A Few Nova Scotia Pictures!

Just a few pictures for now! My best friend and her daughter came out to visit me and my mum in Nova Scotia this past weekend. It was so nice to see them, and so much fun to have a little one around. Here are a few pictures from their visit!

Kirsten and Claire on the lawn tractor!

Claire throwing rocks into the stream at Blomidon beach.

Miss Claire.

Miss Claire in the princess bathtub!

Thanks for visiting, ladies! It was so good to see you :)

Love,

Gillian

Vitamin Water Comes to Canning

... I was as shocked as you are! Not only that, it's 60 cents cheaper than in Calgary. Only 3 kinds, but still! Progress.

Lots more to blog about, but I'm trying to soak up as much vacation time as possible, so I'll do more updates when I'm back... f I come back... It's 29 degrees Celsius here and there's coconut gelato....

xoxo,

Gillian

Putting the "Delirious" and "Blue" in Delirious Blue

There's nothing like staying inside for days on end with stuff on your mind. It makes you crazy. It makes you both Delirious AND Blue. That's not a great start to the New Year, so I'm going to ramble about nonsense on my blog. That's what it's here for, isn't it?

So first, Nova Scotia Christmas pics!

Mmm, green grass!

Gramps and some boats

Lobster Boat. Tis the season... for roadside lobster stands. $5/lb!

I've never witnessed such a wind. We were leaning our weight against it and it was holding us up! Madness!

What next? The whole "delirious blue" thing made me realize that I've never (on this blog) explained where I got the name for my blog. It comes from the poem "High Flight" by John Gillespie Magee Jr. The line is actually "delirious burning blue", but that seemed like excessive typing. Here ya go:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, -- and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air ....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew --
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Okay, one last thing. If you're single? For the love of all things holy, try eHarmony. It has restored my faith that there are actually worthwhile single people out there. I've been on it less than a month and I've been matched with almost 200 eligible and educated men, and am talking to 30 of them. 30... 30 men who are MATURE, smart, single and who want a relationship... and who ask priceless questions like "how many children do you want?" and "do you want to go condo shopping with me?" Are you kidding? Marry me now!!!

Have a good night!

Love,

Gillian

Some Vacation Pics

Hey All!

I'm having a lovely time in Nova Scotia! Here are a few pics so far:

Baxter's Harbour at low tide

(a little dark, but I wanted to get the rockiness against the sky.)

Risser's Beach - "Tropical storm? What tropical storm?"

We're not sure what this was... a dam, we think, in Conquerall Mills, but we can't find any info about the place. Pretty cool, tho!

More to follow, I'm sure :)

Gillian

Pictures!

Still not in a chatty mood, but here are some pictures for you anyway. I start writing my exams on Monday, wish me luck!

Blomidon Beach

Just so you can see just how red the soil/water is around here!

I just liked this barn, and the aligned windows letting in that frame of sunset.

A pheasant in our back yard this evening. What gorgeous colours, he looks rather like he's painted and not real at all!

Belal at the beach :)

That's it for now!

Love,

Gillian

A New Slideshow!

It's been a busy week! Grandma Bell came to visit and we showed her our favourite Nova Scotia spots. It was pretty chilly, but really nice. I took almost 200 pictures this week (!!!), so I decided to put together a little slideshow rather than posting just pictures on my blog. The slides show a number of shots from Baxter's Harbour, Cape Split, the Halifax Citadel, Lunenburg, Peggy's Cove and the run-down Scott's Bay United Church. The song is "Far Away" by Ingrid Michaelson.

I hope you enjoy :)

Day Off... HOORAY! (and a little bit of waiting!)

Today we took off for an irresponsible but much needed DAY OFF! It was a very foggy and rainy day, so we took a meandering trip down the coast to Digby (see map below and the poorly drawn red line... yup, I'm wicked in paint :P)

First we drove down to Black Rock/Harbourville/Berwick area. Harbourville looks like it has very promising seafood in the on-season, so I'll definitely have to check that out before I leave.

Cool old apple tree... somewhere....


Harbourville Harbour

Harbourville Harbour. The ocean is behind that boat, it's just too foggy to see.

