This weekend is Founder’s Days
16 July 2013
• Shelburne NS
by Mike
Its big smoke in Shelburne but now that we have been through it twice and given that my job is basically the shoulder to whine on if everything doesn't go exactly right Barb and I will be well and gone away starting on Friday night. We probably won't go far. Maybe even only out to McNutt's Island again but somewhere away so that we can honestly say that we aren't in town. Come to think of it, even if there is rain in the forecast we should still get away. Why am I so keen on getting off? Well first Founder's Days is a celebration of the first settlers arriving here in Shelburne, then called Port Roseway, which is all well and good but first history and the story don't always match. In fact we are celebrating the arrival of a bunch of opportunists who, as soon as they found out there was actual work involved in homesteading, couldn't move quickly enough to be elsewhere. In fact some of them even went back to the USA. Some loyalists, eh? There are a bunch of water based games - greased pole, lobster crate racing, canoe jousting, etc., and a whole whack of booths set up on the waterfront selling loyalist hamburgers, loyalist cotton candy, asking for loyalist donations to the humane shelter etc. No, my natural tendency to open my yap and say something that would be better unsaid would override my sense of self preservation and bad mo-jo would occur.
Poor old Peri has come down with his spine problem again only this time we seem to have found a vet that has the magic elixir that will fix it. It just appears that he might be on this stuff for the rest of his life. A bit like me and my prostate meds except that he can't move with his problem. Two doses of the pills we got yesterday and he is up and gingerly moving about.
For the next couple of days Barb and I will be working on the upstairs bathroom. We got everything ripped out just in time for me to come down with the flu and be faced with a midnight dash to the downstairs head to woof cookies into the can. Made it every time, praise be, but it was close on a couple of occasions. Since then I have rigged up the upstairs toilet so that it at least is usable. We are converting a modern bathroom into one that is more in keeping with the Victorian nature of the rest of the house with a marble top sink and a clawfoot tub. As we pulled stuff off the walls and took out the sectional tub/shower we were confronted yet again with the wonderful carpentry skills of one of the former owners. The man had a love affair with common nails and plywood. Plus, he seems to save every screw that he took out of anything and reuses them. The result is that I went through 5 different screwdrivers to get a single piece of wood out. Sheesh! We are putting up a knotty pine tongue and groove paneling that Barb is painting a sort of off white which is really adding to the general ambiance of oldness and we are using a nail gun with compressor that is moving the job ahead very quickly. We will be putting the same bamboo flooring down that we did in the kitchen and then we can put the appliances in place and hook them up to the plumbing. Oh, and did I mention that we had a good 30 minute search for the shut off taps to the water in the upstairs head? One of those little details wherein the cold tap was in one place and the hot in a completely different one. Double sheesh!
Anyway, Sunday and next week we are looking forward to daughter and step son coming down for a visit. The young fellow is getting started early with the wet feet class of learn to sail at the club. Personally I think this is a great idea as it will make him particularly useful in future as crew for Nelleke.
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I have a late breaking news flash.
Periwinkle, the fercious wonder-hound, noble beast and stalwart friend, is feeling his age again and has a pinched nerve in his lower back, so much so that he is having difficulty moving. So, I think that we will be heading out just across the harbour on Friday night to pick up a mooring in the hurricane hole and watch the fireworks from a position almost underneath them. Then on Saturday we can look at either coming back to the club and go home to make ready for arrival of daughter and offsprung, or we could then head out to McNutts as planned if Peri can handle it.
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