Photos from Nova Scotia - Part III

Every time I visit my relatives in Nova Scotia, I know there will be a number of sing-alongs and music jam sessions during my stay. This two week visit was no exception. Tom Cohoun, a really nice guy who lives nearby and sure knows how to carry a tune, came over on July 11th for a few hours and I greatly enjoyed listening to him sing.




Tom and John playing together:




Lisa seemed to have fun filming parts of the session:




On July 13th, we went to visit a friend a few miles down the road and had a long sing-along there with her visiting daughter and family:




During my stay, I also started picking up the ukulele, as Jos's boyfriend Matt brought his along and very kindly let me play around with it:




Aside from music, most of our time at home was somehow related to food. Grandma loves to cook and she loves to feed people. And uncle John likes to make his tasty Orange Julius-style hot dogs for us at night.




Strawberry shortcake, sooooo tasty!




We even played a game of horseshoes, which we did a lot when I was a kid:




On July 14th, we drove to Taylor Head beach, where there were plenty of jellyfish in the sea and lots of space on the beach to toss around a pigskin:








Part of Jos's reason for visiting was to do some documentary filmmaking about local life and our family history there, so after returning from the beach she and Matt set up a projector and then filmed a slideshow to potentially use in a project later on:






The next night we had a big bonfire down at the beach, including a few marshmallows and a bunch of mosquito bites :-)

Photos from Nova Scotia - Part II

Jos and Matt had a blue car while we were in Nova Scotia in July, with Quebec licence plates. It was very convenient.




Down at the beach below my grandma's house, Lisa found a "Lion King" rock.




A few other beach scenes:










On July 10th, our uncle John took us across the street to the Legion to play in a dart shoot.








Matt and his partner won first prize, a few good steaks, as they were undefeated the whole night. I won the 50-50 draw, though, which made me $13 richer.




Three siblings at the end of the night before heading home:

Photos from Nova Scotia - Part I

After arriving in East Ship Harbour on my bicycle, worn out from the long days of cycling in the summer heat with far too many hills for someone of my fitness level, I was glad to relax for two weeks and enjoy my grandmother's cooking in the company of my uncle John, my sisters Lisa and Jos, and Jos's boyfriend Matt.


John, me, and Lisa in the oceanside yard:




Grandma and Jos:




Matt:




Grandma is a terrific baker. She definitely helped me regain the weight lost on my cycle trip!




I got to be lazy the whole two weeks I was visiting, as John took care of all the mowing and other hard manual work so that we could relax.




The beautiful view looking East from the house:




On the 8th, us four younger ones drove into Halifax for a few hours to take care of some practical stuff that couldn't easily be done in the countryside. The highway is windy and hilly, but it only takes about 1 hour 20 mins by car to do what I did in a day's worth of cycling...




While I sat in a coffee shop using the high speed internet, a big tank type thing rolled past, as if the War Measures Act had been implemented!




Turns out it's part of a small daily parade put on by the military during peak tourist season...




I didn't speak to this fellow coffee drinker, but I bet he would have had something interesting to tell me. I like his bow-tie.




The girls did some laundry at a laundromat, and I caught up to them after printing a few photos elsewhere. The laundromat has a strange rule against drinking juice, pop, or coffee. They only allow people to drink containers for some reason...






In the afternoon we headed back out of town past the more industrialised parts of the harbour and across the bridge to hit the highway home:






The next day, we visited a couple of old friends a few miles down the road. They've got two dogs, really cute little things! The first one can't sit still, jumps all over the place, runs in circles, and is generally just hilarious to watch. The other is a lot better behaved and perhaps more photogenic.






As we arrived home after our visit, the sun was setting behind the power lines, and we were soon having our supper and preparing for a quiet evening at home.

A Poem for Barry Colpitts

I arrived at my grandmother's house in East Ship Harbour on July 6th, and the next day my sister and her boyfriend Matt went to interview a local resident for their film project. Barry Colpitts is a folk artist who lives in East Ship Harbour and makes all sorts of folk art pieces at his home, and he very kindly showed us around and told us about his work.

This is his house:




And a selection of his art:














Jos and Matt interviewing Barry on camera: