Panopticon

New Books for Christmas

2010-12-31T08:51:00.002-04:00

I've got some good reading coming up in 2011 - including plenty of research material for our planned trip to southwest France in October. To wit:

The Mistress of Nothing- Kate Pullinger (won the Governor General's Literary Award last year)
The Secret Life of France - Lucy Wadham
From Here, You Can't See Paris: Seasons of a French Village and its Restaurant - Michael S. Sanders
Families of the Vine: Seasons Among the Winemakers of Southwest France - Michael S. Sanders
Walnut Wine and Truffle Groves: Culinary Adventures in the Dordogne - Kimberley Lovato
Louis Comfort Tiffany and Laurelton Hall: An Artist's Country Estate - Alice Freylinghuysen (the official guide to the exhibition of the same name, which J. and I saw in 2007 at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC)
Wild Boy: My Life in Duran Duran - Andy Taylor
Ending on a High Note: 2010 Farewell Tour Program - a-ha

I've Become a Jogger!

2010-10-24T12:49:00.003-03:00

I've never been the sort to have naturally robust cardiovascular fitness. Growing up feeling tormented by Phys Ed classes, as as kid I hated endurance runs, team sports, and pretty much anything that involved getting sweaty and out of breath. As a teenager I made many abortive attempts at becoming an aerobics bunny, but could never manage to sustain a routine long enough for it to provide any real benefit. It wasn't until my late twenties that I discovered forms of exercise - first yoga, then Pilates - that I actually enjoyed and managed to stick with for more than a few months, before getting bored and giving up. But while both of those regimes are amazing for building flexibility and strength, they don't do much in the way of working the heart and lungs, and burning fat.

I've thought for some time now that I really should do something to address my rather pathetic cardiovascular capacity, but wasn't sure what this should be. Sprinting for more than two or three minutes left me wheezing, with a pain in my chest. The idea of running around a field somewhere until I collapsed still sounded as hellish as it did when I was a kid. But then, I found out about walk-to-jog programs; specifically, I found this:

http://www.prevention.com/health/fitness/walking/walking-and-jogging-workout-for-weight-loss/article/8bc7d08f88803110VgnVCM20000012281eac____

Since I've always walked a lot (including regular four-mile return commutes to my office), I was intrigued and decided to give it a go. It felt realistic and achievable to start out by walking, but with a few short bursts of jogging thrown in. And I liked the fact that the increase in jogging time was slow and steady. Still, I was a bit skeptical - the thought of being able, at the end of twelve weeks, to jog for ten whole minutes at a time seemed unreal. Other people - fit, athletic types - do that sort of thing with ease, but not the likes of me!

Well. Fourteen weeks later (I took two weeks off the plan, due to travel and mild illness), I can report that I DID IT. I actually did it! When I started in mid-July, I jogged for just 3 out of 15 minutes (walking for the remaining 12). But by week 4, I was up to jogging 50% of the time - 12 out of 24 minutes. By week 8, I was jogging 24 out of 30 minutes. The last four weeks were the most intense, as the jogging time quickly ramped up. I was worried I wouldn't make it, but really surprised myself - it was nowhere near as strenuous or difficult as I thought it would be. And now that I've finished the program? I can jog for 40 out of 44 minutes.

To say I'm amazed is an understatement. While these workouts have undoubtedly been challenging, at no point did I ever find myself thinking, "This is just too hard...I'm not going to make it." Credit to the slow and steady nature of the training, I guess. Successfully finishing each week of the program felt great, and really motivated me to keep going. Plus, I'm seeing the benefits in my body, as well as feeling them - so far, I've dropped 5 lbs and 2.5% body fat.

Now that I've finished the program, I'm definitely not resting on my laurels. After so much effort, I'd hate to lose the conditioning I've built up. So I've joined a gym for the winter, and have moved indoors to work on the treadmills over the coming months. Now that I have some endurance, I'm going to start working on speeding up my slow, shuffling gait, as well as adding some inclines and interval training.

I never would have imagined that at the age of 37, I'd become a jogger and actually enjoy it. Just goes to show that if a wimpy gal with an aversion to getting sweaty and out of breath can do it, anyone can!

New Farmers' Market: An Inspection Tour

2010-10-02T09:43:00.004-03:00

After all the hoo-ha in recent months about the move of the Halifax Farmers' Market from its old location at the Keith's Brewery to the new "Seaport" site at Pier 20, I've been meaning to check it out. With over a month having passed since the new site opened, I got up early this morning and headed down.

My verdict? Too soon to tell for certain; best to wait another six months to a year before passing final judgment. However, based on what I experienced this morning, I fear that the market may have sacrificed the charm and character of the old brewery location for little to no benefit. When I arrived at 8am, it was very busy - and when I left at 9.30, it was beginning to heave. The same could be said of the old location, however - and despite the new site being a cavernous open space, there are still bottlenecks in the flow of people at certain points (a major drawback at the brewery location). It seemed like pretty near all the vendors from the old location have made the move, though, and I was left to wonder who is still holding out over at the brewery. May need to go down there next week, to see.

The market organisers tell us that it's early days yet, and in a few months, once the market is open several days a week instead of just Saturdays, the congestion levels will lessen. I certainly hope so. By the time I left this morning, I was reminded of why I don't often go to this market - I prefer to spend my Saturday mornings tucked up in bed, instead of battling the hordes. Based on today's experience, the new location isn't yet living up to its promise of making the market experience more enjoyable.

That said, there were definitely some positives. Obviously, there's a great selection available and I picked up some lovely Annapolis Valley goodies - beets, corn and apples (including two varieties I've never seen before: "Ginger Gold" and "Mollie's Delicious"), free-range eggs, and excellent yogurt from the Fox Hill Cheese House. The availability of ample free parking is a major bonus (though unless you arrive at the crack of dawn, you may have to walk 5-10 minutes between where your vehicle is parked and the market entrance). Also, the new space has a mezzanine level where most of the arty/crafty vendors are located - useful to have them separated somewhat from the food vendors. Finally, the lousy acoustics of the open hall have ensured that the legions of wailing hippie buskers - who plagued the Brewery Market with their dubious musicianship - have largely disappeared. Huzzah! (hehe)

In the final estimation, I think that for the short term at least, I will be sticking with the little mid-day Friday market at the Victoria General Hospital. It's just down the street from my office, has my favourite vendors from the Saturday market, and I rarely have to wait more than a minute or two at the stands. But if the new Seaport Market does what it's meant to, hopefully shopping there will become more pleasant and more convenient in future.

Summer Holiday on the South Shore

2010-08-29T21:27:00.000-03:00

Having decided against going away for our holidays this summer (and in the interest of keeping things relaxed and low-stress), this year we opted instead for a three-day “staycation” down on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. I was a bit embarrassed by the fact that I’d never really been further southwest than Lunenburg, and knew there were some interesting sights to be seen. So early on Monday morning last week, we hit the road.

Two hours down Highway 103 got us to the village of Port Joli, where we veered off onto the side road to the Seaside Adjunct of Kejimkujik National Park. I’d heard lots of great things about the Adjunct (though I still have yet to visit the main park – maybe this fall) and we planned to spend the morning hiking to the beach there. It’s really a beautiful spot – a half-hour’s walk through forest and across bogs strewn with pitcher plants brought us to the seashore. The white sand beach stretches for several miles, and had just been re-opened to visitors after several months – access is barred for part of the year as endangered birds use the beach as a nesting place. The large rocks found just off the shoreline are home to lots of cormorants and other seabirds, as well as a colony of seals, who could be seen sunning themselves on the rocks.

The afternoon was spent doubling-back to the town of Lunenburg, where we’d planned to spend the night. We took the scenic option, however, following the Lighthouse Route east along the coast from Port Medway – a very pretty stretch of road, passing through lots of small fishing villages (and a nice local coffee house in the middle of nowhere, at Broad Cove). At LaHave, we queued up to take the cable ferry across the river (sailing time: 10 minutes), then drove into Lunenburg via its southern back roads.

That evening we’d booked dinner at the much-lauded restaurant Fleur de Sel, which last year opened a suite for overnight guests on its second floor. As a treat, we booked a package which gave us a night’s accommodation in the suite, the chef’s seven-course tasting menu for dinner that evening, and breakfast served by the chef the following morning. The suite was lovely – nicely-decorated, spacious and very comfortable. I took a bath in the big clawfoot slipper tub, then dressed for dinner.

The meal was – unsurprisingly – outstanding. Unusually, A. and I were served different dishes throughout – I’ve never been served a tasting in a restaurant where all the guests weren’t served the same things. Of course, we also asked for suitable wine pairings – so in effect, over the course of the evening, we tasted 14 different dishes and 14 different wines between the two of us. The next day, the restaurant emailed me the full menu (posted here), which was a good thing as I'd never have remembered it all! The biggest surprise on the menu was definitely the pig’s head roulade - sounds appalling, but it was absolutely delicious. Also, the Nova Scotia wines – God knows we produce a lot of nasty plonk in this province (I’m looking at you, Jost Wineries), but there are a couple of small vineyards which are beginning to produce some remarkably nice wines. But the entire meal was superb – save the pig’s head, there was nothing weird or exotic about it. Just good, fresh, local food, cooked perfectly and served with style. A memorable meal.

Tuesday morning we awoke to pouring rain, thunder and lightning. It didn’t bode well, so we hibernated at the restaurant (breakfast/reading/packing up) until 11.30 am, when the worst of the storm had passed us by. Then we headed west again, this time bombing down the 103 until we got past Port Joli (where we’d headed into the park the day before). Then we turned towards the coast and followed the scenic route once again.

On a whim, we drove into the town of Liverpool – lured by a sign on the highway that promised an Outhouse Museum. I’m a great fan of eccentric museums, and this seemed like just the spot to check out on a potentially rainy afternoon. The Rossignol Cultural Centre turned out to be an odd place, housing several small museum collections and galleries under one roof. We got natural history collections, guiding/hunting/trapping collections, a Mongolian collection, a stately panelled room purchased wholesale from an auctioneer in England, and a replica of Maud Lewis’s house. Oh, and the outhouses, of course – not only full-size examples, but a collection of outhouse-themed memorabilia as well. It was wonderfully bizarre, and we passed a head-scratching hour or two. Well worth the $5 admission fee!

Back on the road that afternoon, we headed for our most westerly stop on the trip: Birchtown. It was once home to the largest settlement of black Loyalists (American colonists who did not support the Revolutionary War with Britain) in North America. At its peak (in the 1780s) it was apparently the largest community of free black people in the world, outside of Africa. Nowadays there is a cultural centre on the site of the original settlement, which relays some of the history of the place itself and the bad deal that the black Loyalists received at the hands of the British. Instead of the promised grants of arable land for each man and woman, the people were dumped at Birchtown, which had poor soil for farming and where almost no ownership of land was ever granted. Onsite are reconstructions of the “pit houses” where the original settlers would have lived for the first few years (basically holes dug in the ground, with log roofs). We also visited the burial ground and church used by the community through the 19th century. A very interesting and historic spot, which not enough people know about.

From Birchtown, it was just a few minutes’ drive east before we reached the town of Shelburne, our stopping place for that evening. I knew a few things about Shelburne’s remarkable history, but had never visited. Its heyday was over two centuries ago – it was first settled in the 1780s by a group of 3,000 (mainly white) Loyalists , and within a couple of years further Loyalist settlement meant the population of the town had swelled to 10,000 - making it the fourth-largest settlement in North America at that point. But its excellent harbour and convenient location for ships sailing up the Eastern seaboard couldn’t make up for the lack of arable land in the area (a problem also experienced by the black Loyalists in nearby Birchtown), and when the local authorities stopped providing provisions to the townspeople in 1787, the Loyalists began moving on to Upper Canada and England. By the 1820s, the population had dwindled to just 300 or so.

Arriving in Shelburne late that afternoon, we went straight to the historic centre – a small area one block wide and about 6-7 short blocks long, peppered with beautiful Georgian buildings constructed by the Loyalists during the boom years of the 1780s. First, we hit the Ross-Thomson House and Store – a well-preserved example of a late eighteenth-century store, with a Georgian house attached that served as home to the Loyalist storeowners, the Ross brothers. Afterwards, we picked up a map and guide to the historic district, and toured around the little “lanes” running between Dock Street on the waterfront and Water Street (the main street of the town). These streets retain some of their eighteenth-century character and are little more than a single lane wide.

I took lots of pictures, and the architecture was wonderful – but the town still had an odd, almost creepy character to it. Even on a sunny summer evening, it was so quiet – it felt like a ghost town. It also felt like a film set – which, in fact, it once was. Most famously, in 1994 the movie “The Scarlet Letter” starring Demi Moore, Gary Oldman and Robert Duvall (based on the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne) was filmed in the historic district of Shelburne. Two structures built as sets were left standing, and can still be seen today. I suspect that the filming of that movie was one of the last major economic boosts that the town received, however - there’s not much industry left in the area, and nowadays, it’s so remote. I’m glad we visited though, as it’s definitely a special place.

In the early evening, we headed to our B&B just outside the town – a 19th-century riverside house on the site of an old mill, which was very comfortable. We got changed and cleaned up before heading back into town for dinner at the Charlotte Lane Café – whose culinary fame has reached as far as Halifax. We really enjoyed our dinner there, though I wouldn’t say it’s destination dining. But clearly, it’s the best place in the area. The chef (a Swiss émigré) came out of the kitchen at the end of the evening to ask how we’d enjoyed our meal, which was very nice (I had the Swiss pork tenderloin with mushrooms and rosti potatoes – yum).

After a comfortable overnight at the B&B, we were dispatched with a hearty breakfast, then hit the highway back to Halifax. En route, we stopped at Ross Farm in New Ross – again, a place I’d never visited before (though it’s less than an hour’s drive from the city). It serves as a living agricultural museum for the province and made for a pleasant enough stop for the afternoon. Fun to check out all the different farm animals, and we took a ride around the farm in a wagon pulled by two lovely big working horses.

Only three days away, but it felt longer. Had some fun, saw lots of interesting new things, and ate some great food. What more could be asked for?

(Lots of photos to be found here.)

Kitchen Reno: Final Pics and Video

2010-03-26T09:20:00.004-03:00

I almost forgot! (Sorry, Blogger.) Our kitchen reno is all finished!

Since my last update, several more finishing touches were applied. In September, we decided against the glass mosaic tile I picked out last summer, after the supplier refused to do a custom blend for us (too small a job, apparently). Which is fine, except that they took three months to make that decision and communicate it to us - argh. So I chose another, similar, mosaic pattern, with 1"x1" glass squares in greens, whites, greys and light browns. As it turned out, this is an almost-perfect match for our quartz countertops, so I'm very pleased with the end result. By October, we had a tiler come in to do the work of installing our tile backsplash. Unfortunately, we hadn't done a very good job of measuring, so he got about 90% of the work done before running out of tile! We had more delivered a few weeks later, but by then he'd moved on to other work...and it was mid-February before he returned!! Tradespeople - what can you do?

But with that job completed, we can truly say that the Great Kitchen Renovation is finished. It took nearly 14 months from start to end, but we are so happy with the end result!

My kitchen reno photo diary on Flickr has been updated and is now complete, and can be viewed here (latest pics on the second page).

In Memoriam: Fawn the Bun

2009-12-08T20:46:00.004-04:00

Fawn: born Dublin, Ireland, April 2001.

We adopted Fawn, along with her mother, Ginger, from the Dublin SPCA in May 2001. She was one of four kits in the litter; her other three siblings were all red, just like Ginger, but Fawn was "agouti"-coloured, like all European wild rabbits (greyish-brown on the fur's surface, sooty black beneath). The photo below shows Fawn (on the right) with one of her siblings, at the DSPCA - aged about five weeks, in May 2001.

She was the smallest of the litter, but made up for it with a sometimes bullish temperament; as a youngster she would often "box" with us, retreating to a corner, getting up on her back legs and swatting with her front paws when we tried to pick her up against her will. She was very active and curious, always getting into scrapes. When she was a year old, her hijinks resulted in the dislocation of her hip, which fortunately healed (though as we discovered later, it left long-term damage).

When we left Dublin in 2004, Fawn made the journey with us back to Halifax - even though it meant thirty days in quarantine (at my in-laws' home) before her import papers could be stamped by Canada Customs!

Many domestic rabbits live for a period of 8-10 years (sometimes more) and certainly in the last year or two, we noticed that she began to slow down. But fortunately for her, as the years advanced and she became elderly, she remained healthy. It was only this past July that we noticed she had developed a limp in her left hind leg. When the limp had not resolved itself after a few weeks, A. took an x-ray which confirmed his suspicions. The hip joint was badly degraded, and Fawn was suffering from arthritis - brought on almost certainly by the dislocated hip she'd suffered in her youth.

As the months passed, her mobility became more and more impaired, to the point that by November, she was unable to use either of her back legs. It was very difficult to watch her struggle. Over the past week, however, it became clear that she was experiencing pain. We knew it was time to do the kind thing, and put her to sleep. Earlier this evening, we said our goodbyes to Fawn, then stayed with her as she was sedated. Finally, A. administered an injection that stopped her heart. Her passing was quiet and peaceful.

Fawn was a wonderful, much-loved pet - the longest-lived of any of our rabbits. We will miss her very much.

Fawn: died Halifax, Nova Scotia, 8 December 2009.

Blondie at the Casino

2009-11-01T18:58:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, when I found out that Blondie were coming to town to play two shows at Casino Nova Scotia, I decided to check it out. Sure, they're well past their heyday, but with such a wealth of brilliant, classic songs, it seemed like a show not to be missed.

It didn't disappoint. We checked out the show last night at the Casino's Schooner Room (my first time in that venue, which seats 1,000 and is quite pleasant). The set was a shortish one, being just shy of 90 minutes. But the performances were solid and they cranked out lots of classics - "Call Me", "Hanging on the Telephone", "Maria", "The Tide is High", "Atomic", "Rapture", "Heart of Glass", "(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence Dear", "One Way or Another". Granted, Deborah Harry's voice isn't quite what it used to be, but at 64 (!!) that's to be expected. She looked fabulous in a tight, sequined fuschia dress with matching eyemask (it being Halloween night and all). And I nearly snagged the mask as a souvenir at the end of the night! Debbie tossed it into the crowd as they left the stage, and both me and another girl grabbed it. That person wouldn't let go, so I told her we'd play Paper, Stone, Scissors for it. She won...bugger. Ah well.

My only real complaint about the show had nothing to do with the band - but rather, with the lethargic audience. Most of the people in the crowd sat on their arses the entire time! Which I could understand if the place was mainly full of old folk, but it wasn't. I ended up leaving my seat and heading down to the front after the first couple of songs, to dance with the rest of the people with pulses - which was a lot of fun, and livened up the mood considerably.

