Long Weekend

So Victoria Day weekend is upon us...Hooray for 3 day weekends.
The weather was spectacular yesterday So Rob and I drove down to the South Shore and visited Mahone Bay, Lunenburg and Blue Rocks & Stonehurst. Definitely my 'go to' places especially when the sun is shining.

I think we discovered the best fudge ever in Mahone Bay, we bought a box of different flavours including Root Beer, Maple Nut and Orange Cream to name a few.
We had a spot of late lunch in Lunenburg at The Grand Banker, our favourite restaurant along the waterfront. All in all it was a lovely relaxing day in the sunshine, something much needed!

Robert has been busy in the garden, as everything is starting to sprout now. We got some new neighbours recently next door, obviously we didn't get to see them much over Winter except when they were behind a snow blower! But now they too are our in the garden most of the time. Cindy is not a big plant fan, something that surprises me, since she and her husband bought a bungalow that was owned by a keen gardener. I have been eyeing up a dwarf weeping willow in that back yard for a while, so I made her an offer, and the deal was done. It is now planted in the front garden where we dug up a rather sad rhododendron bush last year. We also gained a rambling rose. When Cindy said she didn't want it, I jumped at the chance of taking it, as I knew it was the previous owners pride and joy and the colour is my favourite shade of pink. Rob and I are thinking of moving in on her compost next :o) The lawn is looking pretty awful after the all that snow and ice. Not sure it will ever look right this year as there are so many bald and dead patches. We had an area to fill that has no grass at all, the previous site of a kids swing set. So a new flower border is now in place...Now all I need are some plants.

We now have a BBQ thanks to Anne and Smiffy who were getting rid of theirs. So far we have cooked up a storm on it twice, and it's so good to finally have one. I suspect if the sun is back out again tomorrow we might be heading for our third.

Big Brother UK has started....So apologies to those of you who are following me on Twitter as I am tweeting quite a bit about it and also on BB Canada as that is still running for another two weeks.
For those of you that know me as a reality TV junkie, I hope your read the article in the Daily Mail recently which finally vindicated me, as it said that watching reality TV is good for you....I know, weird huh, but apparently it is good on a social level. People that watch are able to analyse people much better in real life, and it keeps the brain sharp tactically.

Here are some images taken yesterday...Click to view large!

Lunenburg Panorama

The Three Sisters, Mahone Bay

My Favourite Place...Stonehurst

The Sun is Shining

Finally all the snow has gone, Robert has started to pick away at the grass and even I ventured out in the yard today to clear some dead foliage and do a little weeding. Nothing blooming yet, but it's shouldn't be long!

Anne and Smiffy gave us their old BBQ, it needed some TLC but it's back up and working, we just need gas now and a quick paint job and it will be good as new. It will be great to finally have one. I think we must be the only people living in Canada without one until now. Canadians BBQ all year round, not just the Summer...Oh know they are out there in all weather?! Now that is something I will never quite understand as a Brit.

I finally caught up with Racheal yesterday, and we took a brief ride out to Eastern Passage to try and get our photo mojo back. Linda (our Mortgage Broker and Tax filer now) popped round with out Tax paperwork. What with one thing and another, being first time home buyers in Canada, costly reno's on our house in the UK and some other factors, we did actually get some money back this year, which is much needed. Some of that money is going towards a Cordless Dyson...OMG I cannot wait to get it! How sad am I to get so excited about a vacuum.

Robert has got himself a second (part time) job. It's only a couple of hours cleaning on the weekend (very early in the morning), but it should help us when his work drops off in the Summer.

Will leave you with a favourite Your Tube vid and some recent pics.

The Colours of Fisherman's Cove

Spring at Prospect

Makes a Change from a Fish Supper

A Ropey Collection

Coming out of Hibernation

It's been yet another long spell without an update for the blog. I really have had nothing to say as I have continued to hibernate due to the cold weather and the dreaded snow hanging around for far longer than it should have.

I am however pleased to report that due to a few nice days of above zero temps and some much needed sunshine we have turned a corner here and the snow has all but gone. The lakes are still mainly still just frozen on the surface, but I think even they will once again look like lakes but the end of this week.

Today I felt it was time to start easing my way out of hibernation. I finally left the house and it felt strange! Robert and I took a late afternoon drive along to Peggy's Cove via Prospect on route, the light was inviting, even if there was a distinct chill in the air especially at Peggy's. It feels like I am taking baby steps back into the outside world, As the weather improves I feel and hope my mood will improve too.

