I Knew It Wouldn't Last!

My blog entry last weekend definitely jinxed the weather. It went from mild to cold on Thursday and we had some flurries Friday! However the flakes barely touched the ground before disappearing in the city. In other parts however, they had little more that settled before melting on Saturday afternoon.

It's been a mentally draining kind of a week, my energy levels are pretty low and I am sure that the beginnings of Winter have something to do with that.

I am no longer a dental virgin when it comes to fillings, I had my first two this week on Tuesday. I headed off to the dentist with dread and a headache like you wouldn't believe. Having got there they were running late which didn't help my nerves any. Once in the chair Dr Sharma talked me through the freezing process and injected the back of my lower left jaw first, as she did so she told me not to move, MY GOD, a pain like the worst electric shock ever hit me like a ton of bricks and I DID MOVE at which point the whole left side of my bottom lip when instantly numb. Remember that headache...I didn't have it anymore, the other pain cancelled it out in a split second. Then she injected the top set, and off she went drilling, scraping and lord knows what!...I blissfully, didn't feel a thing.

When it was all done, and she removed all the tools of torture from my mouth, I tried speaking and it was not pretty...I sounded like Jeff Bridges on Crack! One lip seemed to be going one way and the other in the opposite direction. My left side of my tongue felt like something dead you would buy from the butcher. I think her exact words were "you look fine, well maybe a little droopy". I settled up at the the front desk after yet more weird mouth movements and then used the toilet, when I looked in the mirror I could see what she meant by droopy!

Having driven home, my headache was back. As soon as I got in I grabbed some water and a tablet, I tried to carefully drink the water on the right side of my mouth and just as soon as it was in there, it flew straight out of the left side...Even I had to laugh at that. I then heated up some soup, that I thought went well, slurping and going to the end of the bowl, of course I didn't realise that most of was on my face!

You will be pleased to know that the feeling came back about 4 hours later...Phew! I opted for white fillings and I kid you not, you cannot see them at all, they are so invisible I still haven't found one of them. My teeth look better than ever :o)

Rob has been working really hard all week, now the colder weather is here his hours seem to be longer and longer, most of the time he gets back later in the evening and from now until Christmas he is working Saturdays as well. I think he is nearing his next exam in oil, which fingers crossed he will pass...No date as yet, but will keep you posted.

Nancy and I headed out on Saturday, it was chilly but beautifully sunny. We found some pretty scenes along the way. We headed up to Mount Uniake and then on to Smileys Provincial Park and finally into Wolfville for a bite to eat and to pop into one of our favourite gift shops there.

Nr Lakelands, Mount Uniake (Taken yesterday morning)


The Farley Inlet - Stonehurst (Taken a couple of weeks ago)

Summer in November...It Won't Last!

So what's been happening this week...Well, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous, Monday to Thursday it was like summer in November, I kid you not it has been t-shirt weather all week...Until Friday. Friday was a Bank Holiday as it was Remembrance Day. As with any Bank Holiday in the UK, the weather took a turn for the worse and we encountered the tail end of a hurricane. The wind and rain was pretty much non-stop all day, what leaves there were left on the trees now seem to be mostly in our back yard!!! The good news was as soon as it came it went again and we were back to sun again on Saturday and Today.

Saturday morning Rob and I went to meet up with my newest friend Lucia. I met Lucia at Gatwick Airport when I was returning from holiday. She is originally from Slovenia and lives with her English partner Simon over here in Halifax now. We hit it off straight away and as I had a 5 hour delay returning home we had plenty of time to chat and get to know each other. She totally gets me and understands some of the frustrations when it comes to adapting over here, especially with regards the job market. She works for an expanding firm and it constantly keeping an ear out for me which is nice. We met up at the Farmers Market (which is huge and not the best place to meet anyone), it was great to catch up and she got to meet Rob, hopefully her and Simon will be popping round at some point in the near future.

Today I decided ankles or no...I couldn't miss the sunshine, so Cheryl, myself and Deb headed off to Peggy's Cove early this morning. What a beautiful day, so warm, no wind, and so peaceful. If you don't believe me check out the images below.

Some of you may be wondering about the ankles. They are still the same and I am still awaiting a phone call for an appointment. I have started trying to shift a bit of weight, not so much of a diet full on, but cutting out all the crap I have been eating of late and moving more into the soups & healthier foods. No more Tim's for a while at least!!

Finally, I must comment on Big Brother...Let's face it, it wouldn't be me if I didn't...