It also allowed me shoot a couple of surreptitious videos. Herewith a clip from "The Tide is High":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lKjjHECyzk

For their three-song encore, I was surprised to find that the band performed two covers. The first was a tongue-in-chic, very Blondified version of "My Heart Will Go On" (yes, the Celine Dion song...hehe). The final number was a tribute to Michael Jackson - "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough"! A very cool end to a very fun show. Here's a clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNKrLiAhv3E

Kitchen Reno Update - Late Summer Ad Hoc Edition

2009-08-27T19:36:00.005-03:00

Ah yes, the kitchen reno. To the casual observer, not much has happened since we started being able to use the new kitchen back in March. As you can imagine, after so many months of hard work and disorder, we felt like taking a bit of a break from kitchen stuff, and just enjoy the new space. In the interim, though, we got on with lots of other jobs that needed doing - painting the front hall, getting some guys in to paint the aluminum siding outside, and having our driveway paved (three years after it was first torn up!).

Still, since my last update, we've done lots of little jobs in the kitchen that needed finishing up - like installing a new pendant fixture in the dining room (to match the ones in the kitchen) and the last of the cabinet hardware (which was backordered and took three months to arrive). The door and window frames (some of which were removed and altered during the reno work) were re-installed and painted. But a couple big jobs got finished too:

Paint: Argh. What a palaver. Over the winter, before the cabinetmakers came in, I painted the empty shell of the kitchen in "The Thames" by CIL - a pale green I thought I'd love. It turned out to be too minty, however. So the search began for a suitably neutral sagey-greeny-grey colour. Six test pots later, I finally found a winner - "Blue Gray" by Farrow & Ball. Despite the name, it's much more greenish than bluish! And it's very soft, as well. I was worried that grey paint might look too cold, but this one is anything but. And it goes fantastically well with our countertops, too.

We used the same colour in both kitchen and dining room. Originally, I had planned to leave the dining room with its original yellow paint, which I really liked. But as our kitchen designer/neighbour advised us months ago, once the renovation work was done we could see that with our new open-plan design, the kitchen and dining room would really look best if they were painted the same colour. Luckily, I think the "Blue Gray" looks nice in there too:

Crown moulding for the dining room: another case in which we should have listened to our kitchen designer/neighbour. When planning the work for our cabinetmaker, she suggested that we replace the existing crown moulding in our dining room with something that would match what was being installed in the kitchen. I poo-poohed the suggestion, however, as I thought the existing moulding was perfectly nice, and at that stage I was determined to keep unnecessary costs to a minimum. So the cabinetmakers went ahead, installed new moulding in the kitchen only, and made the transition between the two rooms as neat as possible. Once the job was done, however, I could see that our designer was right, and that since the space was now essentially one big room, it would look much better if everything matched. So in April, the cabinetmakers came back to take out the old crown moulding from the dining room, and install the new one. It makes for a much neater, cleaner finish - no doubt about it. The moral of the story? When you've put so much time, effort and money into a big job like this, you shouldn't cheap out on the finishing touches.

So those were the biggest accomplishments of recent months. Still several big things left to do, though:

Backsplash Tiling: ARGH. OK, granted, the delay on this is my fault as midway through the reno, I changed my mind about the kind of tile I wanted. But by mid-April, I'd decided on a variation of this glass tile design, from Olympia Tile:

I asked Olympia to customize this standard pattern, replacing the blue tiles with a mid/dark green. Along with the greenish-white, grey and brown colours in the pattern, it looks as though it would be a perfect complement to my quartz countertop (which has all those same colours in it). I also love the mini-brick shape (the individual tiles are 1"x2"). Being a custom order, however, we of course wanted to have a sample made, before making a final decision. Placed that sample order at the end of April...waited...and by the end of July and much hassling of our designer to find out what the hell was going on, Olympia admitted that they'd lost the sample order. (Why it took three months to find this out is another matter altogether.) So - currently, I am awaiting my sample, and hoping very much that it will arrive in the next week or two.

Floors: When we had the kitchen floors refinished in March, we planned to have the guys come back later and give the dining room a light buff and re-coat, as it's got a few scratches. We'd hoped they'd be able to do that this month, but (surprise) there have been delays, and they will come sometime in September now. In the meantime, my buffet and hutch (and everything in it) have been moved into the spare bedroom, in preparation.

Heating: back in June, we ordered new radiators - European-style, thin ones from Runtal. Given the tight space at the end of the kitchen (and the need to be sure that we had enough clearance to open the door of our lower oven) we couldn't go with standard radiators. However, the good thing about a custom order, of course, is that you can get exactly what you want. The three new rads arrived last week - one will go in the entryway, one under the far window in the kitchen, and one in the bathroom next door (as the baseboard heater in there has never done a good job of heating the room - it's freezing on winter mornings). So a call will be put in to the plumber shortly, to get them hooked up - and voila! We will have heat this winter!

So, that's where we are at the moment. Next time I update this reno diary, I hope I'll have pics of my new tile backsplash to post!

Short Break in PEI

2009-08-18T14:09:00.006-03:00

We went to Prince Edward Island this past weekend, for a little three-day break; a photo album has been posted here on Flickr.

Last time we visited, we focused mainly on the central part of the Island. I had very much wanted to see some of the eastern side, and in particular, to stay at the Inn at Bay Fortune as I'd heard good things about it. But you can't do everything all at once, of course, so we resolved to go back another time. It took us four years, but we finally made it! We booked a two-night package at the Inn, and headed over this past Saturday morning, catching the 10.30 am ferry from Pictou County to Wood Islands.

From there, it's an easy drive to get to wherever you want, as PEI is so small (you could drive the island end-to-end in less than four hours). As with our last trip, we had wonderful weather, and I was struck once again by how pretty and tidy the province is - Islanders take so much pride in their properties. On Saturday morning, we did a meandering coastal drive around the southeastern end of the province, stopping at the Panmure Island lighthouse, before pressing on for the Inn at Bay Fortune. It was really hot by mid-afternoon, and we wanted to get to the beach ASAP.

After checking in to our small (but still comfortable) room in the South Tower, we got changed and headed for Bay Fortune's back beach, just down the road from the Inn. It was a lovely spot, with a long stretch of red sand scattered with seashells. Hardly anyone on it, either, which surprised me (on a Saturday afternoon, you'd think it would be full of kids - but then Islanders are spoilt for choice when it comes to excellent beaches). Spent a lovely couple of hours paddling in the water, strolling, and crashed out on deck chairs with a book, before heading back to the Inn to get changed for dinner.

The package we'd booked at the Inn included dinner on both nights, as the place is famed for its cuisine (and rightfully so). On the first night we had a great three-course meal - I had scallops, followed by veal, and a "reimagined" (!) fruit salad for dessert. The dining room (which is located in the glassed-in veranda of the Inn) is open to residents and non-residents, and was pretty packed that evening. Afterwards, we lay out on the big Muskoka chairs on the front lawn, looking up at the incredibly bright stars (not much light pollution on PEI!). Not only was the Milky Way very clear, but we even caught the tail end of the Perseid meteor shower. I saw four shooting stars in the space of about ten minutes - but then we high-tailed it back inside as the mosquitoes were fierce!

On Sunday, we had a lovely breakfast (lots of fruit, yogurt, yummy homemade muffins, and PEI blue-potato pancakes with poached eggs and spinach), then picked up the picnic lunch we'd ordered from the inn's kitchen before setting off for the beautiful white-sand beach at Basin Head. It's one of the nicest and most famous beaches on the Island, and is known for the curious natural phenomenon of "singing sands". As we discovered, the sand squeaks when you walk across it. We got there before noon, but the main beach was already busy with families, and plenty of teenagers. Luckily, a five-minute walk up the beach took us far away from all that, to a deserted stretch where there were few other people. The perfect spot to set up our chairs and just relax - though the sun was fierce and I was wishing we had one of those big umbrellas! Luckily the water was fairly bracing, so it was easy to cool off by taking a quick dip. We spent the remainder of the afternoon strolling along the water's edge, swimming, and reading, in between bouts of applying sunscreen (though I still managed to get a bit of a burn on my back!).

By 4pm a few clouds had rolled in, so it seemed like a good time to pack up and head off. On the way back to the Inn, we took a detour north of the town of Souris and drove a couple of the waymarked Scenic Heritage Roads that have been designated throughout the province. These are all so pretty - unpaved, red-dirt roads in the middle of the countryside, often used as shortcuts in years gone by, and many are canopied by large trees. They all make for very peaceful drives.

Soon it was time to go back to the Inn, shower away all the sand and sunscreen, and dress for dinner. As it was our last night in PEI, we were booked to partake of the chef's five-course tasting menu in the restaurant. It didn't disappoint. We had a lamb broth with scallops to start, then a garden salad, followed by a lovely piece of swordfish. A scoop of grapefruit sorbet was followed by the main course - roulade of veal topped with salt-cured oysters in tempura, the same dish I'd chosen to eat the night before! Oh well, good thing it was delicious - I didn't mind eating it again. And for dessert, a glass of port and a very nice chocolate mousse. A fine meal - and surprisingly, I didn't walk away from the table in pain! The portions were just right.

Monday morning, after a final breakfast in the dining room, it was time for packing up and checking out. As we weren't planning to get the ferry back to NS until the afternoon, we decided to spend the morning visiting one of the local historic sites - the MacPhail Homestead in Uigg, not far from Charlottetown. I wasn't familiar with Sir Andrew MacPhail, but it turns out he was quite an accomplished physician, scholar, and man of letters in early 20th-century Canada. The house in which he was born, and later spent his summers with his children, is now a national historic site and open to the public. We had a little tour around (a rambling old place, and quite pretty), before taking a stroll around the grounds. The estate still comprises about 140 acres and is now home to an ecological forestry project. There are several waymarked trails through the woods, which made for nice walks.

Soon, it was time to head for Wood Islands and the afternoon ferry crossing back to Nova Scotia. Although we were away for only two nights, it felt longer - always a good thing. A fun and relaxing trip - the sort of thing we should all be doing more often!

In the Garden, July

2009-07-31T12:16:00.002-03:00

After such a promising start in June, July has been a bit of a damp squib out in the garden. Most of the month, it rained - causing many of the flowers to droop, rot and break. Also, the lawn has suffered because of so much water, with the old bald patches under the big maple tree re-emerging.

Still, we have had some good displays (photos on Flickr). The stalwart daylilies are as robust as ever, and the deck planters are nice. I also got foxgloves to bloom, after three years of trying!

Holiday Photos

2009-07-29T12:48:00.002-03:00

Poor lil' Panopticon-blog - you are very neglected these days, now that I spend most of my time posting to Facebook instead.

I forgot to note on here (for the handful of readers who do not see this via the blog import feature on Facebook) that my holiday photos from England and Ireland are now posted over here on Flickr.

England/Ireland Trip, Part the Fourth (and Final)

2009-07-18T19:21:00.000-03:00

On Friday morning (22 May), we were up early and practically rolled out of our beds into the famous Bermondsey Antiques Market - located just over the road from our flat. It's an outdoor market, and luckily it was a lovely morning, perfect for strolling the stalls. It's very popular with antique sellers themselves, who get there before dawn to snap up the best stuff for their own inventories. Given that, I thought it might be a bit overwhelming, but in fact it was very unpretentious, not too large, and with a cool variety of stuff on offer. I even picked up a little something for myself - this very pretty framed papercut, ca. 1830 or thereabouts. It's on display in my living room now, and I get a kick out of imagining the lady of leisure who whiled away the hours snipping at this, with a pair of tiny scissors:

Later that morning, it was time for another London Walk. We got the Tube to South Kensington, where we met a wonderful guide who took us around "The Wonders of the V&A". The Victoria & Albert Museum is my favourite museum, and has the finest decorative arts collection in the world. I've visited many times in the past, but still haven't even seen half of the enormous collection. The great thing about this particular tour was that we spent two hours with our guide (a V&A lecturer, no less) who showed us about a dozen key objects, and discussed them in depth. None of them were things I'd seen before. Our visit also reminded me of how wonderful the building itself is. After the tour, we had lunch in the fabulous museum restaurant (partially designed by William Morris!), and afterwards bombed around the always-awesome fashion and costume gallery and a fab exhibition of hats curated by the milliner Stephen Jones. By that point, however, I was seriously flagging, so I left J. to explore the museum some more before I headed back to the flat and crashed for a few hours.

I knew I'd need energy for the evening, as we had tickets to go see a show that night. We got the Tube to Brixton and walked over to the legendary Brixton Academy, where we saw...the Ting Tings. Hahaha! I was actually more excited about the venue than the band, but the Tings put on a pretty fun, high-energy show. And shockingly, we were not the oldest people in the audience - not by a long shot!

Saturday morning, I had a little lie-in, while J. went out for some last-minute shopping. We planned to meet at 11am for our final London Walk of the week, "Old Westminster". But I forgot the Jubilee line on the Underground was closed for engineering works that day, and so had to detour, arriving at the meeting point just in time. J. didn't make it, though, and so we had a frantic flurry of text messages before she arrived at the station in a cab and we hurried to catch up with our tour group. Luckily, we didn't miss much - we had a great two hours strolling the streets of Westminster, looking at the Houses of Parliament, the Jewel Tower, and the Abbey. Then we ducked into some of the back streets, visiting enclaves like Smith Square to see where many of the MPs live while Parliament is sitting. Not only were the rows of Georgian terraced houses beautiful in themselves, but their facades carried fascinating echoes of the past - from 18th-century street signage, to faded public notices dating from the Second World War. Off Smith Square, our guide pointed out this notice, which reads "Public Shelters in Vaults Under Pavements in This Street". It showed passersby where to go if an air-raid siren went off and a bombing raid was imminent:

After our walk finished, we hightailed it back to Westminster Abbey, which was closing to visitors at 1.30 pm. Luckily, we just made it inside - there was quite the queue, and we waited about a half-hour to gain entry (and paid £15! It used to only be a fiver...still, the place needs money to keep it going, so we didn't mind paying up). It was my second time visiting the Abbey, but it's a place no one could ever get tired of - so much to see, and so evocative. The royal tombs, the stonework, the wood carvings, the windows, the layer on layer of the most incredible history. And to top it all off, while we were there the choir began to rehearse, sending shivers down the spine.

Afterwards, we got some lunch and walked to Victoria Embankment, where we sat in the garden for a bit and ate, before heading home. The busy pace of sightseeing was starting to catch up with us and we were feeling pretty zonked, so we took a few hours of R&R back at the flat, and did some packing as well.

Then at 7, we headed out to meet friends for dinner in the East End, on our last night in London. We decided to walk, and spent an hour strolling over Tower Bridge (on a beautiful, warm, sunny evening no less), up the Hill past the Tower of London itself, to Aldgate. From there we went up Whitechapel High Street, past beautiful Spitalfields Church, Spitalfields market, and the Ten Bells (a Victorian-era pub known to have been frequented by several of Jack the Ripper's victims). We were bound for a curry house at the north end of Brick Lane. Once home to London's Jews and the Hugenots before that, nowadays Brick Lane is the heart of the Bangladeshi community and the street is lined with curry houses, all of which have (sometimes very pushy) touts out front trying to lure you in. So we came in from the western side, to avoid all that, and met up with my friends C., P. and baby J., as well as some other folks who we holidayed with in Venezuela two years ago. C. had taken me to eat at this particular restaurant, Aladin, last time I was in London, and I loved it. Fabulous food, great service, and you can BYOB which is another plus! We ordered a ridiculous amount of food (which cost almost nothing) and wolfed it all down. It was a great evening, which ended with a stroll back to Liverpool Street with C., P. and baby, and we all caught a night bus back to Southwark!

Next morning, J. (without a watch to hand) was awake at 5 am and got herself packed up and ready to go. Since she was already up, she decided to go attend the 8.30 am service at St. Paul's Cathedral, so we said our farewells, and she went on her way for the day. Later that afternoon, she got a flight from Heathrow to Barcelona, where she continued her trip with a few days of sightseeing and then a conference for her work.

I, on the other hand, had a flight to Dublin to catch. I packed up and checked out of our lovely flat, and was then picked up by the executive coach at 9am. It took two hours to get to Gatwick, as the driver had a couple other pickups in the West End - good thing it was a Sunday and there were no roadworks or traffic. In the end, it didn't matter too much, as my flight was delayed by two hours because of an electricity failure on the luggage carousel (airline staff were taking all the passengers' luggage away on trolleys!).

But by 4pm, I had arrived in Dublin. My friends (and former co-workers) E. and A. kindly picked me up at airport - great to see both of them again! The drive into the city was fascinating - building works have continued apace since I left five years ago, with all kinds of new developments everywhere. Ominously, though, some projects - including a second terminal for Dublin Airport - have ground to a halt due to the credit crunch.

I was even more surprised to arrive in E.'s neighbourhood, near the Grand Canal Docks in Dublin 3. It was an area that was only just beginning to be developed 10 years ago, but it's got lots of impressive offices and apartments now - some newly-built, and others converted from old industrial buildings. E.'s apartment complex includes an old gasworks, which has been converted into smart flats, to quite stunning effect:

On Monday, after breakfast, E. and I headed out so I could undertake an inspection tour of my old haunts. We got the DART from the new station at Grand Canal Docks to Tara Street, then connected to the LUAS (the new light rail service) in Abbey Street. The entire time I lived in Dublin, the lines for the LUAS were being constructed and causing all kinds of traffic disruption. Since I left the city just one month before the service started up in 2004, I was keen to go for a ride and check it out. I was pretty impressed - it's clean, efficient, and seems to work very smoothly. The consensus among Dubliners seems to be that it was well worth all the trouble. We took the Tallaght line across the southwest of the city, intending to get off somewhere along the Long Mile Road so we could walk down to my old digs, but I made the mistake of not looking at a map beforehand. We got off in Drimnagh, but I didn't recognise the neighbourhood at all, so we ended up calling a taxi - we got less than a mile down the road before I figured out where we were! Haha. The cab deposited us at Crumlin Cross and from there we walked down to the old apartment in Perrystown. When A. and I left Dublin, we'd joked that the neighbourhood was going to the dogs and we'd probably find a smoking hole in the ground where the building used to be - but not so! Actually, other than the gardens being a little overgrown, the development looked to be in pretty good shape.