I didn't take any pictures in Annapolis Royal, which is ridiculous because it's gorgeous down there. Silly me! If you go to Nova Scotia, check out Annapolis Royal. It's the oldest continuous European settlement north of St. Augustine, Florida, founded in 1605 by your friend and mine, Mr. Samuel de Champlain. Yay Champlain!!!

Next we headed down to Digby. If you recall, Digby is where the ferry dock is for the New Brunswick to Nova Scotia ferry, and was the first place I saw in Nova Scotia (ahhh, memories...) We even stopped at the same Tim Hortons. It was magical, but I couldn't resist a small dig at my parents... "I remember this... this was before you dragged me off to the middle of nowhere." Haha... they didn't find that amusing... I wonder why... ANYWAY...

Through Digby, up the "scenic route" to Lighthouse Road, to the lighthouse on the cliffs. The lighthouse had a fantastic, earsplitting foghorn that might have replaced the Air Raid Siren as my new favourite sound. I'm going to have to get a video camera and start recording these before I leave.

Danger - Unstable Cliff sign. I collect Danger Sign pictures, by the way... I'm kind of crazy, hey? "Hi, I'm Gillian and I collect Danger sign photos and interesting sounds!" ... riiiight. Not surprising I'm single, eh?

The afore-mentioned unstable cliffs in the fog (the reason for the foghorn)

After the lighthouse we stopped at a questionable restaurant for lunch, and then my parents stopped at Canadian Tire to buy the entire stock of some discontinued glass cleaner... Sooo... WAITING PICTURES!

Belal had frizzy fur from the humidity ;) SO CUTE!

Me, pouting because Tims put sugar in my coffee... EEEAUW!!! TWO CREAMS, PEOPLE! NO SUGAR!!!

In conclusion, it was a lovely day!

Love to all!

Gillian

Waiting Day 16, and much, much more!

This is sort of a random post! It's Saturday night and I'm at home being cranky that this has been just another Saturday night in 8 months of Saturday nights sitting at home, NOT going on dates or out with friends to movies or dances. This is getting a little old, and so when I get back to Calgary I'm determined to make up for it by going out every single Saturday night this summer!!! Maybe Fridays too! HA!

It's blizzarding merrily outside (March coming in like a lion, I guess...) and I should be studying or working on the website, but instead I'm writing on here and then will probably have a bubble bath and watch some marathon X-Files. I mean, it IS Saturday night, after all!

Here is the Waiting Art from our trip to Halifax today, outside (where else?) the Sears Home store. Have you noticed that I seem to get paler with each waiting art pic? I have given up sunlight and vitamin D entirely this winter (it burns, it buuuuurns!) Leaving the house is for chumps. I glow, but in a spooky, ethereal way. I was thinking the other day that it might be fun to go to Disneyland for one last hurrah before heading back to Calgary, but I think I might have to hit a tanning booth before I invade L.A. or else I might be mistaken for a ghost in The Haunted Mansion, and then burn to Piping Hot Lobster shade within 5 minutes. Yuck. Anyone want to come with me? I promise I'll bring sunscreen!!!

What else is new? This evening the fire department was beckoned with 5 short blasts from my beloved air raid siren (YAY!) and I thought longingly that I wanted to share my favourite thing with my friends and family! Thankfully, YouTube was there for me, and now I can!!! I'm not exactly sure, but ours sounds to me like the 2T22 model. Before I leave I'm going to go by the firehouse and ask about it, and hopefully record my own little video. For now, this video of a 2T22 will have to do. Their blast is longer than ours, but the revving up and down are the best parts anyway, so please listen. I know it gets a little unbearable around 30 seconds in, but hold out till it starts to wind down at 48 seconds. It's worth it, I promise.

One last thing... The Village of Canning has a new website! I don't think it's done yet because it's a little hard to manoeuvre around, but THIS picture caught my eye....

... Canning used to have a gas station!!! THIS IS HUGE!!! What happened? What event made Petro Canada wash their hands of this village? Mysteries abound! People often ask me "how big is Canning?" and my response used to be "it's so small that there isn't even a gas station!" Now I can respond "it's so small that they took away the gas station!!!"

Lots of love!

Gillian

Updates!

Blue Rocks, Nova Scotia

Yesterday we took a little jaunt to the South Shore to look into getting a jacket for Belal and to re-purchase a few items for Nathan & Sheila's Christmas present (attempt #2.) It was a heavenly 15 degrees Celsius and rainy, so I inquired if we might go to a beach since we were already on the South Shore. Sadly, we got a bit lost and ended up in Blue Rocks, Nova Scotia. We didn't see much of it, but it was such the rustic picturesque sea village and I loved what I saw. I said "why couldn't you have moved HERE?" at the exact second my mum said "I'm glad we don't live HERE."

A-HA... that pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? Perhaps we should have had this discussion back in April!!! Granted a small town is a small town, but at least that one has an ocean view!

I am very, very, very disappointed in the change that the New Year has brought to Canning. The air raid siren that used to sound once daily at noon (except Sundays) and five times consecutively to alert the volunteer fire fighters has suddenly, alas, STOPPED. I'm not sure why it stopped, but I'm eagerly awaiting the next issue of The Canning Gazette, which will surely explain why this travesty has occurred. It's a sad state of affairs, I tell you. I might have to go to the fire hall and see what's happened.

Moving on: Today I managed to check two items off the "101 in 1001" list! I got a copy of "The Magic Flute", although technically I purchased it through my eMusic account in digital form rather than CD, but it still counts. I also made a catalogue of all of the DVDs I own, which at 82 was no small task. Yay me! Only 99 to go :P

Love to all,

Gillian

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Well it was a very quiet but nice Christmas here in Nova Scotia. We all got thoroughly spoiled by Santa, we went for a little drive, I cooked my first turkey and we had a lovely dinner. I admit that I tried to ignore Christmas a little bit, because whenever I started to think of it I got really sad that the rest of the family wasn't with us. It was a nice day, but it just wasn't the same :P

As promised, I've put together a little Nova Scotia Christmas slideshow. This way you can pretend that you had Christmas with us. Midway through is a picture of a young golden Eagle, which will seem completely non-cohesive to the rest of the slideshow, but we saw it on our Christmas drive today, so it is henceforth The Christmas Eagle and actually does belong.

Still no sign of the missing package, but hopefully... maybe... I hope?

Love to everyone!

Gillian

Oh Christmas Tree!

Yesterday we went on a little excursion to cut down a Christmas tree at a tree farm! It was oh so cold, but a fun experience. Flip the Tree Farm dog was very helpful in showing up the perfect tree, and he and mum became fast friends, of course!

Mum and Flip :)

This is our tree (before we cut it down.) I'm just posing with the saw, trust me, I left the sawing to dad.

Here's our tree all decorated! Isn't it pretty?

Lots of love,

Gillian

Halifax Weekend!

My friend Kirsten and her husband and baby were in Halifax this weekend, so I went into the city to visit them. It was so much fun! I met some of their friends and we went out for dinner and had a lovely time. Then Kirsten, Tara and I tried our luck at the Casino and listened to a band play. It was SOOOOO nice to get out :) On Sunday morning I got a chance to explore downtown a little on my own, and I have to say that I'm fairly enamored with the city. There are so many neat old buildings and fun shops (although most were closed on Sunday.) I've only driven through a few times and caught glimpses of things that I wanted to visit, so I was delighted at the chance to explore.

I started off the morning at Cabin Coffee, which was a dear little romantic cafe. I had breakfast and wrote a letter to a friend, enjoying the atmosphere thoroughly. I was very sorry to leave it behind, but The Old Burying Ground has been calling to me since we drove past it in September. The Old Burying Ground is an old cemetery in downtown Halifax which dates back to the 1700s. You can read more about it here. Unfortunately the gates were locked, but I wandered around the perimeter and took a few pictures.

Isn't this... charming? I wish I could have seen the rest of it!

On Sunday I came back to the Valley with Kirsten, Brad and Claire. They stayed the night with us last night, which delighted my parents. Claire is just the sweetest little girl and this morning she modeled for me so I could take some naked baby pics. What a little doll :)

It was great to see you guys! I'm coming to Calgary on Wednesday, so I'll see everyone soon!
Love,
Gillian