So Aaron won, He was my winner pretty much from week two, and I am thrilled he won, finally a winner to be proud of, intelligent, some might say crafty and a game player, I say well done, you fooled them all and played the game well. He entertained me throughout the whole show and I was disgusted that he was booed upon leaving the house as the winner. Not fair, he won, and he should be celebrated. Sorry Sarah, I know you were routing for Alex, but honestly Aaron was more entertaining.

Anyway I have enclosed a little video of an Aaron interview recorded after he managed to escape the booing masses and the dreadful Brian Dowling interview.

A Gorgeous Sunny Sunday at Peggy's


Morning Stillness on Route to Peggy's

Ankles

A mixed bag this week and not too much to report.Halloween came and went on Monday, I rushed home from work and the trick or treating had already begun, even witht he extra candy we bought we still managed to run out but thankfully not before the last kid had come and gone. The whole thing was done and dusted by 7.30 pm and by our calculations we had about 150 kids round in the end. Rob donned his scream mask once again for the event, but only managed to scare about 3 kids this time round.

Recently more and more I have been having trouble with my ankles, my archilles tendons is where the pain is and especially first thing in the morning I have trouble walking. The pain does seem to get better throughout the day but never goes away and I am always aware of it. Enough was enough this week and I went to the doctor. There are lumps on both ankles and my doctor seems alarmed by this. he said this is not normal and is going to schedule me in for a sonogram to find out what is wrong with them. In the meantime I have been told to be extremely careful how I walk as the tendons could snap at anytime.

As you can imagine this has left me somewhat shellshocked and I have spent the whole weekend worrying about what this could mean. Rob got me some slip on ankle supports yesterday, and if nothing else they did make me feel a tad more secure in walking about. I will have to wait and see what the outcome of all this is.

Needless to say any plans I had for going out and taking photographs this weekend, I put on hold. Rob and I did however go out with Marg and Tom last night to a dance at the airbase, it was a fundraising even held by Seaside FM, and although I didn't shake my ass on the dance floor the music was very enjoyable. All 50's and 60' music mainly.

Happy Halloween

Well it's been a quiet news week this week so this will be a pretty short entry.
The weather has been nice still with some sun but the temperature has turned colder now, Winter is definitely just around the corner. There was apparently snow in some parts of the province this week, thankfully I was blissfully unaware of it.

Rob has been working some long hours and has not been getting home until about 9 pm most evenings. I think this will be the way of things now until January.

It's been pretty frantic at my place too with many changes occuring, it's the end of the month and as usual we are busy trying to get all the invoicing done. As well as that we had stock taking on Friday in preparation for the change-over next week. The company that bought us out last year are now going full steam ahead and switching over our systems to theirs and installing brand new billing software... From Tuesday onwards as it will be slightly chaotic to say the least as we get to grips with billing in a whole new way.

Last weekend I found out for definite that my brother Clive will be coming over for Christmas and I am so looking forward to his visit, I just hope the weather is kind and we can get out and about a few places!

Yesterday I dragged Robert off to Stonehurst and Blue Rocks in the afternoon as the weather was gorgeous, I was hoping to capture some of the red foliage on the rocks that I found there last year, but sadly it had already gone over and turned brown. I did however manged to get a couple of nice shots of Stonehurst as the light was so pretty. After returning home we carved out our pumpkin ready for tomorrow, I haven't bothered to photograph it, as it looks exactly the same as last years :o)


Still and Blue at Stonehurst


Mirror views and not a ripple in sight

Ships Start Here

It's been a mixed bag of weather this week as Autumn rolls on. On Thursday there was a record amount of rain causing flooding in many areas of the city and beyond, some major roads were closed although people still decided it would be a good idea to drive through them with the inevitable outcome!

The autumn colours took a beating and many of the leaves got blown away sadly, but thankfully the weather improved again for the weekend and Cheryl, Barb and myself decided to venture out on another trip to Parrsboro, Wentworth and Tatamagouche. We found plenty of beautiful landscapes and found some new spots to re-visit in the future. It was another early start and a long day but so worth it.

One of my highlights was Wentworth Falls. I have never really had the opportunity to capture waterfalls properly, and Cheryl was a great teacher and helped me get the most out of the experience.

In Tatamagouche very late in the day we all discovered a really neat place called The Tatamagouche Railway Inn. What a great idea...This place originally a working station has been converted into an inn. The station house itself has rooms but the train carriages have also been converted inside to accommodate guests. We all want to go back and stay there, although it's not the cheapest place to stay, rates range from $120 - $179 per night per room.