Not wanting to haul ourselves back to the LUAS stop, we hopped the no. 150 bus back into town. The neighbourhoods we passed through are still largely the same, except for some smart new condos in the Liberties (which continues to be gentrified). We got off in the city centre, and E. and I did a little wandering in Kilkenny Design and some of my other favourite shops, before heading for Avoca, where we had arranged to have lunch with our old boss and another work colleague. Lovely to see them - and the lunch was fabulous, as always! Manoman, I love the Avoca cafe. To start, E. and I shared an order of chunky chips, cooked in duck fat and served with horseradish mayo (!!!!!!!!!). Then I had my usual order of yummy soup, served with three chunks of my fave Avoca breads (wholemeal, fruit & seed, and cheese soda). The crowning glory of any Avoca cafe visit is always the pudding, though. I had a slab of lemon curd cake with cream - delish.

After lunch, I did a little pre-emptive Christmas shopping on the lower floors of Avoca, then did some more strolling and shopping in Grafton Street, picking up various gifties. Before we knew it, the afternoon had slipped away, and it was time to head for A.'s house in the Liberties. She lives in a cottage on one of the squares built by Guinness for its brewery workers in years past. A couple years ago, she had the place completely gutted and renovated into a very smart open-plan studio, which ended up being featured in an Irish design mag. She and E. cooked up a fab dinner and we spent another very fun evening drinking wine and chatting.

I made sure to turn in relatively early, though - as it was the last day of my trip. The following morning I was picked up by a taxi at 4am, and whisked to the airport to catch my flight to Gatwick and connection back to Halifax later that morning. I wished I'd spent another couple days in Dublin, but it was nice to get in a quick visit with my friends, and check out my old stomping grounds. All round, it was a great trip - some fantastic sights, good friends, food, and shopping. I will never stay away from Europe for so long again!

New Driveway

2009-07-15T19:35:00.004-03:00

Finally! We've had our driveway repaved - the last of the jobs remaining to be done from the re-landscaping of our property. The driveway was torn up two years ago, when we had structural work done on our shed. It's been a mess of patchy, broken asphalt and gravel ever since.

Here's the driveway (bisected by retaining walls and a new brick path) just before the work started:

Here's how it looks now (photographed while the asphalt was still steaming hot!)

Very good, when guests come over, to have parking for 3-4 cars again (since our street has almost no visitor parking). And it'll be a hell of a lot easier to clear snow now, in the winter. Plus, it just makes everything look nicer. Except the door to the shed - boy, does it look shabby now in comparison. I'll be putting the scraping and repainting of that on my To Do list - it never ends, when you're a homeowner!

Garden Photo Diary for June

2009-06-30T16:57:00.002-03:00

June's garden pics are now posted here at Flickr. I think June is possibly my favourite month in the garden. I get lilacs, lilies of the valley, and lupins - what more could you ask for?

England/Ireland Trip, Part 3: Chelsea, Baby (Plus an Audience With Sir Graham of Norton)

2009-06-28T13:38:00.015-03:00

On Wednesday morning (20 May), I went back to Bloomsbury to meet my other doctoral supervisor, P.T., at the Institute of Historical Research, where she works now. While J. struck out for Covent Garden and some shopping, I had coffee and a chat with P.T., who is now a senior, very highly-regarded professor at the University of London. She told me a bit about her current research on unwed motherhood in the early 20th century, for which she is delving into the archives of a British NGO representing the interests of single mums, but which had its historical foundation as a charitable society for so-called "girls in trouble".

On my way back to the Tube station, I was tickled to be approached in Russell Square by a pair of Japanese tourists, who asked me for directions to the British Museum (which of course I happily gave). Then I went to meet J., took a spin around Covent Garden, and had lunch before heading to Sloane Square for another fab London Walk. This one was through Chelsea - formerly an artists' haunt, now characterised by exclusive, gazillion-pound properties (I believe our guide said the average property price in the area is around £2m). We walked all sorts of little back streets, filled with exquisite homes marked with more Blue Plaques (designating that a significant person had once lived there) than you could shake a stick at. We also bypassed both the Chelsea Physic Garden (ca. 1673) and the Royal Hospital (ca. 1682 and designed by Christopher Wren), where we beheld the queues for the Flower Show being held on its grounds that week. When we saw the big banner indicating that the show was sold out, we felt all pleased with ourselves for having booked tickets months before. There was even a tout outside the gate, flogging show tickets and asking if anyone had tickets to sell! As J. remarked, only in England could this happen for a flower show, of all things!

We had another busy evening planned, so we zoomed back to our flat for a quick pitstop, before heading to Waterloo station and London Studios on the South Bank, where Graham Norton awaited us! We got to the studio and joined the queue about an hour beforehand, and as it turned out, just in the nick of time. We were among the final group admitted, and were seated in the very back row - there were probably at least 100 disappointed people behind us!

Still, we made it. It was pretty neat to see what goes on behind the scenes, when making a show like that. After Graham came out to chat with us before the taping began, we found out that the guests were the actress Isabella Rossellini and Alistair McGowan (a well-known mimic in the UK). Surreptitiously-snapped photo (pics were verboten on set) here!

Rossellini talked quite a lot about her latest "artistic" project, Green Porno (!), in which she directed and starred in a series of short films about the reproductive lives of animals. Seriously. J. thought it must surely be a joke, but it is not!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6s2HfSHHsQ

You can watch the rest of them, should you be so inclined, on the Sundance Channel or YouTube!

The evening's musical guest was, of all people, the rather loopy actress Juliette Lewis, whose performance was, uh, interesting (she's nowhere near the badass rawk chick she seems to think she is). Still in all, getting to see the show taping was a pretty cool experience - not as funny as some of the episodes I've seen, but still a lot of fun. Given the high culture of our previous evening at the Globe, we had unquestionably gone from the sublime to the ridiculous, in the space of 24 hours. ;-)

We decided to devote the following morning to some shopping in Oxford Street, as we didn't want to battle the weekend crowds. En route, we took a half-hour to visit the wonderful, medieval (and underappreciated) Southwark Cathedral, which is right across the road from London Bridge station and which we'd been walking past all week. Soon, however, we arrived at Oxford Circus, ground zero for all the big UK and European high-street chains. While J. attained fashion nirvana at Karen Millen, I headed for Bravissimo where I had a professional lingerie fitting. As I have been an aficionado of their catalogue for many years, I was rather shocked to discover I am not the size I thought I was! Eeps. So of course I had to buy some new things (haha) including that elusive item, the well-fitting bikini. I do wish they had an equivalent in North America. On that note, I also ended up in H&M (still waiting for one of those in Eastern Canada), where I bought a fantastic peacock-print wrap dress designed by Matthew Williamson. Later, I got another lovely 'origami' dress at Principles, at 70% off. Yah!

All in all, a profitable morning. We skipped home to dump our bags and get changed, then headed back to Piccadilly in the West End, and Browns Hotel. I had booked us in for afternoon tea that day - and what a meal it was. Unquestionably, the finest hotel afternoon tea I've ever had. Other top hotels in London should take note - originally, I'd hoped we could have tea at the legendary Palm Court at the Ritz, but trying to make a reservation there was ridiculous. Even as far back as February, the only times they could offer us were 11am or 7pm! Are they kidding? It's called afternoon tea, after all - obviously, they're just trying to get as many bodies as possible through the door, which is terrible.

At Browns, tea is served as it ought to be, between 3 and 6pm, in their elegant, classic, yet unpretentious English Tea Room.

They had an extensive tea selection (with an in-house "tea sommelier" on hand to advise) and the food was truly excellent - classic, with a few innovative flourishes. Given that we were there the week of the Chelsea Flower Show, we were served a floral-themed tea, which was delightful. The menu was:

Sandwiches (roast beef, smoked salmon, turkey, egg)
Scones with rose and strawberry jam, and clotted cream
Violet blueberry macaroons
Orange-blossom cake
Victoria sponge
Strawberries and elderflower cream

Not only was the food wonderful, but the service was faultless. During our meal, we were offered more sarnies and scones if we wanted them (unusual, especially at a high-end hotel). And when the server came round partway through our meal to ask if we'd like our tea refreshed, I assumed he'd just give us more hot water. But no - he took away the pots and refilled them with fresh leaves. And at the end of our meal, we were even given little bags to take away, with samples of the particular tea we'd chosen that afternoon (I went with the Brown's Afternoon blend). So many thoughtful touches - I was extremely impressed. Just goes to show that when it comes to afternoon tea, it's really best to keep it simple, stick to the classics, and do them well. If it were up to me, staff at the Peninsula in Hong Kong would be sent there for training!

Well-stuffed with this fine repast, we gathered ourselves together and got ready to head off to our next stop - the Chelsea Flower Show itself. (While waiting for J. to return from the ladies, I watched an archetypal fat-cat Russian oligarch roll in for tea, accompanied by his modelesque girlfriend dressed head-to-toe in designer gear and carrying a massive status handbag. Pretty funny.)

We thought we'd walk to the Flower Show, so that we could cut through Green Park and so J. could have a gawp at Bucks Palace. But by the time we'd done that, it was getting late and we wanted to maximize our time, so we hopped into a black taxicab which deposited us near the entrance to the show. I was excited about attending, since it's such a big deal (and strangely, a major fixture on the British social calendar, as well). I had never attended before, as it's a bit expensive if you're not a member of the Royal Horticultural Society - we had evening tickets, for admittance between 5.30 and 8pm, and they were the cheapest at £18. It turned out to be quite the event! The site itself is absolutely enormous, and a bit overwhelming - you would probably need 1-2 days to see absolutely everything. So we concentrated on seeing the main exhibition hall (where all the prize specimens were on display, from growers around the British Isles), as well as the 'show gardens' which are designed by famous gardeners, by invitation.

I took pictures feverishly, until my camera battery died!

Of course, we saved time for shopping - probably half the show is taken up by vendors, selling every kind of garden-related paraphenalia you can think of. It was all simply gorgeous, and we were lucky also that the weather cooperated and it was mild and sunny. A fantastic day, all round - hard to imagine how it could have been better!
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Next: Bermondsey, Brixton, Brick Lane. And wonderful Westminster.

New Curtains

2009-06-27T18:06:00.003-03:00

Four years ago, I made Roman blinds for both our living room and the French doors in the dining room. While I was really happy with how the dining room ones turned out, I thought the ones in the living room were just OK. They looked like this:

The central one is a little too wide to be practical - plus, they don't do much to keep out cold draughts during winter. So last year, I started thinking about hanging proper lined curtains there instead.

Over the winter, I bought some fabric I really liked, on sale. And then I decided to hire a professional to do the actual work. ;-) Not only would it take loads of time and patience for me to learn how to make lined curtains, but I had no physical space to do so over the past few months. So based on the recommendation of some friends, I got them made up at the local fabric store. It cost a lot less than I thought it would, and I think they look great!

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/panopticon2/3665601671/)

England/Ireland Trip, Part 2: Brighton, Bloomsbury and the South Bank

2009-06-18T20:16:00.006-03:00

On Monday (this would be 18 May), we took a day trip down to Brighton. Other than a one-day visit in 2000 to attend a ceremony for my graduation from the University of Sussex, I hadn't been back for nearly 11 years - and J. had last visited me there in 1997. The drive down was lovely and it was wonderful to see the South Downs coming into view as we drove towards the coast.

On arrival, in need of sustenance, we headed for the Mock Turtle, a landmark teahouse just off the seafront of which I have fond, fond memories from my student days. We were gutted, however, to find that it is closed on Mondays! Argh! And I had so been looking forward to some hot buttered toast, a morsel of cake, and a lovely cuppa, served on their wonderful collection of faded, chipped, mismatched china. Ah well. We had to make do with coffee in Bartholomew Square instead, before setting off for an hour's wander around the wonderful Lanes. They are unchanged (except for many of the shops, of course) and as atmospheric as ever. I was impressed with the whole town, actually - it's smartened up a good bit over the past decade, while keeping its distinctive, rather hippyish and bohemian air.

While J. contented herself with lunch at the Hotel du Vin, I hopped on the no. 25 bus (just for old time's sake) and headed out to the Sussex university campus in Falmer village, about 20 minutes away. I walked up to the far end of campus, to the Brighthelm residences where I lived for the first few months after I arrived in England in the autumn of 1995. I headed straight up the hill behind the house where I lived, but was surprised to see that the hillside was under cultivation and there were wire fences everywhere. Eventually I found a way through and was able to climb to the top of the hill, and look down at the wonderful view across the campus and away over the South Downs. I will never forget waking up my first morning there, and looking out my bedroom window at that view. The "green and pleasant land", indeed.

After I took a bunch of pictures, I headed for the Arts block and went to the office of one of my old supervisors, C.D. It was lovely catching up with her again - she's a great person and quite inspirational in many ways. She showed me the manuscript she has just submitted for a fabulous-looking book on the social history of glamour! I can't wait to read that - hell, I wish I was the one who'd written it!

After our lunch, I got the bus back into town, then walked up North Street and Western Road, popping into the shops and noticing all the changes that have taken place over the past decade. Eventually I turned right and walked up to York Avenue, and the house where I lived during most of 1998. I knew that the former owners had sold up and moved on a few years ago; as a result, the place has really changed, and sadly not for the better. The beautiful garden at the back of the house, which my studio overlooked and which the owners kept so meticulously, has been torn up and gravelled over to create tenant parking spaces. And the whole house had a whiff of neglect about it, which was sad. Feeling a bit melancholy, I went two blocks further along the road to Brunswick Place, and checked out no. 66, where I lived during 1996-97 - unlike York Avenue, it is still much the same as I remember it and retains an air of genteel shabbiness. ;-)

By then it was time to catch up with J. again, so I headed back to The Lanes and a "bar du chocolat" called Choccywoccydoodah. Silly name, oh-so-serious gourmet chocolatier. We rolled out the boat and ordered the "Decadent Chocolate Lovers' Banquet" which was so, so delicious...ooh. By rights, we should have walked back to London that evening, just to burn off the calories!

It was so nice to see Brighton again, though it also felt a little strange. My years there seem like they were a whole lifetime ago, and so much has changed. (Weirdly, over the past year I've had several vivid dreams about re-visiting the town and going to see the places where I used to live - only to find that, instead of the familiar streets I remembered, the area was all open fields. Very odd.) At the same time though, by the end of the day, I was definitely getting my bearings again, and remembering why it's such a popular and attractive place to live. I'd like to visit again sometime!

The following day, Tuesday, was the first full day in London together for J. and I. In the morning, we stayed in the neighbourhood and visited the Old Operating Theatre, about a ten-minute walk from our flat. With J. being a doctor and my interest in medical history, it made for a very interesting visit. The theatre is located away up under the rafters of what used to be the women's wards of St. Thomas' Hospital, and dates from the early nineteenth century. This was the pre-anaesthetic era, when medical students would have crowded in to watch as surgeons dosed some poor soul with alcohol or opiates, before commencing surgery. It's remarkable that it survived at all.

Afterwards, we hit the local Sainsbury's for some groceries (so nice to have our own kitchen!) before heading for Holborn tube station and the first of several wonderful London Walks we took during the week. This particular walk was "Literary Bloomsbury and the Old Museum Quarter" and it was excellent, taking us to see sights we'd never have found on our own. I love Bloomsbury, especially its wonderful squares (Red Lion, Russell, Gordon). It doesn't require much of an imaginative leap to picture Virginia Woolf, TS Eliot, and Ted and Sylvia living there...not to mention great artists like Rossetti, Morris and Burne-Jones, among others. We finished the walk with a stroll past Senate House at the University of London (inspiration for the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's 1984!) and then the forecourt of the British Museum - both places I know so well and spent a great deal of time in, as a student.

But the day was not over yet! We raced home to our apartment, made some supper, then headed out again, walking along the riverside to the Globe Theatre, about a mile away from our flat. I had never been, but after learning about it on my last trip to London and being intrigued, I suggested to J. that we give it a go, and got tickets for a performance of "Romeo & Juliet". I knew the Globe was a pretty faithful reconstruction of a theatre that had stood on the site in Shakespeare's day, but thought that it might be a bit twee and touristy. I was very happy to be wrong about that! I knew from the moment we entered that it would be something very special - members of the cast were on stage as the audience filed in, in costume, playing music and generally clowning around.

And once the performance started - well, it was unlike anything I've ever seen before. The atmosphere was magical, and the production itself very, uh, earthy (hehe...Shakespeare really did write for the common folk). We really got a sense of what it must have been like, to see these plays performed as Shakespeare himself would probably have intended. Truly, a fantastic evening!
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In the next installment, flowers, fairies, shopping and sipping (tea, that is).

England/Ireland Trip, Part 1: London, Bexleyheath and...er...Watford

2009-06-15T18:41:00.002-03:00

N.B. I've decided to work on the travelogue from my recent trip in sections, just to try to make it more manageable. I'm working on creating an album of pics over on Flickr, but in the interim, I'll post a few to this here blog, as we go.
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Arrived at Gatwick Airport at the crack of dawn on Friday 15 May, after an overnight direct charter flight from Halifax. I went straight to the flat of our friends C. and P. (the couple whose wedding we attended in Venezuela two years ago), as they kindly offered to put me up for that evening. Their building, The Circle, is located very close to Tower Bridge, on the south bank of the Thames, and is very cool - the neighbouring buildings are old riverside warehouses, now converted into flats.

Shortly after my arrival, C. and P. headed off to work, and I dispatched myself to London Bridge train station, about a ten-minute walk away. I had plans to spend the afternoon doing one of my favourite things - visiting a National Trust property. I jumped on a train and headed east, out of the city to the town of Bexleyheath, in Kent. From there, I walked to Red House, the former home of the Arts & Crafts designer William Morris.

I have always been a great fan of Morris, and was excited to visit this remarkable property, which he designed along with some of his Pre-Raphaelite brethren. I spent some time exploring the small but lovely garden (where I had a staring contest with a red fox in the underbrush) before being taken on a guided tour of the house by a rather doddery old man who was a font of information. I took lots of photos and came away feeling quite inspired by Morris's vision.

I got back into the city around 3pm, and since I had time to kill and an all-day Travelcard to use, I took the Tube up to King's Cross-St. Pancras, to have a look at St. Pancras Station. St. Pancras has always been one of my favourite buildings in London - it's a masterpiece of Victorian Gothic architecture. During the years I lived in England, it was in a very sad state, with no regular train services; I used to pass by regularly on the way to the British Library and always wished something could be done to revive it. Fortunately, over the past decade, it has risen from the ashes, and has been completely refitted as the new home of the Eurostar service to Europe. I was absolutely gobsmacked when I walked inside, and saw the wonderful iron girders of the station's enormous glass-roofed train shed, which stretched away endlessly into the distance (my photos don't do it justice!).

The scale of the place is awesome - and the restoration of the wonderful red-brick Victorian Gothic architecture is a joy to see. Beyond the train platforms, St. Pancras is also now home to smart shops, cafes and public art, including a statue of the poet John Betjeman, who led a campaign to prevent the station being demolished in the 1960s. His pose is the very one I found myself adopting as I caught my first glimpses of the station's interior:

At the end of the Eurostar platform, this colossal sculpture can be found. It's called "The Meeting Place" and I think it's wonderful - though apparently lots of snooty art types hate it. Go figure.