I actually managed to pop round and see Nancy one day after work last week, I haven't seen her in the longest time and her birthday gift had been gathering dust on a shelf. It was nice to have a catch up. I have yet to see Rachael but I feel we should be out with the cameras (fingers crossed) in no time now.

I have of course been totally immersed in all things TV, Netflix is a general staple of every day! I am currently watching Bloodline, which is very intriguing and addictive. Plus shock, horror I have actually started reading a book this week 'Behold a Pale Horse'. Probably not an obvious or easy read, but something that I am pretty fascinated by.

Until my next entry, I will leave you with one of the images taken earlier this evening.

'You can never 'tire' of Peggy's Cove'

Spring has NOT Sprung

I felt I should make an update, but I am finding it somewhat difficult to sit at the keyboard and remain perky about anything right now.

I have been pretty ill for the last 3 weeks. I got very bad bronchitis again, which resulted in a trip to the doctors, a round of antibiotics, and two inhalers. I missed some work because it  and ended up in bed for 5 days. Since then it has abated, but I am still coughing and have found it very difficult to deal with the heavy cold cold like symptoms which followed.

I have only been out of the house once socially since my last update and that was a trip to a local salon with Anne. We treated ourselves to some pampering, a facial, pedicures and a manicure in Anne's case. The particular day in question was a rarity....It didn't snow, the sun was shining and I believe the temperature reached 1 or 2 degrees. Since than it has all gone down hill again. We have had yet another storm, with a huge dumping of snow which effectively put Nova Scotia out of business last Wednesday. The snow banks are so high now everywhere there is really nowhere to put it now. I have never seen so much snow in my life. There are only two good things to come out of this....Number 1, People have almost stopped talking about 'The Great Storm' White Juan. Number 2, I got a day off work on Wednesday! As I sit here typing it is snowing yet again and the wind is howling, it is all due to flash freeze later after we get some rain. My mood is literally at an all time low, I am utterly fed up with the weather and a few other things besides.

For those of you interested, I have given up smoking once more the day the coughing started I knocked it on the head. Of course last time I crept back to it, so this time I am not making promises I cannot keep, just taking it day by day, but it will be a month on Tuesday.

The only thing that is keeping me remotely sane right now is TV. Big Brother Canada starts tomorrow, I have Dancing with the Stars just started again, The Voice USA and Survivor to keep me going in the world of reality TV. I have also been watching The Voice UK...and if you are you have vote for Vikesh to win...An unlikely star perhaps, but what a voice. He tweeted me back the other day, as did Michael Van Schoick, who you might better know as Dave form the Money Supermarket Ad...I so love that ad!!!

I have been following the British politics in the lead up to the Election with much interest. What a am finding particularly hard to tolerate is the slanted media bias that has been heaped on UKIP. Now I am not saying that they don't have some dubious followers, but at every given opportunity the media make the whole party out to racist and homophobic, which I do NOT believe is the case at all.
I can only assume that the powers that be are that afraid of UKIP that they feel the need to constantly bash them and belittle them. I also noted that the Tories are in some do-do thanks to Afzal Amin and his cunning (or as it turned out, not so cunning plan)...And and lets not forget (although we really want to) Clegg and his donation scandal. This could be an interesting Election for sure.

I will leave you with images from the back and the front of the my house, my favourite ad of the moment and a NEW 22 Minutes Halifax Tourism ad/Skit.

Our Driveway

Looking towards the driveway from Front Door

Our Road (worse since this was taken)

View from my front room window of the garden

View from the kitchen of the back garden

Another Storm

Here I am again with nothing much to report except the dreadful weather.

I celebrated my birthday on Feb 10th, I say celebrated in the loosest of terms, it was possibly the most lack lustre birthday to date. I would like to thank all of you that sent cards and gifts, much appreciated. I found birthday wishes from my work colleagues on a big poster they made in the loo....Commonly known now as my second office. A customer bought me in a cake, which was sweet and Rob brought back a Chinese takeaway. My birthday wish was that it didn't snow that day, but sadly that wish didn't come true and it was yet another messy day on the roads, however that was nothing compared to the weather today. We have had more snow, followed by ice pellets and then a load of rain as the temperature rose for about 2 hours, which caused some melting of the massive amounts of snow everywhere, that in turn has and is now flash freezing again as the temperature drop back down to around minus 15.

The last few weeks have been relentless, almost everyday it has been a struggle to go anywhere and try and keep on top of snow clearing. Just leaving the house requires a good extra ten minutes just to get extra layers of clothing on and boots of course. This Winter really has turned into possibly the worst one yet here for me. I hate it! My mood is bleak most of the time, I cannot be bothered with anything. So if I haven't written back to you recently, it's because even the computer holds no interest for me. I am pretty sure I am not alone in feeling this way, most people I know seem to have no energy and sleeping way more than they normally do.