In other news this week, Halifax Dockyard have been awarded a whopping $25 billion dollar contact to build new combat ships for the Canadian Navy. This is such good news for Nova Scotia. It will mean initially 11,000 new jobs later on 4,000 sustainable jobs. The contract it set to last for 20 years and should have a trickle down effect into other industries finally making Nova Scotia a 'have' rather than a 'have not' Province.

The only down side I can see to all this is that with every boom, house prices rise. Which is great if you already own but if you don't then it could create more problems. I think mostly likely in the next three years prices will be on the rise.


Misty morning...An early start!


Wentworth Falls


Classic Fundy Shoreline!


Abandoned homestead, Parrsboro

Another pretty river scene near Parrsboro


Tatamagouche Railway Inn

Autumn Has Arrived

Well only a 4 day week this week thanks to the Bank Holiday last Monday. The week seemed to go by in a flash. My dreaded cold was still in full force with the coughing keeping me up all night, but now thankfully it is settling down. I had by first full night's sleep last night.

On Tuesday evening we had the pleasure of finally meeting Robert (my blog follower from the UK) He was over taking in some more of the sights of Nova Scotia. We met him at the B & B he was staying at in Elmsdale...A beautiful B & B I might add. We went for an Italian meal locally and it was great to hear about his adventure and finally meet the man behind the comments and information! Robert you will now been know to me at PP Rob!

I had a dentist appointment this week on Thursday. Yet another thorough cleaning and a check up by the dentist that disturbed me somewhat...After 43 years of no dental work what so ever, I have finally got a couple of tiny cavities. So much to my utter disgust I have to go and get 2 fillings next month. As you can imagine I am not impressed by this all all. I couldn't help but wonder as Dentistry is big business on this side of the pond if these fillings are entirely necessary, but better to be safe than sorry I guess. Fillings are going to be a new adventure for me and I am not sure what to expect!

In other news this week, the Autumn colours finally popped. They literally started to show properly over night. I headed out with Cheryl and Nancy yesterday on a Photo Club field trip to Parrsboro. Wow the colours were amazing there, the whole area was just stunning. I had passed through that area many years ago, but never really spent any time there. Us girls ended up breaking away from the main group and doing our own thing most of the day, we headed off to explore Amherst and the Pugwash area as we had heard there were some abandoned houses out that was, and we definitely found a one cracking old place in particular. A bit dangerous under foot, but well worth the scary moments!

It was a long, long day, we met all the other photographers at the Camera Club at 6.45 am and we didn't get home until around 7.30 pm. The weather was great once again, sunny and warm, so much so I got a sweat on most of the day!

Autumn, just around the corner in Parrsboro

Just beautiful everywhere!


A riot of colour


Even this old shed looks great!


Five Islands Lighthouse


PP Rob, Robert and me! (Photo courtesty of Rob's camera)

Happy Thanksgiving

Yes it's another bank holiday here in Canada, only one more now in November before Christmas!

I am a little slow updating the blog this week as I have been ill since the beginning of the last week. No sooner had a stepped back on Canadian soil the lurgy kicked in. I have had a the most awful cold all week, it completely wiped me out on Thursday, and I have been trying to combat it with all kinds of remedies including Buckleys cough and cold medicine...For those of you who don't know what Buckleys is, it is by far the worst tasting medicine imaginable. If I had to describe it's taste it would be perm lotion and sick. That said it does work (if you can keep it down!).

I am still sniffing and coughing and I may have to see the doc as I think I have a full on chest infection again, will give it a couple more days and see how things pan out.

The weather here has been odd to say the least. Mid week it was as cold as can be, it even snowed a little in some parts. This weather followed a load of rain. And then, Saturday, Sunday and Today it's back to summer. Yesterday was a scorching 28.5 degrees.

Rob, Nancy and I went out on Saturday to Howard Dill's Pumpkin Farm to pick our pumpkin for this year. So nice to see the place in the sunshine. When Dad and Marjorie came over last October is was freezing cold when we visited the farm.

After spending a good few hours there we headed for Wolfville and had some lunch and then made a couple more stops at another pumpkin patch and a little nature trail place just outside of Wolfville.

Yesterday just Nancy and I headed out to Ross Farm again (yes I am obsessed about the place). We wanted to see if there was any sign of the Autumn colours yet. We definitely found some colours but nothing was as vivid as it should be. (Ross Farm Lake image at top of article)

Howard Dill's Pumpkin Patch


Pretty Yellow Leaves!

The Big Pumpkin Seat

Rob really wanted his picture taken in this...NOT!