Friday evening, I went for dinner with C. and P. (and baby J!) to the Butler's Wharf Chop House, on the river, in a block of buildings recently renovated by Terence Conran. We had an excellent meal - actually, throughout the trip I was really happy to discover how much easier it has become to get good food at reasonable prices in London. It used to be a nearly-impossible task!

The following morning, I was up early and off, via Tube and train, to the town of Watford, northwest of London. Not on anyone's list of touristic must-sees, is Watford - but on arrival, I got a cab to that evening's accommodation, a wonderful country-house hotel outside town called The Grove, where I met up with J. who had just arrived that morning from Montreal. We spent some time exploring the public rooms (including a suite of lounges on the ground floor, located in the original reception rooms of the old house), before hitting the spa for a swim and a steam. We had the afternoon at our leisure in Watford itself, before an early dinner. We spent the evening at a small show nearby - which, in true British style, was held outdoors in very chilly weather, with hundreds of people standing around, listening to the band, drinking and steadfastly trying to make the best of things. ;-)

On Sunday we slept late, enjoyed a fine breakfast, and crashed in the lounge with the Sunday papers before being picked up by friend and driven into central London. We spent the afternoon at Dennis Severs' House, in Folgate Street in the East End. It was my second time being there and it was every bit as incredible as I remembered. I resolved to visit every time I am in London. It is quite simply one of the most magical places I have ever been - part historic house, part art installation, part time machine. It's a bit of a well-kept secret, and an utter privilege to visit.

By the time we finished with seeing the house, it was time to check into our accommodation. We booked a one-bedroom flat for the week, in a new building in Bermondsey (about a ten-minute walk south of C. and P.'s apartment near Tower Bridge). The neighbourhood is one I would not have considered ten years ago, but it's been heavily gentrified since, and Bermondsey Street is now home to trendy boutiques and plenty of good bars and restos, as well as the famous antiques market on Fridays. Our apartment was small, but quite comfortable, with everything we needed for the week, and was only a ten-minute walk from London Bridge underground station.

Had a fantastic dinner that night at a place across the road called Village East -a classic Sunday roast with all the trimmings, and some excellent red wine. By the time we got back to our flat, unpacked, and checked our mail, I discovered we'd finally been allocated some tickets for a live taping of The Graham Norton Show on Wednesday night! Very excited about this, as we'd figured they weren't going to come through - J. and I both love Graham Norton and I'd applied online for show tickets back in February. With this piece of unexpected good luck, we knew we were in store for a fabulous week!
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Next installment: a day trip to Brighton, and more literary landmarks than we could shake a stick at...

Garden Photo Diary for May

2009-05-31T21:53:00.002-03:00

May's garden pics are now posted here at Flickr. Everything's looking very lush and green, though of course nowhere nearly as advanced as the gardens I saw earlier this month in England. Still, it's my own little patch and I think it's doing great!

Back to the British Isles

2009-05-13T20:45:00.003-03:00

At last! In less than 24 hours, I'll be on a plane making my way to London. My bag is packed - and it's shockingly roomy. I'm flying with a charter and so am only allowed one suitcase, weighing no more than 45 lbs. I didn't know how I was going to manage to pack for a 10-day trip, and still have room to bring stuff home - but somehow, I did! My suitcase is a svelte 28 lbs! Luckily our rental flat in London has a washer/dryer - other than my travel outfit, I'm only bringing four outfits and one extra pair of shoes. The latter is nothing short of miraculous, frankly.

True to form, the 10-day forecast for London is showing plenty of rain, but temperatures of 15-20 degrees, at least. I've packed my brolly...

2009 Garden Photo Diary

2009-05-05T18:51:00.005-03:00

I've decided to resurrect my monthly garden photo diaries over on Flickr. I did them in the summers of 2005 and 2006, but haven't bothered during the past two summers. There didn't seem much point, what with the Great Shed Project of 2007 and last summer's extensive landscaping. But this summer will, I hope, see the culmination of several years of planning work. With the foundations of the new garden now laid, and lots of reorganization of various flower beds and plenty of new plantings last fall, I am very excited to see how the garden will look this year.

So, I've posted a few pics for the month of April, to start. May should be glorious. The trees currently have that wonderfully fuzzy pale-green frill about them - within a week, tender new leaves will be emerging. In the flower beds, we've had daffodils, striped squill, snowdrops and crocuses a-blooming, and the tulips are ready to pop anytime now. The forsythia bush is a little bit early this year also, and is nearly in full sunshiny bloom already.

God, I Love England

2009-04-19T19:40:00.002-03:00

I was on the website of the Globe Theatre earlier this evening, booking tickets for J. and I to see a performance of Romeo and Juliet when we are in London next month. When I got to the booking page, I typed in my name and then opened the drop-down box to select my title. I was offered the following choices:

Mr
Mrs
Ms
Miss
Dr
Sir
Lord
Lady
Dame
Prof
Air Commodore
Baroness
Brigadier
Canon
Capt
Cmdr
Colonel
Count
Countess
Judge
Lt
Madame
Marquess
Prince
Princess
Rev
Bishop
Duke
Viscount
Viscountess

Do you think this theatre has high-class patrons? ;-) Though I'm puzzled by this rather arbitrary listing. The continental title of Count is included, but not Earl (the British equivalent)? And dukes are catered for, but what of their good lady wives, the duchesses?

Regardless, this is a wonderfully eccentric - and very English - list.

At Long Last...A New Job

2009-04-18T17:03:00.007-03:00

Finally. I have been waiting to make a post like this ever since I started this blog.

At the end of last week, I was offered a very good job (which I have now accepted). It is with the same unit in the university I have worked at since August 2004, when we moved back to Halifax from Dublin. The job mainly entails identifying and promoting opportunities for international research amongst our faculty members, helping them put together their funding proposals, and then (hopefully) assisting them with managing their successful research programmes. It's an excellent opportunity, and a significant step up from where I am now - with a greater range of responsibilities, lots of room for professional growth, and a corresponding pay rise of about 20% over what I'm earning now. Crucially, it is also a permanent position, with a full range of top-notch benefits. I can't overstate how important this is to me - I have been waiting a very long time for a job like this, and have had to work harder than I ever imagined in order to get here.

When I first joined the unit, I was hired on a long-term contract (4.5 years) to manage an international development project which the university was leading. I admit that at the time, knowing very little about international development, I looked upon the job as a foot in the door - a worthwhile stopgap that would pay the bills for perhaps six months to a year, until I found a permanent position in student services or another area where I had more expertise. I wasn't too worried. I had a vague memory that the Nova Scotia job market has always been tough. But I felt confident that with my education and five years of solid work experience in an Irish university under my belt, that opportunities would be plentiful among the seven higher education institutions in this city, and I wouldn't have much trouble in finding a great job.

Boy, was I wrong.

How wrong? Let me break down the numbers for you. Since January 2004, when I began my Halifax job search, these have been my results:

Applications submitted for advertised positions at Halifax universities/colleges: 56
Calls to interview: 8
Permanent job offers extended: 1 (April 2009)

You read that right. It has taken me just over five years to reach what, in my mind, is a normal, reasonable goal - an interesting, well-paid, secure job in my field. Arriving back here in 2004 fresh from Europe (and the booming Irish economy), I would never have dreamed how hard it would be to break back into the job market here, and advance my career. Last year, I even ended up hiring a career coach, to analyze my resume and interview performance and figure out how to present myself as positively as possible. I had completely forgotten how difficult it can be to find good work in Nova Scotia - which is why so many of us leave here in the first place. Coupled with the fact that the university I work for is the most prestigious in the region, and attracts high-fliers who parachute in from other parts of the country to enjoy the famed Maritime lifestyle - well, that makes things very, very tough. There were definitely times I despaired of ever getting on in my career, and wondered if moving back to this city might have been a mistake.

But now, all of that doubt and worry has been swept away. The above has been a lengthy way of saying that this new job I've been offered has been VERY hard-won. The victory is sweet - and it has been a long time coming!

Goodbye, ToughBook; Hello, New Hotness!

2009-04-10T18:41:00.003-03:00

For some months now, I've been ready to throw my old beast of a laptop, the Panasonic ToughBook, out the window. It's so old and slow - I bought it second-hand in the summer of 2006, so it has certainly lived a long life. It began to seriously slow down about 18 months ago, at which time I upgraded the memory from a piddly 256 MB to its maximum of 750 MB. That definitely helped, for a while, but of course every automatic update makes the operating system and associated software that much more bloated and cumbersome. It now takes forever to do its work - so it's time for it to be retired. RIP.

I've now purchased its replacement, and freely admit to having succumbed to style over substance. After some consideration, I decided to go with one of the cheap new mini 'netbooks' flooding the market these days - specifically, the HP Mini 1140 NR, Vivienne Tam edition, which is being hyped as the world's first 'digital clutch'. I'm loving the tiny size and lightness of it - it will be so easy to travel with this little machine. But really, it's all about the looks. It's the prettiest computer in the world! Look!

Like any fashion item, there are of course matching accessories to be had, at a price. To wit: a wireless mouse, a padded tote (though the machine is sold with a protective red satin sleeve), and even a chiffon scarf. I've yet to succumb to the charms of those, though.

Today's my first day of using this little beauty and I'm liking it so far. The compact keyboard (92% of full size) works very well, though people with bigger hands would probably gripe about it. Haven't tried out the integral webcam or Bluetooth capabilities yet. My next priority is to set up wireless printing and transfer files over from the old laptop. Also, I need to get MS Office installed, but must wait until Monday when I can borrow a peripheral CD-ROM drive from work - a built-in drive is notably missing from these machines.

The only thing that I'm not crazy about so far is the trackpad. The buttons - which should be at the bottom of the pad - are instead placed to either side. Maybe there's some special technique to this, but I'm finding it impossible to use the trackpad and click with the same hand. Quite annoying - but perhaps I'll figure out a way around it.

In the meantime, I am continuing to admire it as an object of wondrous beauty fair. :-)

London Town, Yeah London City

2009-04-06T11:21:00.002-03:00

I've booked my 2009 holiday, and simply cannot wait. I'm heading to London for just over a week in May, with a quick pit stop in Dublin on the return journey. It will be my first trip back to Europe in an unbelievable five years (after last autumn's vacation to Paris got cancelled). I will NEVER stay away so long again.

Anyway, it's a girls' holiday - I'm travelling with JT and will meet her over there. We've rented a flat in nouveau-boho Bermondsey, a neigbourhood in SE1 that I know not at all, so I'm looking forward to checking it out. (As an added bonus, my friends C. and P. live not half a mile away from our rental flat.) We've got a pretty busy week planned, including museums, London Walks, theatre, and the Chelsea Flower Show, as well as a day trip down to my old stomping grounds in Brighton and a big birthday party for a friend of JT's. It should be a blast - I absolutely cannot wait to reacquaint myself with the city.

After our time is up in London, JT is headed for Spain to attend a conference. Rather than just fly home, I decided to hop over to Dublin for two nights, for a quick visit (though now I wish I was staying longer). My old friend and work colleague E. has kindly offered me a place to stay while I'm there, and I'm really looking forward to catching up and seeing how the city has changed since I left. Not forgetting to make time for a fabulous lunch in the cafe at Avoca, of course!

Just checked the calendar - I leave in just over six weeks! Yay!!

Kitchen Reno Update - Week Eleven (Almost There!)

2009-03-22T19:24:00.003-03:00

It has been a transformational two weeks, since I last posted about the reno. In that time, we have gained a functioning kitchen. It's so amazing!

On March 9th, our Hanstone quartz countertops were installed. The colour is a grey-green called "Juniper Green" (and incidentally, that shade is being discontinued - apparently I got one of only three slabs of the stuff remaining in Canada!). Once the counters were in, everything else fell into place very quickly. The following day, I got home to find that the plumbers had hooked up the sink and dishwasher, and installed the taps. The electricians had also done their thing, wiring in the dishwasher and cooktop, and installing the undercabinet lighting and all the dimmers and switches.

Later that week, the cabinetmakers returned to do some adjustments and attend to a few small details. From that point, I was free to start filling up my new cupboards. I spent a day cleaning them out, then unpacked all my dishes, cookware and food - bringing the essentials up from my 'camp kitchen' in the basement, and getting everything else out of storage. So I've mostly spent the last week trying to get things in that area organised. I've been cooking in the kitchen for about a week now, too - and it's fantastic. Yesterday, for instance, I made a pie - and compared with my old kitchen, the experience was like night and day. Great to have so much space to spread out, and not have to deal with a horrible tile countertop (with bits of food getting stuck in the grout - yecchh).

This past Friday, the flooring guys came back to give the floors in the kitchen and hallway a final buff and polish - they look beautiful. And now, I would say we are about 85% finished. The only jobs remaining for which we need to bring in professionals will be the installation of heating, and the tile backsplash. The tiling will probably not happen for another month or two, but the delay is my fault since last month I changed my mind about what kind of tile I wanted. Still, the lack of a backsplash isn't preventing me from using the kitchen now, so I can live with a short delay.

There's all kinds of cosmetic work remaining to be done, of course. We're still waiting for some of our cabinet hardware to be delivered from Toronto. And we have to sand, refinish and install door and window frames, put up a new dining room light fixture, and repaint both the kitchen and dining rooms in one colour (the pale green I initially chose for the kitchen is just not working, I've decided). But those are jobs we can do ourselves, in our own time.

So since I now have a working kitchen, this will be my last regular Reno Diary post. I'll do ad hoc updates from now on, as and when we finish other bits of work. But in the meantime, I've posted new pics taken today to the photo diary. It's been an interesting couple of months, but I'd say things have gone quite well, all things considered. The results so far are a vast improvement, and well worth all the effort!

Asia Trip Photos and Videos

2009-03-18T09:47:00.002-03:00

I've now posted an album of photos from my trip to Vietnam and China over here, on Flickr. I also made a couple of short videos that are now up on my YouTube page. They include riding the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, at night, and turtles for sale in the Goldfish Market.

Kitchen Reno Update - Week Nine

2009-03-08T15:32:00.001-03:00

Despite my absence these last two weeks, some work has continued on the kitchen - the photo diary has been updated accordingly. The window guys came back to finish their job, installing frames and sills inside and repairing the frames and siding outside. The electrician also returned, and installed all the potlights. We now have working lights in the kitchen, for the first time since mid-January. He also installed the new double oven (yay!) and started putting in the two ceiling pendant lights.

This coming week is going to be pivotal. Crucially, our quartz countertops are being installed tomorrow (it took three weeks to fabricate them). Once the counters are in, the last of the work can proceed. I hope we'll have the plumber in on Tuesday, to install and connect the sink, tap and dishwasher. Then the electricians can return to finish their work, wiring in the dishwasher and cooktop and finishing the pendants and undercabinet lighting.

With a little luck, by next weekend I may have a functioning kitchen that I can move back into, and in which I can start cooking!

Going Home

2009-03-04T02:48:00.003-04:00

I'm in Hong Kong Airport, waiting for boarding to begin for my Air Canada flight back to Toronto. This has been a really great trip - definitely my best Asia trip so far, which is fitting since for all I know, it may also be my last!

I really enjoyed other trips here, but the foreignness of the places I visited really struck me, and I found myself quite happy to return home and to a degree of familiarity. That was much less the case, on this trip. For instance, over the past couple weeks I've really taken to the food here, and as time passed I haven't developed such strong cravings for Western food. That said, I still treated myself to the huuuuuge buffet breakfast at the Y this morning, because it's so fantastic and I knew it would keep me satisfied until I get fed on the plane later this afternoon. But even then, I had an omelette and bacon and English muffins, but also Chinese pork dumplings and steamed buns. All were super-tasty.

Highlights of my visit were definitely Hoi An and Macau. I won't be forgetting those places anytime soon. But really, it was all good - and I've been incredibly lucky to have been able to spend so much time here. I'm aiming to spend at least one or two of the upcoming 16 hours on the plane sorting through my pics and videos, so I can get those posted as soon as I can.

I get back after midnight tonight (Wednesday, Halifax time), and needless to say am taking Thursday off work to rest and recover. Not quite sure why I thought going back to work on a Friday was a good idea, but there you are. ;-) I'll be on my own until the end of the weekend too, as A. is now down in Virginia with the army, on some sort of winter warrior exercise.

No rest for the wicked though - next week we'll be hard at it in the kitchen again, as the countertops are due to be installed! Back to my old life!

To Macau

2009-03-03T08:25:00.002-04:00

I'm so glad I decided to make the trip to Macau today - I had a great day, and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.

Macau is largely known for its casinos (it's the only place in China where gambling is legal - and business at the casinos has taken a huge hit since the world economy tanked). It's a pity, because there is so much more to the island than that. I enjoyed it mainly for its atmosphere, which is totally different to that of Hong Kong. While HK is young, brash, loud, edgy and very modern, the historic centre of Macau is more refined and very charming. The Portuguese settled there in the early 16th century and its glory days as a centre of pan-Asian trade came in the 17th century - as Portugal's imperial fortunes began to fade and Britain's began to rise.

I got the 9.30 am catamaran ferry from Kowloon to Macau, and by the time I crossed, got through immigration (you need a passport to travel between HK and Macau, strangely enough) and hopped a bus to the city centre, it was 11 am. Luckily, the historic areas are very easy to get around. When central Macau was recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005, a walking trail was established with a network of signposts around the town, so it's easy to find places of interest and not get lost.

My first stop was the fantastic Largo do Senado (Senate Square), the main city square which looks like it's been transplanted directly from a Mediterranean country. It's beautifully cobbled, has a central fountain, and is ringed with typical 18th-century Portuguese colonial buildings, built in baroque and neoclassical styles and painted in various pastel colours with wonderful stucco detailing. I went wild taking photos...then realised that my camera's battery was just about to die. Argh! (So unfortunately I haven't any pics of the rest of my day.)

Afterwards, I visited more landmarks, including the church of Sao Domingos, the ruins of the Sao Paulo church (of which only the facade remains, at the summit of a long flight of stone steps - very dramatic and the remains are well-preserved), and various other public buildings including a theatre, a seminary and a beautiful library housed in a colonial building with a modern extension made of glass. Not wanting to neglect Macau's Chinese heritage (the population of the island is 95% Chinese, after all), I also took a spin around the A-Ma Temple, the oldest religious site on the island (14th c.) and dedicated to a local goddess believed to protect seafarers.

