Buskers, Snakes & Gardening

Well what an eventful week we had. The weather also behaved this week . The worst day of the week weatherwise (the only day we had rain anyway) was on Tuesday which was of course our Wedding Anniversary. As well as the Pear trees mentioned in the blog last week, we also went out to Ryan Duffy's Steak & Seafood Emporium...It's always a treat going there and as usual I had the Ceaser Salad (made at the table of course...) and New York Strip to follow. Delicious. Deborah had the giant shrimp and scallops to start followed by the New York Strip. They wheel a trolley to your table and you choose the size of steak which they then cut off right in front of you, trimming it to your satisfaction. They then weigh it on the trolley and you pay by the ounce. They were delicious steaks! No dessert as that would be greed not need. It was nice to leave comfortably full rather than with that 'over-indulged' feeling....So despite the rain we had a lovely day/evening. In fact the rain was a bit of a blessing. I'd arranged a friend to take Matthew & Emma to Soccer, so we could go out that bit earlier.(I find eating too late makes us suffer somewhat - must be an age thing!) However she wasn't needed as the soccer was cancelled. Nick, the lodger, babysat and as usual they were little angels. Why they can't be like that for us I have no idea....
Thursday was soccer again, and this time we both went along to it as it was the last game - or so we thought. Turns out there is a final tournament on Saturday - nice to get plenty of notice. I just hope Matthew (and in fact the team) plays better than they did on Thursday. They were walking around like farts in a trance half the time - soooo frustrating! They lost about 6-1 which seems to be pretty par for the course.
It's the 20th Anniversary of the Halifax Buskers Festival, and I'd heard a lot about it , so we were determined to spend some time down there at the waterfront seeing what was happening. Deborah took the children down at lunchtime on Friday and then I joined them when I finished work. It was truly excellent. With about 8 stages set up along the waterfront and different acts appearing every hour between noon and about 10 or 11pm. We stayed until 10pm and the atmosphere down there was superb! I saw Bike Boy, All-star skateboarder and Oz Star Airlines with a little bit of Squid. Deborah, Matthew & Emma saw a lot more in the afternoon. They also ate Beavertails (pastries shaped like Beavertails) and had a bit of facepainting done (see photo). They saw the whole Squid show as well as another couple of shows. The photo at the top is of Bike Boy (who said he was from Australia, but I suspect is a Brit who had moved to Oz). Squid is a local band who play percussion instruments mainly and are really good (see link to the right) . They certainly went down well. I also heard another band from Australia called Oka, who again were really good (you can listen to some of their music via the link on the right - click 'music' at the top of their website). By the time we left at 10pm it was really busy down at the waterfront and as I said the atmosphere was great. Matthew and Emma behaved impeccably and had a good night's sleep!
Saturday dawned bright and sunny and we managed to get a bit done in the garden. While digging out weeds, there was a shriek from Emma - as she does- there was a snake on the front lawn. It was only a garter snake, non-poisonous, but could give you a bite! Matthew & Spencer were all for picking it up, but were quickly dissuaded by getting a shouting at!! We managed to get a photo though!! Then at 1pm friends from the UK arrived for a BBQ. They were originally hoping to go to Calgary, but sadly their application was rejected by CHC London. It's a huge shame and I really feel for them. They desperately want to move to Canada, and you know they will settle and make it work. They are looking at another way of getting in, by using the Provincial Nominee Program which is a province based scheme as opposed to the main federal based one. Nova Scotia is now in their sights as prices in Alberta have sky rocketed and it's become unaffordable.They are in Nova Scotia for a fortnight on a fact finding trip. Anyway, we had a very pleasant afternoon and I really hope they manage to succeed in obtaining a visa. I will certainly do everything I can to assist them! There was a family that arrived at the same time as us (last December), looked at 70+ houses because they had no idea as to the style of house or indeed area they wanted to live in and had a job lined up (actually the company had held the job for 6 months for him). We found out a couple of weeks ago that they have returned to the UK, a couple of months after finally moving into a house. What a waste of a Visa. All that time and money - just makes me angry when there are families getting turned down who you know would be a real asset to the country. Isn't life unfair?
Anyway, rant over, I shall let you know how our friends get on!!
Sunday started off a bit grey and we had planned to go to the Sandcastle competition down at Clam Beach. However, Matthew & Emma didn't appear to be falling over themselves with enthusiasm, so we decided to spend the day gardening instead. We got a lot done, we are making the big flower bed at the front of the house, smaller and more manageable, and one of the beds in the lawn bigger to accept more plants. We'd like to split up the huge mass of day Lilies! Just about finished the bed in front of the house. It would be nice to get it completed early this week so I can sow the grass seed. Just need to keep Bella off the newly sown bed....
Talking of Bella, I came down this morning to go to work and found she'd obviously been a little ill overnight....and we're not talking sick here...thank goodness it was all contained within her cage. Dog and cage were all put out on the deck, I let Deborah know what had happened and beat a hasty retreat to work....
So here we are, Monday morning once again and a new week. Matthew and Emma are still doing the swimming lessons up at Oakfield Park in the lake. I have a Toastmasters Committee meeting on Thursday evening, but apart from that, hopefully a quiet week. We'll see.