Parade of Lights

It's been a funny old week. The weather has been the root cause. It's been really warm! We were up at 19c on Friday and some places in Cape Breton saw the temperature rise to 23c!!
Obviously I was off on Monday, so thankfully it was only a 4 day week - we all like those! My Boss has been away in Chile all week trying to secure a maintenance contract and so we've had a fairly hassle free week at work. However, there is a delivery we have to get out by the end of November, and quite frankly I don't see it happening! Such is life...
Matthew has changed his basketball team and evening and now does it on a Tuesday between 4 and 5pm. Much more convenient as it means I can collect him on the way home from work.
There were only two of us as leaders at Cubs on Wednesday and we made Yule logs. Delightful bits of Birch with candles and glued on pine cones. Add a ribbon, some bells and plastic red berries and there you have it - Festive spirit! Scott had kindly volunteered to saw up the birch branches we had lying in the garden. I still haven't started up my chain saw as I haven't got the protective gear yet. However, Scott has the same chainsaw and he basically cleared a lot with no gear....oh well - it's his leg he'll saw off!! The branches were cut into 9" lengths and then cut in half length ways. The kids all seemed pleased with them, so that's the main thing!!
Saturday was also a warmish day - though grey. I had an appointment with the reference library downtown to discuss starting a business. They give you an appointment where they guide you in the right direction to look for information pertaining to starting your own business such as Market research, registering your business, demographic information and so on. It was very useful and I got a lot of information. I then had to take my car into the VW dealer to get the heater bulb replaced. Then it was home for some lunch, then we all went back downtown to attend the Chronicle & Herald Parade of Lights. This is an annual event, and it is very well attended. Probably around 80,000 people there! Because of this we decided to head down mid-afternoon and take Matthew & Emma to the Discovery Center, which is a great place for kids to spend a couple of hours. We took some photos there (the ones of Matthew & Emma in the yellow room are really cool!) and then when it closed at 5pm we claimed our spot on the street and waited for the parade to start at 6pm. I have no idea how many floats there were, but it finished around 7.15. It was actually a lot better than I was expecting, but it just seemed bizarre all these people shouting Merry Christmas in the middle of November! The best floats were Pete's Frootique and Halifax International Airport (bottom photo). All very impressive and a lot of effort had been put in by a lot of people. And I suppose it is only 6 weeks to the dreaded day!!
Then today I finally managed a lie-in, hung the newly refurbished bird feeder out, tidied the study (a bit) and then we had to take Matthew & Emma to their Ice Skating lessons. They managed to gain their Stage 1 badges, so they were pleased with that! On the drive home however, we were just about to pull out at a junction, and a woman drove into the back of us. Luckily it was low speed, and it felt a lot worse than it actually was. She did crack the bumper though. So I have her details and we'll get an estimate and let her know the damage. It shouldn't be much and the last thing we want to do is get insurance involved. I'll have to ask Scott from Cubs the best place to get it repaired.
And so that was another week. And no I didn't get the lights put up! I can see the weather will get really bad and we'll be putting them up in an arctic storm! Won't be next week as we have the first Cub Camp of the season - can't wait.....