At lunchtime, I stopped in a great little Portuguese bakery/cafe/resto tucked in behind the Sao Domingo church called Ou Mun Cafe. Earlier in the day, I noted that there seemed to be very few Europeans around - but obviously this was because they were all at Ou Mun. The resto was pretty packed and from the hum of conversation around me, the clientele were largely chic Portuguese expats. At least that boded well for my lunch - I had the set menu of spinach soup, followed by stewed lamb with potatoes and salad, and for dessert the famous local specialty of egg-custard tarts (I scoffed several throughout the day, in fact, cos they were just so damn tasty).

After lunch, I decided to take in the Museu de Macau, which opened just a few years ago and is really excellent. I spent so much time there, in fact, that I ended up having to rush back in a taxi to the marine terminal, in order to catch the 5.30 boat back. But it was a wonderful day. It's interesting how evocative old Macau is of southern Europe. I've never been to Portugal, but I've been to Italy several times, and it reminded me of towns I've visited there, with its little winding streets, hidden squares, and wedding-cake architecture. Such a fun and refreshing contrast to Hong Kong!

Speaking of which, this is my last night in the city....

Goldfish and Turtles and Tea at the Pen

2009-03-02T08:14:00.001-04:00

This morning, I waited until 9am to venture outside, once rush hour was over. After a quick Western breakfast (hooray for Delifrance!), I jumped on the MTR (subway) to Prince Edward station, in the north of Kowloon. I spent much of the morning wandering the streets there (Fa Yuen and Tung Choi mostly), checking out the stalls of the Ladies' Market. But other than a few doodads and a handbag, I didn't buy much. Compared to what I saw in Hoi An, the clothes seemed a bit ordinary, not to mention expensive (and the lack of fitting rooms was a problem too!).

Much more rewarding was my stroll through the Goldfish Market, where I took loads of snaps and made a few videos too. It's not strictly a market, but rather a street lined with shops selling all manner of critters. True to its name, most were aquaria selling many varieties of fish, and quite a few turtles of every shape and size. There were also other amphibians, including frogs and salamanders, and even a few shops selling puppies and small furries (rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas and hamsters). There were two specialist rabbit shops on the street, only one of which was open - but it had the sweetest and friendliest little lop-eared bun who came hopping over when I approached its cage and sat up to be petted (a bit like my Timmy at home, in that respect!). Only after I'd been stroking it for a few minutes did I see the sign on its cage saying "please do not touch" in Cantonese and English. Oops.

Despite all this, I found the market a little bit troubling given the conditions I witnessed. Most shops had what looked to be pretty clean tanks for the fish and turtles, but some did not (and the fish didn't look too good). Plus, in all cases, the tanks were hugely overstocked (as the photos I took will show - I'll be posting those in due course). Surely packing fish into tanks and displaying them in little plastic bags for hours, days (or maybe even weeks?) on end can't be very healthy?

I got back to the Y around lunchtime, and then around 1.30 I headed next door to try to have tea at the Peninsula Hotel - an archetypal and very traditional Honkers experience, according to my mother-in-law. As I mentioned previously, I've read that afternoon tea at the Pen can be a bit sketchy these days, with hordes of tourists in ball caps and shorts pouring in off the cruise ships (and indeed, my friend PD told me that during her stay there a number of years ago, people began queuing at noontime for tables). I was prepared to wait up to a half-hour or so, given that they begin serving tea at 2pm. But to my surprise, when I arrived the lobby was largely empty and I was shown to a table and seated immediately.

The tea on offer was only partially traditional. The full monty consisted of: "Finger sandwiches, savory flaky pastry [i.e. a very posh sausage roll], quiche, mini French pastry, fruit tart, traditional [lemon] tea cake, Vahlrona ganache chocolate tartlet, premium Peninsula truffles, light tiramisu with green tea and crunchy hazelnut macaroon, fresh-baked raisin scones, Devonshire clotted cream and strawberry preserve, and choice of tea [I plumped for the Peninsula Afternoon blend]." And the price? Afternoon tea at a good hotel is never cheap, of course. At the Pen it's HK$268 for one person, or HK$398 for two, plus 10% service charge. So for me, the damage was almost $50 - certainly hair-raising, but not as expensive as tea at the Ritz in London, for instance.

Despite the unorthodox elements (quiche? tiramisu?!) the food was mostly quite good - particularly the sandwiches and both the sweet and savoury pastries (people here are very big on their sweeties - there seems to be a patisserie on every street corner). But the scones were lacking - they seemed a bit heavy and somehow not very fresh - which I reckon is a problem, as they are one of the centrepieces of the whole meal. However, they did at least serve as a vehicle for the clotted cream, which I haven't had for a number of years and which was good.

Of greater concern, however, was the standard of service. It was nowhere near as attentive as it ought to have been. Partway through my meal, I began to wonder if - as a single diner - I was somehow invisible to the wait staff. It wasn't until the end of my meal, nearly two hours after I first sat down, that anyone asked me if everything was satisfactory. Earlier, I had to ask for more hot water as none had been forthcoming, and it took a good ten minutes to get the attention of a waiter. And when I got the bill and handed over my credit card, I sat reading my newspaper and waiting for over twenty minutes, with no card slip in sight - I had to flag down another waiter and ask for my card back!

So while I generally enjoyed the experience, it was a bit peculiar, and not quite what I was expecting. When one is in the swankiest hotel in town, and paying quite a lot of money to have afternoon tea, the food should be uniformly excellent and the service faultless, in my opinion. I certainly wouldn't rush to go back there, if I'm ever lucky enough to be in Hong Kong again.

The rest of my day has been spent just wandering the streets. I love walking around in this city, especially in the early evening - the lights and the crowds are a real buzz. And it seems like every few paces there's some wacky little shop, selling things you've never seen before. I spent about an hour in a large branch of the wonderful SaSa (a chain of cosmetics and skincare emporia) just staring at all the products on offer and picking up some more odds and ends for myself. I spent loads of time in drugstores on my last trip here, so you'd think there would be nothing left to see - but you'd be wrong!

Time now to head over the road to Starbucks and go online for a bit. Macau tomorrow - I hope that the forecasted risk of showers doesn't materialise!

In Hong Kong

2009-03-01T09:15:00.003-04:00

It's now Sunday evening, and I'm in Hong Kong - woot!

Had an uneventful trip here earlier today. A taxi picked me up at 6 am and spirited me away from the wonderful Ha An Hotel (but not before they gave me a packed breakfast, to take with me). At Da Nang Airport, I was surrounded in the departure lounge by a large gaggle of middle-aged French tourists, who glanced enviously at me as I sat there eating a delicious and very fragrant whole mango before boarding my flight.

After a tedious connection in Hanoi, during which I had to collect my luggage, pay excess baggage charges, and check in again for the flight to Hong Kong (I don't know why they wouldn't check me through), I was on my way. My arrival in Hong Kong was super-smooth, as usual, and before I knew it I was on the Airport Hotelink coach and heading into the city.

I'm booked in again at my old haunt, the Salisbury YMCA Hotel in Kowloon, and it's as comfortable as ever. The only unpleasant surprise came when I discovered that they've increased their internet access charges - 24 hours of in-room wireless access now costs about $16. Ridiculous! Granted, it probably earns the Y extra money, but still - these days, free wireless should be a given in hotels everywhere. Luckily, there are public alternatives around town, and at the moment, I'm in a Starbucks just over the road from the hotel, taking advantage of their free wifi.

The climate here has been a bit of a shock. I've gone from hot and humid +30 degree temperatures in Vietnam, to about 20 degrees here. Still very pleasant, mind you, but I had to put on warmer clothes when I arrived!

I had a fun afternoon here, heading out just as soon as I unpacked my bag. Today I travelled the subway system here for the first time. Unsurprisingly, it's fantastic - very clean, efficient and ultra-modern. I headed across (under?) the harbour to the neighbourhood of Central on Hong Kong Island, and spent a few hours strolling the streets there and eyeballing the fab(ulously expensive) shops. Had myself a good dinner before returning to the waterfront and hopping onto the Star Ferry, which I love. We had a great night-time view of the harbour lights as we headed back across to Kowloon.

So now I'm thinking about what I will do these next two days here. I reckon tomorrow morning, I'll go north to Prince Edward and Fa Yuen Street for what is apparently some excellent bargain shopping up there. In the afternoon, I will try to have afternoon tea at the Peninsula Hotel (right next to where I'm staying at the Y). I say "try" because apparently teatime there can be a bit overrun by tourists now - and I'm not going to waste precious time by standing for ages in a queue. We'll see.

On Tuesday, I think I'm going to take a day trip to the former Portuguese colony of Macau. It's apparently only an hour by ferry from Hong Kong, and seems to have quite a different atmosphere. Plus, it'll make for another cool stamp in my passport. ;-)

More again tomorrow....

In Hoi An

2009-02-28T06:06:00.003-04:00

Back in December, right after I booked this trip, I had second thoughts about the two nights I had planned here in Hoi An. I wondered if perhaps I might regret not spending a few more days here - and as it turns out, I was right. This is an absolutely amazing little town, and the perfect ending to what may well be my last visit to Vietnam.

Not only is our hotel a gem, as I mentioned in my last post, but the town itself is so charming, and authentically historic. It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site, befitting its history as a major Southeast Asian trading port from the 15th to the 19th centuries. It is unusually well-preserved, with many centuries-old houses, temples and assembly halls, and the main streets of the historic centre are pedestrianised.

This morning, I joined H. and J. on a walking tour around the town, visiting a variety of buildings and taking pictures everywhere. Hoi An is equally well known nowadays for the vast number of tailors and shoemakers working here. You can be measured and have clothes and footwear whipped up in no time at all, and at amazing prices. Were I here a few more days, I would probably end up with an entire custom wardrobe. All the tailors and dressmakers have European and North American catalogues for clients to browse, and they will design or copy anything you want, in any fabric. It's incredible! And quite difficult to restrain oneself. This afternoon, however, I ordered some brocade slippers and a lovely lined wool-blend coat, both of which I have to go pick up tonight. The coat is costing me US $45 and will be ready in just three hours, apparently.

It's been an amazing day, but tiring too (it's very hot and humid, and I collapsed back at the hotel earlier for a shower and a rest). This evening, we'll head out for a final dinner here in Vietnam - though it will be hard to top our lunch, which we had in a lovely rooftop restaurant overlooking the river. Tomorrow morning, a taxi will be collecting me at 6 am and depositing me at Da Nang Airport, for my flight to Hanoi and my onward connection to Hong Kong. Should arrive at my hotel in Honkers by about 4pm - so looking forward to a fun evening there tomorrow.

Project End

2009-02-27T21:02:00.001-04:00

It's been an interesting and poignant week in Hue. We had four full days of meetings for our project from Monday to Thursday, and a half-day today (Friday). There were about 45 people attending in total, from our five partner universities in Hue, Hanoi, and Iloilo (Philippines). My boss and I were not sure how this final meeting of the project would turn out, but it ended up being very successful. We all realised just how much has been achieved over the past five years, and there have been meaningful benefits to both our university partners and to the communities they work with. It was very gratifying to see the results - and to know that development work really can make a difference in poor countries. Good stuff.

We passed a couple of nice evenings. Tuesday night, I went for a stroll around the city centre with my friend and colleague H. (bought two gorgeous silk scarves for US $4 each), and we had a nice dinner at an outdoor restaurant by the river (spring rolls, crispy noodles with pork and shrimp, and beer for about US $3 each). On Wednesday evening, our host Dr. P. invited all of the Canadians for dinner at his wonderful home in the countryside outside Hue. My boss and I had the pleasure of a similar experience during our last visit to Hue in the summer, and this evening was equally special. The food was fantastic and we ate at a long table out in the garden, beneath a flowering pomelo tree.

There was a closing banquet dinner last night, during which there was lots of drinking and speechifying. (One of the leaders from Hanoi brought a fairly toxic bottle of hooch to the table, which was labelled both as "medicinal" and as comprising 37% ethanol. Wishing to retain brain cells, I did not partake.) The evening closed with that beloved Asian pastime of karaoke, which our partners take extremely seriously. Luckily we Canadians got away with performing two group numbers (badly) before saying our goodbyes. It was really quite sad to bid all these folks farewell, I must say. Who knows if or when we will see any of them again?

By the time I finished all my work this morning and got packed up and checked out of our hotel, it was time to head off on the holiday portion of this trip. H. and I had arranged for a car and driver to take us south to the small historic fishing town of Hoi An (just south of Da Nang), and we were picked up at 4pm. It took just under three hours to cover a distance of around 110 km, for which we paid US $30 each - not bad, and extremely convenient. The trip itself was fairly scary, though. As I've noted in previous travelogues, driving practices in Vietnam are quite hair-raising and we very nearly got into an accident about an hour outside Hue. It was - unsurprisingly - caused by our driver trying (illegally) to pass a large truck. I could see when he pulled out that we would not have enough time to pass...and the next thing I knew, we were beside the truck with another large truck barrelling towards us. I closed my eyes and screamed...and the other truck swerved onto the shoulder, missing us. It was awful. Luckily my shriek had the desired effect on the driver, though, who drove much more cautiously for the rest of the trip!

By 7pm we arrived at the Ha An Hotel, our base in Hoi An. It's a fantastic place, with French colonial architecture, a large grassy courtyard and lots of palm trees twinkling with lights. We were given a welcome drink and checked in speedily, then went to the restaurant for some dinner. H. left in a taxi immediately afterwards, bound for Da Nang Airport to pick up her husband J. who has arrived in Vietnam this evening to join her for another week of travel. But I lingered over coffee in the courtyard, enjoying the balmy night air, before settling into my room for the evening. The accommodation here is so nice - fresh flowers everywhere in the rooms, with petals scattered across the bed and on the bathmat. So many thoughtful, pretty touches everywhere - I can see already why H.'s cousin recommended this hotel to us, and why it has such a high rating on TripAdvisor. It's wonderful - and a bargain at only US $55/night.

We have a busy day in store tomorrow - a full day exploring the old town of Hoi An and all the sights it has to offer - before I head out again very early on Sunday morning. More updates soon.

Heat

2009-02-23T07:13:00.001-04:00

It's hot here in Hue. Not unbearably hot, like it was during my last trip here in June of last year. But very very warm all the same - it's about 32 degrees Celsius today. According to the Vietnamese, it's unseasonably warm - normally, temperatures should be in the low 20s at this time of year. And unfortunately, the hotel pool is closed at the moment!

I seem to have picked up a cold en route (unsurprisingly, as airports and aircraft are positively pestilential). Must wander out this evening after it's cooled off a bit, to try and find a pharmacy and some throat pastilles.

First day of meetings went quite well today. Our project officer from CIDA is joining us tomorrow, so we'll all have to be on our best and most impressive behaviour. Off for dinner shortly - we're being taken to a restaurant outside of town this evening....

In Hue

2009-02-22T10:13:00.001-04:00

It's now Sunday evening in Vietnam. We left Halifax Friday morning, with five of us from the university travelling together. My friend H. very kindly offered to share one of her Air Canada upgrade certificates with me for this trip, but alas - the flight from Toronto to Hong Kong was packed and we weren't able to upgrade to First Class after all. But we got exit row seats at least, which was good. The flight was as fine as 16 hours in a glorified tin can could possibly be, and I ploughed through four movies ("The Duchess", "Miracle at St. Anna", "Passchendaele" and the concert film "Kylie X 2008").

In Hong Kong, we did a little shopping at the airport - I was delighted to find they've opened a Muji outlet since I passed through last summer - before boarding our half-empty Cathay Pacific flight to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). This was my first time passing through HCMC. The five of us split up into two separate cabs on arrival, with the others being taken on a merry ride by their driver and being charged US $17 for the three-kilometer journey to the hotel, which should have cost less than $2! Mind you, our taxi driver wasn't particularly scrupulous either - I gave him a VND 100,000 note($6) for the VND 30,000 ($1.75) fare, and I had to ask him to give me the change!

At least our hotel, the Parkroyal Saigon, was great. Their standard rooms were overbooked so I got a free upgrade to a deluxe room - yay! It was quite nice, with a big bathroom (separated from the bedroom by a glass wall) and the all-important wireless access. We reconvened downstairs in the lobby around 7.30 pm and had a drink at the bar, but not before I'd had a little stroll around and discovered the health centre was still open. They had staff on hand offering massage services and they were taking appointments well into the evening. When I found out that a half-hour aromatherapy massage only cost US $10, I made a booking in a flash! And it was exactly what I needed after such a very long flight. Within a minute or two of beginning the massage, the masseuse pronounced my back to be "like rock" so I was obviously pretty tense. The technique was a little unorthodox for us North Americans - my masseuse was a tiny young Vietnamese woman who hopped up on the table to dig her palms into my back, then straddled me at various times during the procedure. Eh, whatever. ;-) It was a good massage - they're obviously into the whole pressure-point thing and she spent a lot of time on a spot at the base of my skull and another at the base of the spine.

Needless to say, after all that I slept like a baby despite the 12-hour time difference, and didn't even wake up until after 6 am the following morning, which was great. We had a very good buffet breakfast, and then H. and I hopped in the hotel shuttle at 9 am. We were deposited in the city centre about 20 minutes away, and walked to the famed Ben Thanh Market. It's quite the place - very large - with a huge range of clothing, knicknacks and decorative items, as well as lots of prepared food, fresh fruit, veg, meat and seafood. We both bought some small embroidered bags to bring home as gifts, and might well have bought more except that some of the stallminders were very pushy (which is not something I've really experienced here before - normally sellers are fairly unobtrusive).

Afterwards we strolled down Le Loi street and stopped in at an upscale clothing store called Orchids. Absolutely gorgeous stuff for sale at not bad prices, and H. and I both tried on several outfits, but nothing fit! Very frustrating - but not surprising I guess, as the Asian body type is so different from my own.

Then it was time to return to the hotel in a cab, check out, and head to the airport for our connecting flight to Hue. We arrived at around 2.30 pm, to a full welcoming party of our friends from the university here. Then it was on to the Festival Hotel, where my boss P. and I stayed just last summer, during our last trip here. Very nice to be back, and very convenient to already know where everything is. H., P. and I went out a little earlier for dinner, to a small restaurant down the street - we had bowls of pho (beef noodle soup), spring rolls, and beer for less than US $3 per person.

So I'm settled in now, and ready to start work tomorrow morning. It's going to be a very intense week of meetings coming up, so I'm taking this evening to relax. Feeling more affected by jet lag today too and am very tired, so I'm aiming to try to stay awake until at least 10 pm tonight.

Back to Asia, One Last Time

2009-02-18T20:43:00.002-04:00

So I'm headed back to Vietnam this Friday, for the final time before the project that I manage ends next month. I have a full week of meetings in Hue City next week, before saying goodbye to some of the very nice people I have worked with over the past four and a half years. Who knows when I will ever go back?

