see what he could find, he fixed us up when he came back with a coat hanger and some pliers. What a lovely man! All fixed up and no longer in fear of the exhaust dropping off, we decided to check out one more house, sadly it had fallen down, but we did find one other on route, I was just changing my footwear once more when I saw a tick on my leg (I think it had been there for a couple of hours), me being me started shrieking and Rachael had to get off me.

It was the weirdest thing, as I had been talking about ticks to her earlier in the day after reading an article about a woman who had lime disease for 4 years without being diagnosed. In 3 years bumming around Nova Scotia in sports sandals and short trousers I had never given them a thought before, then suddenly I talk about them and get one which made me super paranoid! Rachael found it very amusing...But not so much this morning when she told me that she found three on her today...!
So all in all quite the adventure.

The Barn with the Star Gazing Window :o)

The Old Workshop!

The House with the Hole in the Door!!!!

The Abandoned Factory where we didn't expect Company!
 

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