We Got Gas!

Not much doing this week. The only really exciting news is that Rob passed his practical Gas Exam...Yay! After three and a half long years of revising a shed load of money finally he is fully qualified. They certainly don't make it easy to re-qualify over here! It all seems like a government cash cow to me.

I don't think I am being unfair in saying that Nova Scotia is about 20 years behind in just about everything. I do believe other parts of Canada are way more progressive, but here in one of the smaller provinces change doesn't really happen. This can be a good thing in some ways but on other ways it's incredibly frustrating.

Rob is still enjoying his new job, but unfortunately it is exceptionally quiet right now in the way of work. I don't think that his firm is the only one suffering, from others I have spoken within the industry they all say the same thing. This of course makes life incredibly difficult right now as he only get paid for the hours he works and that ain't many hours so far. We are hoping things will pick up and soon!

It's year end for my company next week, so I will be busy wrapping up paperwork and emptying out all the filing cabinets...My least favourite job of the year.

This weekend, I started a bit of Christmas shopping...Rob and I were out pretty much all day, the shopping expedition involved another trip to the Tangled Garden. Rob didn't go last time and he really enjoyed it. I wasn't planning on taking anymore photos, but I couldn't resist at the light was so good. Today I have done pretty much nothing all day...Just as well as it has been raining for most of it.

In TV news, Rob and I have just finished watching a fantastic series on Netflix. 'Orange is the New Black'...It had us totally engrossed for all 13 episodes and is based on the memoirs of a real woman who found herself in a women's prison. It has a bit of everything, humour, tension, drama, sadness with a superb array of colourful characters. Well worth watching if you are not too much of a prude. I personally cannot wait for Season 2.

A Taste of Fall, backlit preserves on display at
The Tangled Garden

Fall Reflections at Lake Charles

Ready for Spring...The Potting Shed at The Tangled Garden

'Orange is the New Black' Trailer. Warning there is some swearing.

Tim Tales and a Fall Shoot

Well hello, and apologies for the Monday update, I simply ran out of time this weekend. In truth I can't remember much of last week it all seems like a blur, it was only 4 working days but they were crammed packed and busy.

Rob and I decided to go to the camera club last Wednesday, I saw a couple of faces I haven't seen in the longest time. It was actually quite an interesting meeting with a good guest speaker, who was quite amusing in places talking about the re-emergence of film in the digital world. I am not adversed to the idea of film, but for me personally I have no intention of entering anything but my 'digital darkroom' and really wouldn't want to go back to the days of buying rolls of films and faffing around getting them developed only to find I have 3 decent shots on the roll. I remember over the years whilst travelling on holidays bringing back 12 rolls of film from a trip and the damn cost of getting them all developed, 50% of those images ended up in the bin or tucked away in a drawer never to see the light of day again.

Well that's enough walking down memory lane, on to this weekend. On Saturday morning I took one of my work colleagues Tanya to Shubie Park for a Fall photo shoot. I have wanted to do a Fall shoot with a model for such a long time now and finally I got my wish. I took Rachael along to help me, the weather was amazing and we had so much fun. Tanya really enjoyed herself and the three of us laughed so much at our antics.

We told Tanya about some of our adventures around the Province in recent months, in particular how we always seem to get ourselves in a pickle at Tim Horton's Drive Thu's. One time we pulled up to the speaker and Rachael asked for her Usual - 'a Dutchie'...which to this day I have never seen, they always reply in the same way... 'no sorry we don't carry those anymore, but we do sometimes have them as 'Tim Bits' and I always take the mickey out of her for asking...Well on this particular occasion, we then went on to ask what others they had, the girl said we have these new Apple, Caramel, Orange, Tangerine ones (now at this point, we meant donuts but she was talking Tim Bits). So I say yes we'll have two of those...To which she said which ones?, I said the ones you just said, she said Apple Caramel OR Orange Tangerine...Totally her fault for not punctuating her sentence correctly the first time for me to know she was describing 2
flavours....Anyhow, finally establishing the fact there were two types, I said, I will have 2 Orange Tangerine please (Rachael and I are wetting ourselves laughing at the whole scenario by this point)...But worse, when we pulled up to collect our order at the next window the girl hands me 2 Tim Bits...I said what's this? She said 2 Orange Tangerine Tim Bits...Seriously??? I mean who orders 2 Tim Bits?? We were pretty much hysterical by this point and had a queue of about 7 cars behind us...I said I thought these were donuts, She is so desperate to get rid of us by this point, she scrambles around for another bag and puts several more of the aforementioned Tim Bits in the bag and said here, take them....No charge...lol. More recently whilst pulling up, I missed the speaker altogether, as there were cars behind I couldn't reverse to order so I had to keep driving to the next window, at which point the young man said 'that will be $3.40 please, I just looked at him and said 'what for I haven't ordered yet?' Which then sent us into uncontrollable laughter...Poor guy having to deal with us. I have a theory that soon our faces will be on 'Wanted' type posters in every Tim's.

I digressed very badly there...Sorry. Anyway we finished our shoot and went home, in the evening we were out again with the photo club to capture some of the spectacles of an annual event called Nocturne in Halifax. Nocturne is an art at night event, there are all kinds of weird and wonderful exhibits around the Downtown area, the streets were pretty packed, and some of the stuff was pretty strange. The only thing I really liked was the circus fire show, we only stayed a couple of hours and then went home.

Sunday I sent pretty much all day editing images non-stop. I was very pleased with Tanya's images, as was she when she saw them today. I have included a few of my faves below (click to view larger).