As usual, I am taking advantage of the trip and having a few days of holidays after my work is finished. My friend H. and I will head from Hue City down to Hoi An - an ancient fishing village and UNESCO World Heritage Site - for two nights. Very much looking forward to that. Afterwards, H. will head for Hanoi to visit relatives, and I will carry on to Hong Kong, where I'll stay for three nights. I absolutely loved HK when I first visited there in 2006, but since I had such a short stay then, I figured a return trip was in order.

I arrive back home very late on 4 March - two weeks from now - but will be posting updates here as I expect to have good Internet access during my trip. In the interim, our neighbour the designer will keep the kitchen renovation ticking over - so there will of course be a short hiatus in my Reno Diary. Looking forward to seeing what work will be done by the time I get back.

Kitchen Reno Diary - Week Seven

2009-02-16T22:37:00.002-04:00

It's cabinet week! The cabinetmakers moved in all of our new cupboards and units last Tuesday, and have been working on installing them ever since. As of today, they've nearly finished, and have probably only one day's work left. I've updated the photo diary with new pictures, showing the work that's been done.

I'm really happy with how everything is looking. The best thing about custom cabinetry is the perfect fit with the space, and the finishes. The crown moulding has turned out great, as have the furniture bases on the cabinet runs. The colour that I went with ("Cloud White" by Benjamin Moore) was a good choice, too - warm and creamy. The new galley kitchen seems slightly claustrophobic, since we've gone from an open space to floor-to-ceiling cabinetry - it feels a bit canyon-like in there at the moment! But I'm sure it'll be great once the countertops and lighting are in, and everything is finished. And cooking in there is definitely going to be super-efficient.

Last Thursday, the countertop installer came in to template for our new quartz countertops, so we expect those to be delivered in about three weeks. In the interim, we need to have the electricians back to install our appliances and finish the lighting, and the plumber back to hook up the dishwasher, and install the tap and water supply to the sink. There's also the cabinet hardware and door/window trim to sort out, and backsplash tile to be chosen. So while we've passed a major milestone this week, there's still lots to come.

Puppehs!

2009-02-15T21:36:00.002-04:00

These five adorable Lab-mix puppies, from two different litters, stayed with us last night. A. had meetings up at the Cape Breton branch of the SPCA yesterday and visited the Sydney shelter. They were a bit overrun with puppies there. Since the Halifax metro shelter currently has no puppies (and a waiting list of people hoping to adopt one), A. offered to transfer some of the Sydney pups down to Halifax, so they could be adopted out more quickly. We kept these seven-week-old pups with us overnight, until we could drop them off at the shelter today.

All very cute - and though I love dogs, I'd forgotten just how much yowling pups do, and how much mess they can make. It reminded me of why I really like keeping rabbits - they're quiet, and their poo doesn't smell (much). ;-)

Kitchen Reno Diary - Week Six

2009-02-09T21:00:00.004-04:00

As of tonight, the "shell" of the new kitchen is complete. New ceiling, new floor, chimney repointed, vent for range hood installed, all holes in walls plastered, and a lick of paint/varnish over everything. In fact, after four days of painting, I'm quite ready to put down the brushes, let me tell you!

Tomorrow is a big day. Genuine Kitchens are coming in to begin the installation of our new cabinetry. It will apparently take 4-5 days to complete - so by the end of the weekend, things are going to look very different! I'll be taking lots of pics over the coming days, to document the installation.

Google Book Settlement

2009-02-08T20:46:00.002-04:00

I stumbled across news of the Google Book Settlement today - I had no idea that a massive lawsuit had been filed against Google Books for copyright infringement, as a result of their drive to digitise books and make them available for free online. I had a quick read through the material on the site today, and was a bit overwhelmed by the legalese. But there seems to be some suggestion that all those owning a US copyright interest in a book or insert (e.g. quotations, photographs, etc.) may be covered by this settlement.

As theses are classed as books under the terms of this lawsuit, I'm wondering how this might affect me personally (if at all). Typing my name into Google Books returns records of both my theses, as well as a sprinkling of other publications to which I contributed in the past, or in which my work has been cited. Are any of my academic friends out there aware of this settlement, and what the implications might be?

Kitchen Reno Diary - Week Five

2009-02-02T20:34:00.002-04:00

Wow, what an exciting week! We've passed the tipping point in this renovation project - the demolition is all done, and now we're reconstructing.

This week's major developments were the ceiling and floor - photos have been added to the Flickr album. Last Wednesday and Thursday, drywall was put up on the ceiling, and it was plastered and then painted by moi yesterday. On Friday morning, the flooring guys moved in. A. had removed all the old tiles and layers of plywood, so only the bare boards (comprising the basement ceiling!) were left. Last fall, we bought reclaimed 2¼" oak flooring, of a similar age to the rest of the floors in our house, from an architectural salvage company here in the city. Since our dining room and the old pantry room have these original oak floors in situ, the flooring guys came in and laid the reclaimed stuff down in the old kitchen, matching it up with the existing floors. It was then sanded and - in the moment of truth - a coat of tung oil was applied. I got home Friday afternoon just as the guys were finishing up, and I was absolutely thrilled. They did a fantastic job - and if you didn't know where to look, you wouldn't be able to tell where the original floors end and the newly-laid part begins. The final result is even better than I'd hoped for - it's amazing!

Needless to say we're taking great care of the floor now. The guys have to come back this week to give the whole area a final buff, then apply two coats of polyurethane - and then the job will be done. In the interim, we had a bricklayer come in today, to repoint the now-exposed chimney. Very glad we did that, as the old mortar of the chimney was a bit rough - it looks much better now.

Things are moving along at a fast pace these days. A. is finishing some plastering this week, and needs to put up the window trim. Then this weekend (a long weekend for me), I'm planning to prime and paint the walls. I've picked out a pale green colour which I hope is going to work - but knowing me, I might end up changing my mind later once all the cabinets are in place and I can get a good look at the room at different times of day, in different lights!

Kitchen Reno Diary - Week Four

2009-01-27T20:03:00.002-04:00

Quite a bit accomplished since my last installment - more photo updates posted to Flickr now. The wiring and other electrical rough-ins are pretty much finished. After a weekend spent pulling old nails out of the ceiling joists, a guy came in yesterday to put up new strapping, and today the electricians installed all the boxes for the new pendant lights and mounting plates for the potlights. Tomorrow, the new ceiling is going up!

Other things: I stripped off some awful 80s floral-print wallpaper in the pantry, and A. is carrying on with pulling up the old tile floor (a miserable job, as there are three layers of plywood beneath that have been nailed down every 2" or so). I've also pretty much decided on my countertop, which will be Hanstone quartz (engineered stone) in Juniper Green. It was an easy decision in the end, since the other surface I was considering, Zodiaq quartz, was going to be $1,600 more expensive.

But the most exciting development by far is that on Thursday last week, we signed off on the cabinetry designs. I've posted all the final drawings in my Flickr album (click on any of the pics to enlarge them). So the new cabinets are now in production, and we're due for installation during the week of February 9th.

Still plenty to do before then, though. The floors are to be relaid next week, the chimney repointed and the old stovepipe hole filled in, the window trim finished, the siding reinstalled outside, and plastering aplenty to fill in all the holes in the walls. Want to get the walls painted, too. Whew.

Fishies!

2009-01-26T19:03:00.003-04:00

New additions have been made to our menagerie - tropical fish.

We acquired a largish tank and accessories last summer, courtesy of my brother-in-law's parents (who had all the stuff sitting in their basement, gathering dust). A. cleaned it up and started the water filtration systems in November, and in December we added some live plants. Finally, a couple of days ago, we got the fish from a client of A.'s who is a breeder. There are five angelfish (one is pictured above), two cory catfish, and one other (the name of which I can't remember!). The last three are all bottom-feeders, who eat algae and bits of food that fall to the bottom, and so help to keep the tank clean.

We'll see how they get on, but they seem to be doing fine so far. We will only end up keeping a single pair of angelfish because apparently, as they get older, any more than two in a tank will end up fighting. So the extras will go to the pet store later this spring, for resale. And you never know, maybe we will have baby angelfish in due course! In the meantime, they're all pretty fun to watch.

E.D.D.

2009-01-25T00:02:00.000-04:00

We did not come to remain whole.
We came to lose our leaves like the trees,
The trees that are broken
And start again, drawing up from the great roots.

- From "A Home in Dark Grass" by Robert Bly

Kitchen Reno Diary - Week Three

2009-01-18T16:32:00.002-04:00

It's been a busy week. The electricians have been in each day, replacing the ancient (and in some cases, dangerous) wiring and doing rough-ins for new fixtures and new power hook-ups. The plumber dismantled the old sink area and relaid pipes in the new location. Habitat for Humanity finally showed up to haul away our old cabinets and countertops. And we had two new windows fitted, which are looking great.

Had an epic 4.5 hour meeting with our designer this morning, to go over the final drawings from the cabinetmaker. Also had to mark out on the ceiling where the potlights and different light fixtures are going, so the electricians can install the boxes for those this week. But we discovered that some fixtures just aren't going to work in the locations I wanted. It's amazing how many things you have to change at this stage, because you just can't envision them properly until you're actually standing in the new space.

On the cards for this week is plastering and drywalling, tearing out the old floor, stripping wallpaper, and picking a paint colour for the cabinetry. Because as we all know, there are a million different shades of white!

Kitchen Reno Diary - Week Two

2009-01-11T14:02:00.004-04:00

Good progress made this week, and the photo diary has been updated with a few new pictures. All the drywall has now come down from the walls that are being taken out, and A. is working on pulling down the ceiling and all the wall studs today. We also opened up the area which used to house our oven. It backs onto the chimney so we were interested to see what additional space might be revealed, that could be used as part of a new design. As it turns out, there's not much - but it should still be enough to install the planned liquor cabinet and wine fridge.

This week we also received a quote from an electrician, lined up a guy to install the two new windows, and had a plumber come in to look around before giving us an estimate. On Thursday afternoon, we had a second (and hopefully final) meeting with our cabinetmaker. He is coming in on Tuesday this week, to do a final measure of the space.

This afternoon, the engineer who came round last year to advise us on the feasibility of our plans came back to have a look at the work so far. A. wanted him to give the OK before he started removing the studs from the old walls we have taken down. And we now have a busy week ahead. Tomorrow, the electrician is going to start work on some rough-ins, and the window guy is coming in as well.

In the meantime, the "camp kitchen" I have set up downstairs in the laundry room is working out quite well. I have a table and chairs, open shelves, and a standing cupboard, as well as a bar fridge, microwave, kettle and hotplate. The laundry tub is serving as the kitchen sink (though thankfully, we still have the dishwasher hooked up, upstairs - I'll be using that as long as I can). Cooking down in the basement feels a bit like being a student again, though. That said, I'm far better equipped now than I was during my last year in England - when I lived in a small studio flat where the permitted cooking facilities consisted of a microwave only. Most of my housemates subsisted mainly on frozen ready-meals from Marks & Spencer, but since I couldn't afford those (and had a care for my health), I was forced by necessity to learn the techniques of early-1980s microwave cuisine. I bought vintage microwave cookbooks in used bookshops, and picked up obscure accessories at jumble sales and charity shops (sizzler plates for crisping meats, a chicken roaster, potato roaster, etc). Like most people, I only used the nuke for reheating food, and had no idea you could cook all sorts of things in it. So, I don't think we'll starve, this next month or two - nor will we have to subsist on take-out, which is good.

Moving Office

2009-01-10T18:15:00.005-04:00

Next week, I'll be packing up my old office and getting ready to move to a new one the following week. My unit is moving out of the top floor of the main administration building on campus - temporarily, we're told. There are long-term plans to renovate the entire floor, but moving everyone out and doing all that work is expected to take about two years. The people in our unit are the first to go, though I wish we didn't have to as we are being moved to buildings off-campus.

On Friday, we got to see our new home, at 5248 Morris Street. It really is wonderful, though - a three-storey, Georgian stone building which is a registered heritage property. According to the blue plaque on the facade, it is called Crofton-Uniacke House (presumably after the original inhabitants) and it was built in 1816. The funny thing is, I have actually walked past this house many times over the years, and admired it - so can't quite believe I'm about to move in!

The interior is in very good condition (it's better maintained than our current offices, for sure!), and it should be very comfortable - eventually. There are 18 of us crowded into this one building for the next 7-8 months, until the second building we've been allocated (located across the road) becomes vacant. When that happens, some people from our sister unit will be moving over there. So it's going to be, um, "cosy" until the summer, with all of us squeezed in 2 and 3 to a room.

Despite the coolness of this building, and the wonderful downtown location (a stone's throw from great shopping, cafes and restos) I'm still sorry to be leaving main campus. It will mean the end of commuting regularly on foot, as my new office is located more than three miles from my house. I'm going to have a go with the bike come spring, though.

Kitchen Reno Diary - Week One

2009-01-04T19:50:00.003-04:00

So the reno has begun! Very exciting (though living in a building site is less so, obviously). A. has been working tirelessly for the past four days, and has nearly completed the demolition work in that time. All the appliances and cabinets have been removed, and the wall between the kitchen and pantry has been broken through.

I'm going to aim to do a weekly update here, and have also set up a Kitchen Reno Photo Diary over here on Flickr. I will post more pics each week, as we go. Stay tuned.

New Year

2009-01-01T08:36:00.002-04:00

(Another one from my postcard collection.)

Tiny Bunny Visitor

2008-12-31T10:34:00.002-04:00

Meet Pinky. She was born on December 16th. She has lots of brothers and sisters, but is the smallest of the litter, and her mother has been ignoring her a bit. So her owner brought her into the clinic for a little extra care and attention.

A. brought Pinky home last night and she will stay with us for a few days. We'll keep an eye on her and make sure she is fed regularly (with cat milk substitute!). But she is nearly of an age where she could start on solid food, so we'll see how she gets on with that.

In the meantime, she is beyond adorable. She sleeps most of the time, but is quite alert and curious when awake. Hopefully in another week, she will be bigger and stronger, and can go home to her littermates.

Merry

2008-12-24T23:12:00.004-04:00

From my vintage postcard collection.

Warhol Live

2008-12-23T07:32:00.000-04:00

While in Montreal last week, J. and I went to the Museum of Fine Arts to see an exhibition, Warhol Live: Music and Dance in Andy Warhol's Work. I really enjoyed it - and learned a lot about Warhol in the process.

The exhibition started out by looking at the teenaged Andy's fascination with Hollywood stars. It then moved on to his lifelong love of classical music and dance. I wasn't aware that he'd done stage designs for dance companies - but one of the more interesting rooms in the exhibit replicated one of his designs. It consisted mainly of pillow-shaped silver-foil balloons, filled with a mixture of gases which enabled them to float just above floor level; the dancers then performed around them, to a cacophonous soundtrack. It went down a storm with J.'s five-year-old daughter A., who came with us to the exhibit and who had a ball playing with the pillow-balloons.

However, most of the exhibition focused on Warhol's interest in music. There was a big display of all the many album covers he designed over the course of his career. Quite a lot of attention was given to Warhol's management of the Velvet Underground, and later to his involvement with Studio 54 and Interview magazine. However the best part of the exhibition, in my opinion, was the room which attempted to replicate the atmosphere of Warhol's Silver Factory, which featured a large divan in the centre of the room covered with throws and cushions. Visitors are encouraged to crash on the cushions while trippy colours and patterns are projected onto the walls and ceiling, and tracks from the Velvet Underground are played.

All in all, a fun and interactive exhibit. It's moving on in the new year to San Francisco and Pittsburgh. Highly recommended!

Duran in Montreal

2008-12-19T20:13:00.005-04:00

Last week, I spent a few days in Montreal visiting with J. We took in a show by Duran Duran at the Metropolis club, which was fantastic. The band looked and sounded great, and the crowd was enthusiastic.

I put an album of concert photos over here on Flickr, as well as two video clips on YouTube - "I Don't Want Your Love" and "Save A Prayer". I'm lucky I got those, as I filmed them on my digital camera right in front of the security guard. He very nicely asked me to stop recording at one point - lucky he didn't threaten to take away my cam....

Reno Woes

2008-12-15T18:35:00.002-04:00

And so it begins.

Has there ever been a home renovation project in history that has gone smoothly and according to plan? I think not. And true to form, ours has gone off the rails before it has even started.

Our project - gutting our old kitchen and enlarging it - was meant to begin in early October. My stint in hospital in September obviously delayed things by a couple of weeks. Then, we had a major problem. The contractor we wanted - a guy we have worked with before - announced he was no longer available. Due to poor communication between him and our designer, he thought we were no longer interested in having him do the work, and so he took on another job that would keep him busy through to December.

We decided that we really wanted this guy to be our contractor, and that we would wait for him. We agreed upon a new date of January 2nd, to begin the work once the holidays were over. And in many ways, this was for the best, as we spent October and November doing stuff that should have been done over the summer - except that we could never get a hold of our designer. I met with cabinetmakers, ordered the sink and tap, priced countertops, and decided on a lighting plan. Things were going very well.

Then today, we got the rug pulled out from under us. A. called the contractor, only to be informed that he has decided not to take on our job after all. He cited continued communication problems with our designer, and said he felt he'd not been treated with respect. So instead of contacting us earlier with these concerns, so we could resolve them, he decided to walk away from the project, three weeks before it was due to begin. He did give us the name of a colleague who was willing to take on our job - but even still, we are pretty shocked at this turn of events. We really trusted this guy and it was the last thing we expected from him.

Anyway, the project will go on. A. seems resolved to act now as project manager himself, and do as much work as he can. He'll take a few weeks off work in January, to get on with things. I suppose the silver lining to this cloud is that this will probably save us a bundle on labour fees, which would be a good thing. But still, we could have done without the aggro. Gah.

On the Rhodes

2008-12-04T16:36:00.004-04:00

Interesting story in the paper last weekend about recent trends in the awarding of Rhodes Scholarships in Canada. Apparently, in recent years, many of the award-holders have been immigrants from war-torn or otherwise unstable parts of the world. All are incredibly accomplished, of course. But I think it just goes to show how competitive these elite awards have become. Of course, the bar has always been set extremely high. To wit: the year I finished grad school in Halifax, a guy from Saint Mary's won a Rhodes. He had straight As, was quarterback of the SMU football team, and tutored little kids in his spare time. But it seems like nowadays, to win a Rhodes, it's no longer enough to be an athlete with a minimum 4.0 GPA and an impressive record of volunteer work. Now, it seems, you need all that *plus* a degree from the School of Hard Knocks.