I am hoping upon hoping that this weather ends soon and I can begin to get out of this funk.
One good thing in amongst the weather gloom is that we have a new Stat/Bank holiday tomorrow. Many other parts of Canada already celebrate a day off in Feb as Family Day. Nova Scotia have called it Heritage Day and tomorrow is the first one. I am thrilled to be having a day off as it means I don't have to try and get into work. I find it funny that most other Provinces call their holiday 'Family Day' yet Nova Scotia has to call it something else.

I will leave you with a couple of snowy images - On the left a view of the front garden and driveway, on the left a car buried in snow out the back on of the units next to where I work. The image was taken last week. Good job they left the windscreen wipers up to stop  them getting snow covered!!!! I actually saw the lady owner digging it out Thursday but by Friday it had more snow on it. I am also posting my favourite viral cat video of the week.

Spot the car in the right hand image! Click to view larger!

Still Here

It looks like Winter proper has kicked in now, after a relatively snow free December and half of January, we got a first 'full on' Winter storm last week. It moved up the Eastern Seaboard affecting NY and Boston the worst as no doubt you will have seen in the papers and on the news, it was a pretty messy affair for us and as usual it was a battle to get to work, I luckily grabbed a lift in with a colleague and we were sent packing at noon as the roads were terrible. Since then it has snowed more, thawed, frozen, chucked down some freezing rain which took Rob and I 20 minutes to chip a thick layer of ice of the car, then it snowed some more and has now frozen again and guess what...we are due another winter storm on Tuesday...Yay!...NOT!

In case you haven't spotted it yet I hate the snow and winter in general and it has literally sapped any life out of me, I go to work I come home and I don't do anything. Just getting on the computer is proving an enormous effort as you can see from my lack of updates.

Rob has been pretty busy in and out on call his colourful language appears to be getting worse every time he has to go outside to empty the bins, shovel the driveway, open the shed or go out in general. It's been so cold that the lock keeps freezing on the shed door which maddens him to the point I think his head is going to explode, I watched him earlier doing a Basil Fawlty and kicking it relentlessly.

Although I maybe inside more than out, it has certainly given me plenty of time to watch lots and lots of TV. Something I missed in the UK but have now watched on Netflix is 'Last Tango in Halifax' What a fantastic series that is, I loved it, and it has to be right up there with my all time fave TV series now. I have also finished watching the latest series of Lilyhammer, which is a series that so shouldn't work in theory but just does, it too is one of my favourites. I could list so many more but there are way too many of them. I have been engrossed in Celebrity Big Brother and loving it. I am torn as to who I want to see win it but I think as a beacon of calm in a sea of Chaos, Keith Chegwin should win it. I have been sharing many tweets with the BB fans and Interact quite regularly with Judi James the Body Language expert on Big Brother's bit on the side, I have also been interacting with Chris Wright one the contestants from last Summer's Civilian BB (he was my favourite to win it but sadly evil prevailed over good). I should mention that I have also in the past had Twitter one or two interactions with Keith Chegwin (when he was on Dancing on Ice). I love Twitter and interactions like these make it so much more interesting.

I will leave you with my favourite viral video that never fails to put a smile on my face...I love it even more as he reminds me of Hank from Breaking Bad!

Happy New Year and all that!

A White Christmas

Hey peeps, it's been a while, apologies. I am in such a funk with Winter I have practically lost the will to do anything.

I hope you all had a relaxing Christmas. I was glad to have a few days away from work, I definitely needed the break and slept through most of it. When I wasn't sleeping I was watching mountains of TV. Netflix took a pounding. Rob and I spent our first Christmas in our new home quietly. We had beef instead of Turkey. Big thanks to all of you who sent cards and pressies. Much appreciated.

Anne and Smiffy popped round between Christmas and New Year, other than that we didn't have any visitors.

The snow held off until about a week ago, and we have had a bit on and off then some rain, then ithas frozen again. We have had some pretty cold temperatures too. One day it went from plu 9 right down to minus 28 with the wind chill in the space of 24 hours. I must say though I am not finding Winter as unbearable as last year, as it has come much later which hopefully, in turn should make it a lot shorter.

Pat our Realtor popped round just before Christmas with a really sweet hand painted Christmas tree ornament (as you can see here). Thankfully it made it through the season without Shakespeare breaking it. He didn't do too badly with the tree, but was pretty upset when we took it down and was still clinging on to the bottom branches as we packed up in the box.

Anyhow nothing much else to report. So I will update again when I have something interesting to say!