In other news, my healthy eating continues, I went back to the dietitian last week, but was sorely disappointed to learn I have only dropped 4lbs. I am hoping this will get better by the next visit.

Music news...I am so pleased to report that the Barenaked Ladies (minus Steve) are back on form and their latest single and album are superb. Below is their video for the single 'Odds Are' and if you are not familiar with it I defy you not to be toe tapping and singing along by the end of it.

Beautiful Weather for a Fall Shoot

Very glam for a Saturday morning in the park!

I wish I had her legs instead of my stumps!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's been the end of yet another perfect weather week, the sun has been shining and the temperatures have been so lovely and warm, the nights of course are getting colder and we have started to get some frost in the mornings which in turn has sped up the Fall colours, so much so that in some parts they are all but finished and the trees are bare. This I must say fills me with sadness as I know there is nothing but a long winter ahead. As I believe I may have mentioned (several times before), I don't like Winter here, 3 years in and I feel no differently about them. It's not the cold or the snow, it's just purely the length of them. I am still in UK mode in my mind when it comes to seasons, come March I expect to see daffodils and Tulips, but they won't make an appearance until probably May.

Okay, enough of the melancholy whinging. Winter is a small price to pay for the rest of the year here as the seasons seem so defined, and in Winter's defence we do have more sunny winter days than the UK.

So what's been happening this week...Well to update you on the political front, the Liberal Party won the election and knocked out the NDP. I really have no clue at this stage is this is a good thing or in fact if it will make any noticeable difference. I guess only time will tell.

It's Thanksgiving weekend this weekend here in Canada and it's a long weekend, so we have been making the most of it in the sunshine. Yesterday Robert and I took a drive out along the South Shore to visit a few favourite spots and enjoy the gorgeous fall scenery. We stopped at the old mill I like to photograph down near Bridgewater which is about 2 hours away, I was just packing up my camera on the bridge and a car pulls up alongside me, I hear someone shouting to me, turns out, it's my friend Wayne and his brother. I had told him about the spot ages ago, but what are the chances of turning up at the same spot at the same time eh? He is always going on at me about how he goes out somewhere to take photos of a place and then sees on Flickr that I have already been there before him, so this made the whole chance meeting even funnier.

We headed back via Le Harve and Blue Rocks, getting back about 8 pm. This morning, tired as can be, we were up at around 6 am, Rachael arrived at 7 am, the mission... to seek out yet more fall scenes in the Parrsboro area, the colours were disappointing but we weren't found wanting for lovely scenery especially at Cape D'or. Robert kindly chauffeured us, it was a very long drive and I think in total we were going for around 10 hours. Tomorrow I sleep!! Below are two of my favourite images taken this morning at sunrise and yesterday in the late afternoon light.

Now also below is an ad I came across on the Internet...You may have already seen it?! I hadn't and I have to say it is quite possibly the funniest advert I have ever seen...Enjoy, I did!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends and readers.

Misty Morning Sunrise...Not a time of day I usually see!

Afternoon Delight at Stonehurst...Gorgeous light and Colours

Fall Time

It's Monday and I am only just getting around to updating the blog...Tut! That means I had a busy weekend!

First of all, let me update you by saying that my blood tests came back fine...Phew. I had definitely convinced myself that there was going to be nothing but bad news. I am continuing my healthy eating and have been pretty good every day sticking with nothing but nutritional, snacks and meals, smaller amounts and eating more often. I have however had one meal out and that was on our wedding anniversary on Saturday.... Fish and Chips of course. Hard to believe that it's be 13 years since Rob and I tied the knot in Vegas. Talking of anniversaries, Anne and Smiffy have had theirs, it was one year ago on our wedding anniversary last year when they were first introduced and we all went out to dinner. I know they will be reading this at some point, so congrats and here's to the future.

Rob and I made our annual trip to Howard Dill's in Windsor at the weekend to pick out our pumpkin. I always love visiting that place!

On Sunday Rachael and I headed out to the Valley to see what Fall colours we could find. The trees are almost in full colour now, and the scenery (especially along the highways) is looking pretty gorgeous. Just a shame it won't last long. We visited a place called the Tangled Garden on recommendation from Anne and Smiffy who stopped by there last weekend, and I must say I loved the place. Such a pretty garden and setting. The weather was gorgeous, as it has been all last week.

Rob started his job on Tuesday and is loving it. New van, new phone, new hours...he now starts much later in the morning at 9 am, rather than having to get up at the crack of dawn. The company he is now working working for specialises more in energy efficient systems, so down the line it will be a little more technical than the systems and equipment he was dealing with before, but again, I think he will enjoy that and the expertise that he will gain along the way.

It voting day here tomorrow for the Provincial elections. I must say (being quite politically minded) I am keen to see who comes out on top. I have been getting to grips with how the whole election thing is structured and I am pleased to say it's very much like the UK system. There are 3 main parties, Progressive Conservatives, Liberal and NDP. the electorate are voting for their local representatives, in each of their riding's and based on the number of seats won by the majority party, this will in turn determine the new (or returning) Premier of the Province, Premier being the Prime Minister of sorts of the Province (not the country). A federal election would determine who the next actual Prime Minister would be. There are three tiers in total to elections, Local, Provincial and Federal....I think I have this correct!

Finally, Happy Birthday Sarah...Hope you had a wonderful day! Thinking of you.
Here are some images from the weekend....and If you are interested in viewing more of my images from our trip to New England Click here.

Pretty display in side the Tangled Garden shop

Autumn Colours in the Tangled Garden

Fall Colours at Mount Uniake

It's Pumpkin time!

Pumpkin Bicycle at Howard Dill's Pumpkin Farm