The article raised questions about whether Canadian-born applicants from secure, "pampered" backgrounds are now at a disadvantage when it comes to competing for the Rhodes. I wonder if there may be some validity to this, given my own experience. Earlier this year, I received notification from the Commonwealth Scholarship Plan - the funding scheme which allowed me to do my doctoral degree in England - that awards tenable in UK have been subject to massive funding cuts from the British Government. While it was decided to continue offering Commonwealth Scholarships to qualified candidates from developing nations, those for candidates in developed countries like Canada and New Zealand were to be eliminated (thankfully, they have since been partly reinstated). Many reasons - some of which were rather insulting - were given for this decision, but one of the most troubling was the suggestion that scholars from developed nations don't need all-expenses-paid funding. Because we're all rich and pampered, obviously. On the contrary, I can say with certainty that if I had not been a Commonwealth Scholarship recipient, there is no way I'd have been able to do my doctorate at an English university - not when tuition fees and living on a shoestring budget cost over $30,000 per annum in the mid-1990s.

So I have a bit of empathy for the Rhodie-wannabes who may feel a bit hard done by, just because they come from nice middle-class homes. But then again, life ain't fair. When I was applying for funding to do my doctorate, I remember being encouraged by a few of my professors to consider applying for the Rhodes ("They don't *all* go to jocks", as one remarked). But I knew there was no point, without a stellar extracurricular record. And I remember feeling a little resentful about that, because if I hadn't had to spend every summer plus 10-20 hours a week during the academic year working part-time, in order to pay for tuition and residence, I would have had all the time in the world for student clubs and volunteering. So to my mind, the selection criteria for the Rhodes Scholarships discriminates against economically-disadvantaged applicants, also.

I'm just glad I got through the system when I did, before tuition fees got really crazy and things like scholarship schemes were increasingly viewed by politicians as frivolities that could be easily cut from budgets. I wish the current generation luck in pursuing graduate work. Funding for education just ain't what it used to be, and the era of fully-funded studies for all those of sufficient merit is disappearing.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like...

2008-11-23T17:02:00.002-04:00

We planned quite some time ago to bomb down to Wolfville this weekend, for a little getaway. Unfortunately, on Friday night, Mother Nature decided to spring a freak early snowstorm on us. We got nearly 30 cm of snow by Saturday morning, which put the kibosh on plans to head out early and take in the Wolfville Farmers' Market. After A. spent several hours digging out the car and then cutting a path out to the main road, we got on our way by early afternoon.

On arrival, however, our B&B (the aptly-named Gingerbread House Inn) did look like something off a biscuit tin. The photo above was taken this morning, outside the doors of our suite. It was all very wintery and picturesque. Plus, we had a great meal last night at Tempest Restaurant. The chef has recently returned from a two-week Slow Food conference near Milan, and to mark the occasion was offering a four-course Northern Italian tasting menu last night. Delicious stuff - though a guilty pleasure as one of the courses was tagliatelle served with stewed rabbit sauce. I thought of our evil foster-bun Gnasher while enjoying it...hehe.

Marquee Club Closing - Again

2008-11-19T11:01:00.002-04:00

I've been hearing on the radio this morning that the Marquee Club is closing its doors for good. (Even the CBC Radio 1 programme Q reported on the news, just a little while ago).

It's a great shame, but probably inevitable. The club's owners announced in early 2005 that they were shuttering the place, due to the high cost of bringing acts to Halifax. Within months, however, they were opening for occasional shows. The last year or two, things seemed as busy as ever - but now the news that they are shutting again. As the Marquee is one of the premier live music venues in this city, it's definitely a loss. But I suspect something will come along and take its place in due course. I just hope that when it does, it's located more centrally downtown - my biggest gripe about the Marquee has always been that it's on Gottingen Street. While I'm sure rents there are cheap, I never felt terribly safe going there at night.

Last time I planned to go to the Marquee, it was to see Bloc Party in September - but I ended up re-selling my tickets cos I couldn't go. Looks like that was my last chance....

Shame and National Identity

2008-11-11T17:49:00.002-04:00

In time for Remembrance Day, an unsettling story in Saturday's Globe about efforts that are currently being made in some sectors of Spanish society towards acknowledging the horrors of General Franco's fascist regime. But "truth and reconcilation" comes to some more easily than to others, and with atrocities having been committed within living memory, plenty of Spaniards seem happy to let sleeping dogs lie. While they may have a point, the example of Germany certainly shows that genuine atonement is possible. A very interesting article, on a country we don't often hear much about on this side of the pond.

Birthday

2008-11-10T21:30:00.002-04:00

I marked my 36th birthday on Saturday November 8th. It was the nicest birthday I can remember in a very long time.

It helped that it was a Saturday, as usually I am at work on my birthday and am lucky most years to get in a rushed dinner afterwards. This year, J. flew in from Montreal the night before, and we started the festivities that evening with seeing Feist play a fun show at the Metro Centre. Saturday morning, I breakfasted like a queen on blueberry pancakes and Mimosas, courtesy of A., before heading over the road for a manicure. By the time I got back, J. was ready to go and we had hours of pootling around the shops at the Hydrostone and in some of the antiques emporia on Agricola Street.

By late afternoon, we headed downtown in good time for our appointments at Spirit Spa, where I was scrubbed and slathered in mud before being wrapped in plastic and left to stew for a bit, whilst an aesthetician administered a scalp massage.....aaaaaaahhhhh. By the time I regained consciousness, it was time to head home, get dolled up, and go down to Gio, a fantastic new resto at the Prince George Hotel. The consensus was that it was our best dining experience in Halifax to date. Champagne was sent to our table on arrival by a member of staff, an (apparently very satisfied) client of A.'s. I ate elk for the first time, and for dessert they served up cherries (my favourite fruit) in multiple ways. Oh, and the wine was fabulous, and I tried some scrummy pear cider. Just a great evening all round, and a fitting end to a very indulgent day.

Frost/Nixon

2008-11-02T18:51:00.003-04:00

Saw Frost/Nixon by Peter Morgan at Neptune last night. I'd really been looking forward to it as I've heard so much about this play in the press lately (it's also been staged in Toronto and Vancouver recently). It didn't disappoint - it was excellently-written. I did wonder a bit about the two lead actors, though - they were certainly competent, but I wasn't wowed by them. As a result, the final scenes of the play - where Frost elicits Nixon's confession of complicity in the Watergate scandal - weren't quite as compelling and dramatic as I imagined they'd be. It will be interesting to compare this production with the film version that is currently in production; the film stars the original cast members who premiered the show in the West End and on Broadway (Michael Sheen and Frank Langella).

I certainly came away from the play wanting to see some of David Frost's actual interview footage with Nixon for myself. Luckily, YouTube is full of clips, so I'll be checking some of that out very soon.

Halloween = Bah

2008-10-31T18:28:00.003-03:00

Or so say the English, at least. I was really interested to read a story in last weekend's Globe (new link) about the growing popularity of Halloween in England over the past decade. It's a surprising phenomenon - certainly when I lived in England in the mid-1990s, Halloween was a non-event. In some schools, you might find kids having little Halloween parties in class, but that was about it. All the autumnal hijinks were reserved for Bonfire Night on November 5th.

It's all changing now though, it seems - and there's plenty of grumbling in Blighty about what is viewed as a distasteful, over-commercialised North American import. I did a little Googling out of interest and found that consumer spending on sweets, decorations and other Halloween-themed items has boomed over the past decade, since retailers figured out that plugging a new holiday to children (who in turn harass their parents to buy stuff) was a potential goldmine.

I don't think it would be such a great stretch for the English to celebrate Halloween - the holiday originates from their Irish and Scottish neighbours, after all. But it would be a great shame if the rise of Halloween in England meant the eclipse of traditional Guy Fawkes/bonfire celebrations. What a boring world this would be if everyone adopted the same practices.

Book Club

2008-10-29T07:50:00.001-03:00

So I recently joined what looks to be a very cool book club. My friend C. has been a member for a number of years, and invited me to check it out. Not only is it an opportunity to read some great books (many of which I probably would never have picked up otherwise), but it's a much-needed chance to get out and meet new people. I went to my first meeting on Monday night. There were about eight very interesting women there, all professionals mainly drawn from law and academia. And one of them is the newly-elected MP for Halifax, which is pretty neat (said she's still hoping to attend meetings whenever she's home from Ottawa).

We spent about half the evening talking about this month's book, The Watsons by Jane Austen (which I enjoyed, surprisingly - I've never been a huge fan of Austen, but I might have to give her another try). The rest of the time we drank wine and debated what to read over the coming months. November's book is Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, which I have to get stuck into fairly soon if I'm going to get it done in time. I'm slightly creeped-out by the prospect, but keeping an open mind....

The Omnivore's Hundred

2008-10-16T15:08:00.003-03:00

My sister-in-law pointed me towards this blog today, with its listing of the Omnivore's Hundred (i.e. a list of 100 things every omnivore should try at least once). Cos I'm easily bored and distracted at this hour, I present my results here.

Things in bold I have tried. Any comments in parentheses are my own.

1. Venison (wild and farmed)
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare (blee)
5. Crocodile (though to be honest, it might have been alligator...)
6. Black pudding (dbl blee)
7. Cheese fondue (in a remote resto perched on a Swiss mountainside, no less)
8. Carp (meh...tastes like mud)
9. Borscht (of course - I have a Russian granny)
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari (like a salted rubber band)
12. Pho (lots of, in Vietnam)
13. PB&J sandwich (heh...how can you tell the author of this list did not grow up in North America?)
14. Aloo gobi (shockingly, I never tasted Indian food in my life until I moved to England)
15. Hot dog from a street cart (?! See no. 13)
16. Epoisses (Wikipedia says it is regarded as the "king of all cheeses" in France and has been banned from public transport because of its smell. Gotta git me some of that.)
17. Black truffle (in miniscule shavings)
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes (sure...blueberry plonk from Lunenburg County Winery is pretty ropey. So was the stuff my dad had a go at making, when I was a kid).
19. Steamed pork buns (think so...in a breakfast buffet in Hanoi)
20. Pistachio ice cream (yummy - very hard to find)
21. Heirloom tomatoes (thanks, Halifax Farmer's Market)
22. Fresh wild berries (oh yes, multiple varieties - I grew up in the country and they grew in the backyard)
23. Foie gras (lordy, but it tastes like sin)
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese (*stomach heaves at thought*)
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (mmm...there's a jar in my fridge right now)
28. Oysters (blergh...they may be a local speciality, and beloved of gourmands...but I can't get over the snottiness factor)
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda (sounds very tasty though)
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (I dunno about the sourdough bowl thing - but I'm awarding myself half a point for the chowder)
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut (eurgh)
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (half point for the cognac only!)
37. Clotted cream tea (aaaAAAHHHHHhhhh...food of the gods)
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (erm, not since I was about 20...)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (not if you paid me!!!)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu (not a "take risks with my life" kinda gal, thanks)
47. Chicken tikka masala (I prefer korma, though)
48. Eel (ick)
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (Tim Horton's forever!)
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV (La Fin du Monde...merci, Quebec)
59. Poutine (MERCI BEAUCOUP!)
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst (?!)
65. Durian (you can smell it everywhere in Vietnam)
66. Frogs’ legs (they really DO taste like chicken)
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis (a morsel...blecchhhh)
69. Fried plantain (in Venezuela - very nice!)
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette (never did work up the courage to try the latter, in France)
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blinis
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (wtf?! not on your nelly)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail (escargot? yeah, super tasty)
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini (*smacks lips*)
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant. (aw hell yeah!)
85. Kobe beef (it's on my to-eat list...if I ever save up enough money)
86. Hare (*hangs head in shame*)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers (nasturtiums, pansies, violets, rose petals...all very nice)
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam (lol)
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor (overrated...keep the lobsters simple!)
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake (er, no thanks...)

I got 58 out of 100. Not bad for someone who was a very picky kid, and would turn up her nose at just about everything.

Glaswegianish

2008-10-11T18:53:00.002-03:00

I think maybe I need to buy the Glasvegas album. It's just out, apparently, and folk across the pond are all abuzz about it. I heard an interview with the band and some snippets of their music today on the Music Weekly podcast (again! thanx Guardian), and I found myself listening intently. Since this kind of instantaneous attraction to a particular band's music is a fairly rare occurrence for me, I take notice when it happens.

[Two music-related blog posts in a row...blimey!]

Out of the Murky Depths...

2008-10-09T22:47:00.002-03:00

Lots of bands these days stage comebacks - but some are more surprising than others. Yesterday, when catching up with some episodes of the Guardian's Music Weekly podcast, I nearly fell over when I heard that Shelleyan Orphan are back after sixteen years of wandering in the musical wilderness. Remember them? Unless you were a cultish devotee of Star Hits magazine in the 1980s, probably not. I always found them strangely intriguing...but then again, anything labelled as "Pre-Raphaelite pop" is bound to have that sort of effect on me.

Anyway, their new album "We Have Everything We Need" is out next week.

Preeeeezenting...Kitchen Designs!

2008-10-06T18:39:00.015-03:00

A very exciting development last week in our kitchen renovation plans - we received some AutoCAD drawings of our new kitchen design, courtesy of one of the cabinetmakers we are considering for the job. Check 'em out below! (click on any picture to see an enlarged version)

1. A top-down view of the new space:Note the doorway at the centre bottom of the drawing - this is the doorway into our current mudroom/entryway. At the moment, there is a full wall just to the left of the doorway, dividing the space in two (present kitchen to the right, small pantry/study/whatever to the left). This is the main wall that we are knocking down, to enlarge the kitchen space. The heart of the new kitchen will be located where the pantry room is currently. Our existing kitchen space will house my desk, a sewing area, a broom closet, and a large peninsula.

2. Galley Kitchen - South Side Elevation:
We are going with white, painted-wood Shaker-style cabinets in the new kitchen. The tall cabinet to the right will be a pantry cupboard for food, with pullouts like this. It will be full-length, though, without the two lower drawers as shown above.

We'll be putting in a new window in this space - the current window is tall and narrow, and set below the height of where the new countertop will be. And speaking of windows, there's a mistake in the above drawing - they've drawn in a large clock on the wall at the right, but there's actually a window there.

I'm planning on getting this sink, and this faucet. We will retain the existing flooring, which is beautiful 2 ¼" red oak that is original to the house. I'm still deciding on the countertops, but I think we are going to go with a grey-green quartz (engineered stone) - it's beautiful and nearly indestructible, but damn it's expensive. As for the backsplash, I'm planning on glass mosaic tile, in shades of green - maybe like this.

3. Galley Kitchen - North Side Elevation:
There's a mistake in the above drawing - the fridge and the cabinet unit containing the wall oven and microwave will be switching places. Lots of money being sunk here on all-new stainless-steel appliances: this fridge, this induction cooktop, this chimney-style extractor hood, this microwave (which will be built-in above the ovens) and this double wall oven. Originally, we were going to get a single wall oven and maybe a warming drawer, but when we priced those two things together, we found a good double wall oven that cost less!

We're planning on having cabinet drawers, instead of regular cabinets with pull-outs - more efficient use of space, and easier to get at your stuff. Countertops and backsplash will be as above, with the backsplash tile laid all the way to the top of the chimney hood, where it meets the cabinetry.

4. Desk Area
This space is where our sink and dishwasher are currently located. The tall cabinet at left will be a broom closet, with space for the vacuum, cleaning supplies, etc. The desk will serve as my home office, mainly - though I envision using it for sewing projects as well.

I think I may put down a wood desktop here, just to save a bit of money as the quartz counters are so expensive. We'll be replacing the window in this area, as well, with something a bit larger and set lower - so you can see outside while sitting at the desk. As for the floor, we'll be tearing up the grey ceramic tiles that are currently there. We are replacing them with reclaimed red oak floorboards we bought from a local architectural salvage yard, which will be sanded and refinished to match the existing floors in the current pantry room and dining room (at least, I hope that will be the end result!).

5. Peninsula between kitchen and dining room
We're going to take down a section of wall currently separating the kitchen and dining room - the place that houses our ancient wall oven and microwave at the moment. This is a weird-shaped space, intersected by a brick chimney, so custom cabinets are the only option. The main feature of this space will be a peninsula, which will be built where the wall currently stands now (I'd have loved an island, but the room just isn't big enough for one).

Here's a view of the peninsula from the side:
There will be lots of open shelving, for cookbooks and whatever else we might want to display. Also, we'll have a TV here, on one of those swivel-arms, and hopefully a small set of speakers - which the intrepid A. can wire into the existing house sound system (all controlled wirelessly via iTunes on the computer in the basement, naturally!). I'm still looking for just the right pendant lamp to hang over this area - one in this style, probably.

Under the countertop, the peninsula itself will house all our various recycling bins - viz. the two doors you see in the foreground. And on both sides (not just the left, as shown in the drawing) there will be a small countertop overhang of about 8 inches, so we can have stools on either side if we want. I think this spot is going to be very well-used - lots of room to spread out paperwork, do food preparation, or whatever. As the current kitchen suffers from a serious lack of counter space, this will be fantastic. Plus, it provides somewhere that guests can sit and chat with the cook, as it also will serve as...the bar!
This final drawing shows the peninsula as seen from the dining room, as well as a view of the entire new space. The cabinetry you can see at the left of the picture will now change its configuration - the upper part will have glass doors and will serve as a liquor cabinet (freeing up valuable space in my dining room buffet/hutch). The lower part of that area will house a small, dual-zone wine fridge (the pic above has the wine fridge housed beneath the peninsula countertop - that will change).

Well, there you have it. It's a really exciting plan, I think. Whether it will look just the way I hoped when this massive project is done is another matter entirely, of course. But it's a great start.

Sarah Palin Scares Me

2008-09-30T20:55:00.002-03:00

For obvious reasons, I only just got around today to watching Katie Couric's infamous first interview with Sarah Palin. To say I was flabbergasted would be an understatement. God almighty...how in the hell has this woman ended up where she is?!

The bit where she talked "foreign policy" was the most insane. I actually sat there with my mouth hanging open in shock, as she wittered on about Israel, Iran, Good Guys/Bad Guys, and how she can see Russia from her house (or something). One might possibly excuse her lack of eloquence; not everyone has the gift of the gab (though it's certainly a skill that can be learned). But how is it possible that someone so utterly uninformed and ill-prepared is poised to potentially become the Vice-President of the United States? It makes me sad and embarassed for women in politics, to see this nim-nut elevated to such a lofty height. There's also no doubt that her presence on the Republican ticket makes America look reeeeally bad (not that your average Republican voter gives a rat's arse about what the rest of the world thinks, though).

Katie Couric herself looked stunned at Palin's inane answers to her questions. Hell, based on this interview, Palin would have a hard time managing a question-and-answer segment in a beauty pageant. I think I'll be tuning in to the Vice-Presidential debate on Thursday, just to watch the spectacle; Joe Biden will doubtless wipe the floor with her.

