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.

First Snow

So here's me thinking that we weren't going to get any snow until December! On Tuesday night they forecast a snow storm coming in that was going to affect pretty much all of the Province except coastal areas which would receive a lot of rain instead. I was thinking, well it will be rain here then. Woke up Wednesday no sign of snow, drove to work and by 8.30am the white stuff was coming down!

They always say here, small flakes big amount of snow. These were small flakes and they kept on coming the whole day. The driving outside looked tricky to say the least. I ended up getting a lift home and leaving my car at work, just as well as the roads were chaos. I think in total there were 60 accidents on the roads. The main reason being that many people have not changed over their summer tires to winter ones (we changed ours at least 3 weeks ago). In total around 35cm of snow fell, it was pretty impressive. Yet as fast as it came it went, the temperatures are so mild again, it has been melting ever since. I think we are back up to double digits now.

Sorry I don't have any photos of the snow for you, but I haven't really had the time to take any shots until today, and now it really isn't worth the effort.

Robert had to drive home in that weather, he found it a little tense to say the least. His motto was to keep going no matter what because once you stop, you're stuck, well the ironic thing about his journey was that he very nearly did get stuck thanks to a snow plough who was wheel spinning in the middle of the road.

Nothing else to report, all very quiet here. Rob and I bought a Vacuum Cleaner this week it was on sale and a very good deal, so I have been making the most of it and cleaning the house from top to bottom. It's pretty hard to keep things clean when it gets to this time of year with all the weather and salt being tramps in through the house.


Mount Uniake Estate

Autumn Lines - Trees in Smileys Provincial Park


Woman in Red...Nancy

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