More Pictures - Just Pictures

Sunday, August 24, 2008

We woke up to the closing ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games. I can’t say that I am sorry to see the games finish. I am interested in watching effort and excellence but the extravagance and excess sometimes turns me off. I always wonder if the best of the best are really the best at the sport or the best at hiding their unethical approaches to winning.

After lunch we fired up Dolores and she guided us towards Wolfville. In 1981 I left the University of Regina to take a job with CN headquarters in Montreal. The story of that job is a long one but suffice it to say that when I received a call from the Dean at the U of R to come back I gladly accepted it.

My daughter Stacey was born in June of 1982 and we didn’t’ want to move before or just after she was born so I taught a summer course at McGill. While I was teaching that course I met Nancy Hicks. She was a professor in Business Education at McGill.

When I returned to Regina I discovered that one of my former colleagues Eleanor Bujea had retired and that there was a position available in Business Education. Nancy applied and was appointed to begin in July of 1983. She and worked happily together until her retirement in 1998. A few years after she retired she returned to her home in Nova Scotia.

And we have been intending to visit her ever since!

Dolores (have I explained that we call our GPS unit Dolores or Dolly for short?) took us up towards Windsor past some wonderful scenery - I am enjoying the trees and the occasional glimpse of water.

We arrived at Nancy’s home in Wolfville - as predicted it is a beautiful home, tastefully decorated and very comfortable.

Nancy and Dave (her friend) welcomed us with drinks and cheeses which we had sitting around the table in her backyard. Nancy’s home is surrounded by woods and after a bit she took us on a short hike through the woods to see a small beach on one side and a spectacular view of the valley on the other.

The Annapolis valley has many vineyards but probably the most well known is Grand Pre. They have set up an excellent restaurant and gift shop there and that is where Nancy and Dave took us for dinner. The wine was terrific, the food excellent and the company entertaining.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Designated as another day to just lie around we did just that for most of the morning. But today was also the day that Mark was leaving to go back to Regina.

Helene and Mark went off for one of their long walks, Jane and Pat went to the Hubbard Farmer’s market and I read - I was compelled to finish my book!!

We said our goodbye and Jane took Mark to the airport. It has been a comfortable fun time for us. Together the four of us have the right mix of adventure, laziness, energy and conversation. Pat will be finishing her summer and going home in the middle of September.

The Swiss Air memorial is made up of two parts forming a triangle with the crash site. We had seen the memorial on the Peggy’s Cove side of St. Margaret’s Bay (at Whale Back) and we wanted to see the other site, The site on this side of the Bay is the actual burial site.

It wasn’t a long drive to Bayswater. A small sign pointed the way to a rough little parking lot just below the memorial. We parked and walked up the path to a wall with the names of all of the victims of the crash and a small enclosed grass area. As the sign indicated the area was in keeping with the typical shoreline topography.

We explored further along the coast and marveled at the beauty of the coastline and the ocean. It has been a very wet summer here (although it has hardly rained since we have been here) and the trees, bushes and grass are still green.

We made our way home, had dinner - left over steak and scallops - and finished the evening with a game of scrabble (which Pat won!)

Friday, August 22, 2008

Friday was our designated vegging out day. Our morning routine - coffee, sitting on the deck, reading, eventually showering, watching the Olympics dragged out until around 2 in the afternoon.

I began to read a John Grisham book called The Chamber and had my nose stuck in that book basically the whole day.

Towards the end of the afternoon Helene and I ventured out to exit 6 to pick up some alcohol and do a little shopping. We also discovered that the visitor centre had internet access - all we needed to do was get there when no one else was on the machine. They also have a very short time limit.

Pat’s friends Cathy and Harry came for dinner and my job was to barbecue the steaks. Now I am not the world’s greatest steak barbecuer but this time I was dead on - medium and medium rare - dumb luck.

Cathy and Harry lived for 30 years in Saskatoon but a few years ago came home to Nova Scotia. They have a home in Halifax and a nice little cottage close to the cottage Pat has rented for the summer. We talked typical things - the Roughriders, the Prairies and the Maritimes.

Pat and Mark’s daughter Jane also joined us for dinner and she stayed out with us overnight.