southernspaces: Back again,finally

Some shifts in our universe have occurred since I returned from Sherbrooke. Neil breaking his arm was one change- I am now cooking which I enjoy but seems to mean I am more tired at night. The modem upstairs has been moved- so instead of being able to sit at the kitchen table and write I am on the bed in the living room. This shouldn't really matter but seems to. Enough excuses (I could go on I'm good at them!)

Since we've been back from Sherbrooke I have acquired a FRIEND! Her name is Iris, she's from Germany and has a son Enan (often called "beans") and a boyfriend Matt. She was (and still might be) a flight attendant for Lufthansa. At the moment she makes children's clothes,toys and games and sell them at the market on Saturdays. Matt is running a puppet show at the market and is a Biology grad student at Dal. It is lovely to have someone to hang out with. Today, for example, we had breakfast at a diner and drove to the Mic Mac Mall and did a little shopping and a great of running the kids around.

I am really enjoying living near a thriving port. There was a large ship in the harbor this week from Norway. When we were down at the harbor we saw a service vessel from the ship with Norwegian sailors on who waved to us. The ship we saw was Knutsen OAS's ship the Jasmine. Here's a link to Halifax Port Authority's website - really fascinating. In April the cruise ships will start coming to town ...quite a sight.

We did some travelling last weekend. Jon and Judi led us to Chester and Mahone, two very beautiful towns to the east of Halifax.

The views from Chester were stunning.

Mahone has lots of small, quirky and rather expensive shops, some lovely houses, and rather a high concentration of churches.

The kids decided to have a backwards day.

We ended up at the warmest beach in Nova Scotia: Queensland Beach - it has rather a quirky website and sweet ducks. It was not very warm at this time of year as you can see from the way everyone is dressed - the water was incredibly clear. The views were stunning.