Culture in Danger

2008-09-23T16:52:00.002-03:00

I'm not exactly a big fan of the Quebec cultural scene, but I do think this video (made by a group of francophone artists who wanted to make a point in anticipation of next month's federal election) is excellent.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhgv85m852Q

Vive les phoques! Hahaha...God, Stephen Harper is such a complete and utter berk.

Clear-Cut

2008-09-20T12:07:00.003-03:00

Most of yesterday afternoon, I was serenaded by the sound of chainsaws just outside the house. A city work crew has been busily cutting down trees on the property next door to us (a small apartment block).

The work is being done in preparation for a widening of the main road onto which our little cul-de-sac opens. The part that runs past the apartment building is set to have new sidewalks and a new retaining wall built. These are both good things, but we hadn't appreciated just how many trees would need to come down before the work could get started. Fortunately, nothing on our own property was touched, but it was still a little close for comfort - especially as one of the best things about our property is the number of mature trees which surround it (and shield us from the traffic in the roundabout, just a few hundred metres away).

I tell you, if I were a resident in the apartments next door, I'd be pretty pissed off right now to find that my once-leafy view had disappeared!

Crash

2008-08-31T21:36:00.002-03:00

I gave myself a good scare earlier this evening. I was down in the basement, trying to navigate around one of the bunny gates, when I tripped and fell. I'm fine - I landed on all fours, skinned my knee and got a big bump and bruise on my elbow. But afterwards I sat there and cried hysterically for about ten minutes, cursing myself for being so stupid and careless and panicking about what might have happened if I'd landed on my belly.

I've been meaning to write a long pregblog entry (and will soon), but this evening's episode is pretty typical of the bouts of (mainly groundless and irrational) fear I've been having the past six weeks or so. I've always heard that it's a pretty common experience among pregnant women, but that doesn't make it any less difficult. Gah. *exhales*

That's not to say there haven't been lots of good things too - next time, I'll be sure to blog about those. :-)

Paris Walks

2008-08-27T12:07:00.004-03:00

When visiting a major city (particularly a historic one), I always try to sort myself out with a walking tour while I'm there. Not one of those generic-type tours where you find yourself part of a great horde, led by a guide with a lurid umbrella or gaily-coloured scarf on a stick, mind. I'm more interested in smaller tours that explore specific neighbourhoods, or historical events, or themes, in some depth. I find that on a good walking tour, I spend far more time looking around and appreciating my surroundings than I would if I had my nose buried in a guidebook half the time.

So this morning I found myself on the Paris Walks website. I discovered them during my last trip to the city in 2002, as a result of their affiliation with the absolutely excellent London Walks. On that particular trip, J. and I did a Paris Walks tour of the Père-Lachaise cemetery, and very enjoyable it was, too. This morning, I downloaded their brochure and schedule of walks for September, and damned if I don't want to do pretty near all of them!

If I do get to Paris next month, as planned, I'll definitely aim to do a couple of these. A two-hour stroll in some historic neighbourhood and a wonderful meal in an out-of-the-way bistro...what else would one require for a perfect day in Paris?

We're DFL!

2008-08-21T09:00:00.002-03:00

My friend J.'s aprocryphal Olympic blog, DFL, is back once again and reporting on last-place finishes in Beijing. And with only days left to go, I see that Canada is currently top of the DFL pops! Heh...there'll be handwringing in the national sporting press about that - I can see it now.

Mind, China is currently in second place - and as J. has noted, high numbers of DFL finishes seem to be typical of host nations. But time will tell whether the top spot will remain with our home and native land! :-D

European Holiday

2008-08-20T16:00:00.005-03:00

Some months ago (back at the end of May, in fact), we booked a trip to Europe for the fall. We'd been planning this trip for a couple of months, ever since my sister-in-law L. and her husband M. moved to Luxembourg City earlier this year to take up new jobs in banking law. It has been four long years since I've been back to Europe, and a return is long overdue.

We have planned a two-week trip from 21 September - 5 October, flying with Condor (Lufthansa's charter wing) from Halifax to Frankfurt, direct! (Luckily for us, an awful lot of Germans seem to enjoy holidaying in Nova Scotia.) We arrive in Frankfurt very early on 22 September, and from there will take the TGV straight to Paris. I have never been on a high-speed train before, so that should be interesting. Our routing is direct, and will take us from the main station in Frankfurt to the Gare de l'Est in central Paris in under four hours.

In gay Paree, we have rented this apartment in the 4th arrondissement (a snip at 700 euro for the week!). As this will be my third trip there (and A.'s second), and we have already seen and done the big touristic sites, we are planning a very leisurely week of toodling about, sitting in cafes, strolling the boulevards, and doing whatever takes our fancy. For the last two nights, we will be joined by L. and M. (hence the rental of a slightly bigger apartment, with a pullout couch for them!). We'll all have a little time in Paris together, before heading up to Luxembourg City on 29 September. We'll stay with L. and M. for the following week. We don't have too many specific plans for this part of the trip - luckily, L. and M. have a car, so we will do some sightseeing around Luxembourg and probably in Belgium and Germany too, since they are so close by.

This will be my first trip to Europe in the autumn (I've always done springtime before - as a student, travelling anytime after the start of September was obviously a no-go). Happily, it is of course wine harvest time, and the Moselle Valley of Luxembourg is scattered with fine wineries where one may stop in for a tour and une petite dégustation. Unhappily, I can't enjoy a single drop, since I am with child. However, I've decided that I may instead just have to master the "swish'n'spit" method of wine tasting. Just because I can't drink the wine, doesn't mean I can't taste the wine, right?

This is shaping up to be an awfully good trip, I must say. However, I am all too aware that it is, of course, dependent on my good health and there being no major problems with my pregnancy before departure. Have an appointment with my GP in mid-September, so I guess I will know then for sure if I am truly able to get on that plane or not. Crossing my fingers - and have booked trip cancellation insurance, just in case the axe falls!

Asia Trip Stuff

2008-08-18T07:52:00.004-03:00

Finally. I've now written, sorted out and uploaded my travelogue and photos from my recent trip to Vietnam and Japan. The photos have joined the rest of my albums on Flickr; I need to figure out a satisfactory way to start importing those to Facebook, cos I can't be bothered uploading that many pics to two different locations!

I also made a couple of little videos, while in Japan. This one (not the best quality, unfortunately) is of a Shinto wedding procession. This one was taken on the Metro (subway). These two are of the Tokyo skyline at dusk - west and east. And last, I made a video tour of the bathroom in my apartment - just cos. You'll just have to watch and see!

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=XbmXXossKJQ

Kitchen Update

2008-08-09T09:30:00.003-03:00

After a very slow couple of months (during which I began to wonder if this project was really going to get off the ground, or not), there have been quite a few developments over the past week, with regard to our kitchen renovation project.

We finally got our kitchen designer/neighbour to sit down with us last Saturday, and we asked some pretty frank questions about timelines. She assured us, however, that she'd checked with the suppliers and we should be able to start this job on schedule, by early October, and complete it before the holidays. Needless to say, with a baby on the way, completion has suddenly become much more critical. There is no way I am coming home from hospital with an infant if my home is still a building site - and I was prepared to delay the entire project by a couple of years, if required, to prevent this happening.

However, things are looking good. Last weekend, we reviewed three new floor-plan layouts that our designer had drawn up, and chose the one we liked best. The overall plan is to shift the working space into what is now the little pantry room, after the wall between it and the current kitchen gets knocked down. The new kitchen will be galley-shaped - I'd hoped we could do a U-shape, but it turns out we haven't enough space. But a galley is quite efficient, so I'm happy enough with that. The remaining space (where the sink and oven are located now) will become my desk/sewing area, and a peninsula/bar area with storage. It's a very nice plan, and I'm excited to see how it will turn out.

The next steps now are choosing a contractor and a cabinetmaker. Our neighbour is considering three contractors at the moment, and will be asking them to quote on the job very soon. Also over the next couple of weeks, I need to decide which of three local cabinetmakers to use - or whether to chuck all that in and go with an Ikea kitchen!

In the interests of getting started even earlier, I think we are going to plan to set up our "camp kitchen" at the beginning of September, down in the basement laundry room - where we will do our cooking and washing up while the work is being done upstairs. It already has a laundry washtub, with hot and cold running water, so we'll set up a table and chairs, our little bar fridge, the microwave, and a hotplate, which should keep us going for a little bit. Once that job is done, then there's no reason why demolition work can't begin. A. is thinking about doing this himself, with a couple of assistants; they will rip out the old cabinets, take out the old appliances for disposal/resale (we are only keeping our current dishwasher), tear up the tile flooring (we hope to save the wood flooring), then take down the walls. Whatever work we can do ourselves will of course save us money - plus, I think A. is quite looking forward to bashing things with a sledgehammer. ;-)

Originally, we had been looking at a start date of 5 October (the day we return from our holidays in Europe) for this job. But if we could get the demolition work done before we leave, then there's no reason why the contractor couldn't come in and start working while we are away (with our neighbour to supervise things - we will only be a phonecall or email away, after all).

So, things are definitely looking up. Very good to be able finally to start making some concrete plans. I will doubtless start a Renovation Diary here, chronicling the delays, cock-ups, and other woes we will inevitably encounter. But the end result will be totally worthwhile, I'm sure of it!

Am I Turning Into a Hippie?

2008-08-02T18:34:00.006-03:00

You can be honest and just tell me, you know. It's OK.

I've finally signed up for one of those organic food box schemes, where you get fresh produce delivered to your home regularly. To start with, I've set up a standing order for the "Dogma Box" (in which all the produce is not only organic, but also local), to be delivered every second Saturday. I admit I'm more interested in the fact that the produce is local - though things should get interesting in the winter, when I imagine we'll be eating a lot of apples, spuds and other root vegetables.

But for now, I'm looking forward to enjoying a nice variety of local fruit and veg over the coming months. The service sells lots of other organic/local/ethical foodstuffs as well, which you can add to your order if you want. This week, I tried to add bread and pastries from Boulangerie La Vendeéne - certainly the best bakery here in the HRM - but my order got lost somehow. Ah well, next time.

Here is what we got, in this week's delivery:

(l-r: carrots, beets, Swiss chard, turnip, new potatoes, tomatoes, a cucumber,
a yam, mushrooms and lettuce)

While I could go and buy all this produce - and bread from La Vendeéne - at the Farmers' Market on any given weekend, this system is so much more convenient. I hardly ever manage to drag myself down to the Market early enough on a Saturday to beat the crowds. Having all this stuff brought to our house every two weeks will, I hope, compel me to eat more healthily as well as learn some new recipes and cooking methods. Otherwise, most of it will become very expensive food for our rabbits!

As for the hippie thing, even if having an organic food box delivery doesn't mean I have to start growing my hair and smelling of patchouli, I am well aware that it is, at the very least, high on the list of Stuff White People Like. Heh.

Farewell, Black Wabbit?

2008-07-28T20:34:00.003-03:00

Well, it's taken a whole year of fostering - but it looks like we may finally have found a home for the black rabbit. One of A.'s clients recently lost one of her bunnies, who was part of a bonded pair. She'd like to get a new companion for her remaining rabbit, and A. has been telling her about the little black bunny we've been looking after since last summer. She's decided to try introducing the two of them, to see if they will get on; A. will take the black bun into the clinic tomorrow, and hand her over. If all goes well, then this lady will adopt her.

I will be sorry to see the black rabbit go - she's so beautiful, and has a really nice temperament. But she deserves a permanent home, and a companion (which she does not have at the moment - we've tried putting her with Timmy and Fawn, but Fawn is such an aggressive little monster that there have been endless fights between them). So I'm spending some time communing with the black rabbit tonight as - with any luck - she'll be leaving us for a nice new home tomorrow.

X-Files Movie

2008-07-26T23:44:00.002-03:00

Went along to the cinema to see the new X-Files movie, I Want to Believe, last night. Maybe I'm too sentimental, but I enjoyed it well enough. The storyline had a fair few holes, mind, and sitting there in between a vet and a medical doctor, I heard periodic snorts of disbelief from time to time. Then again, plenty of classic X-Files episodes have involved wacked-out medical freakery (Eugene Tooms, anyone?), so suspension of disbelief is definitely required.

Given that I never expected this film would see the light of day, I was happy enough with it. I'm not sure how well it will do at the box office, though - X-Philes will obviously check it out, but beyond that, I'm not sure how broad its appeal will be. As for myself, I was just content to wallow in a little nostalgia for a few hours.

Up the Duff

2008-07-22T19:46:00.002-03:00

Well good Lord, I appear to have fallen pregnant. :-)

I've been spreading the news amongst family and friends for a few days now. But this afternoon I broke the news to the boss at work - so now I guess I can make it public knowledge.

As of today, I am 13 weeks and two days along. Since I'm all old and stuff, I've had two ultrasounds already, one of which was last week. We watched the screen in amazement as the sprog (which is only about 3 inches in size at the moment) bounced away merrily, hiccuping and waving its miniscule arms and legs. For me, it all started to become real at that point.

The next few months are gonna be a ride, that's for sure. But we are very excited, especially as it's taken A. and I rather longer to get to this point than we thought it would. In the coming months, I will doubtless morph into Dull Preggo Lady and will fill this blog with all sorts of ruminations and weird stories. Hee hee...stay tuned.

Stars

2008-07-20T23:30:00.003-03:00

Just in from seeing a show by Stars, who were back in Halifax tonight after several years. They were actually here to close out a two-day festival, Summersonic, being held on Citadel Hill. Last time I saw them play was in January 2005, at the Marquee Club here in town. I bought festival tickets for today, but in the end decided only to see Stars. Part of the reason for that was the weather - in true Halifax form, it started raining just as we began getting ready to go out (argh). Otherwise, I might have gone down early to check out Wintersleep, who played just before Stars and are not bad. (Ironically, the only other time I've seen them play was when they opened that Marquee show for Stars over three years ago).

Anyway, I sucked it up, put on my rain gear, and we headed out to the show. We got there just a couple minutes before the band hit the stage and it being a festival, they only played for about an hour and a quarter. Which was fine by me, as it was a great set and we didn't get too soaked in the process. The band seemed in fine form (Torquil acting like a pretentious prat, as usual), and the setlist was great. Interestingly, they mentioned that they'd been asked to open for Paul McCartney at his bigass free show in Quebec City tonight - but bless 'em, they turned it down to headline in Halifax instead.

If there was anybody there tonight older than A. and I, I didn't see them. I always feel ancient at these sort of events - all the more so because I find myself clucking at the teenagers running around in miniskirts, tanktops and flipflops, teeth chattering from the cold and rain. Oh, and I had to keep moving around to avoid the dope-smokers - second-hand inhalation is about the last thing I need right now. ;-)

Reading and the Internet

2008-07-20T11:25:00.003-03:00

Interesting piece on The Sunday Edition this morning. Maryanne Wolf, a researcher on child development, reading and language, was talking about the impact of the Internet on our reading abilities. With so many of us getting our information from the web now, Wolf argues that this is encouraging us to read on a much more shallow and superficial level than before. She's particularly concerned about the impact this may have on kids who, in the Google age, may end up never acquiring the skills inherent in deep, analytical reading - and may impair optimal brain functioning as a result.

My friend C. recently told me about Wolf's latest book on the subject, Proust and the Squid: the Story and Science of the Reading Brain. I should probably pick that up.

Wonderful New Garden

2008-07-14T20:56:00.006-03:00

Did I ever come home to a surprise last week. While I was in Asia, A. singlehandedly finished most of the landscaping work and re-laid a new lawn, out in the garden.

About a week before I left, we had a truckload of topsoil (about 14 cubic metres' worth) dumped in our driveway. By the time I got back, it had all disappeared, save for a small pile. A. used it mostly to even out and raise the overall level of our existing lawn, which was in a pretty poor state and full of moss and weeds. Once the surface was limed and the new topsoil spread out, he then re-seeded - remarkably, this was done just two weeks ago! After plenty of daily watering, the new grass sprouted after just four days, and it had its first mow over the weekend. It's growing far more quickly than I would have imagined.

Here are some of the results:

Where the two sections of brick pathway intersect in the above picture, there used to be a large hedge. A. dug most of that up and replanted it up the slope, in the first terraced level visible (the next step up is the new, flat level of our driveway, which used to slope down to just behind the original position of the hedge). The result is that we have gained a bit more lawn on this side of the garden, as well as a nice wide new flowerbed which gets a lot of sunshine.

A couple other views:

In the picture below, you can see more of the work A. did with the grey stone landscaping bricks (which just need their capstones fitted before they are finished).

I think it all looks great - a huge improvement over what we inherited when we bought this property. I'm really happy with it.

Sayonara

2008-07-07T22:17:00.000-03:00

Wow - what a great couple of days I've had here in Tokyo. Just what the doctor ordered. I've packed in a fair bit, but have had lots of relaxation time too. Spent Saturday night prowling the streets of East Shinjuku and the Golden Gai. On Sunday morning, I strolled in the beautiful forest and gardens of Meiji-Jingu, before visiting the impressive Shinto shrine there (and got to watch two wedding processions to boot!). Early evening was given over to shopping and strolling around more of the huge department stores surrounding Shinjuku Station. And today, another mix of old and new. This morning I visited the Buddhist temple of Senso-ji; this evening, I headed south to explore the massive Roppongi Hills, a sprawling complex of shopping malls, restaurants, residences, cinemas, parks and gardens, a stadium, and art galleries. Perhaps the best thing there, however, is the tower onsite - from the roof of which there is an incredible 360-degree view to be had over the entire city. I went up at twilight, and it was super.

Tomorrow morning I'll be packing up, then heading for the airport around noon. My flight is not until 5.00 pm, but I want to bag a bulkhead seat if I can, and take advantage of last-minute shopping opportunities at Narita Airport. The flight to Toronto takes 12-odd hours, so hopefully I can access laptop power on board in order to work on my travelblog, and maybe sort through my photos too.

This has been a wonderful trip, but I'm ready to go home. :-)

In Tokyo

2008-07-05T17:27:00.000-03:00

After two quite tiring final days of work in Hanoi, I was very happy to arrive last night in Tokyo. Getting from the airport to my accommodation was a snap - this city is a model of efficiency and organisation. I'm staying in a very comfortable and well-equipped studio flat at the Oakwood Shinjuku Apartments, which are every bit as excellent as the reviews on TripAdvisor suggest. This morning, I spent quite a bit of time checking out the various gadgets and controls with which this place is equipped - the neatest of which are all in the bathroom. Getting myself cleaned up this morning took a bit of time, since I had to decode the instructions for the bathtub and shower first!

I've been taking it very easy today - not only because I'm in need of a rest after seven days of work and constant socialising, but also because I've had some, um, gastrointestinal upsets for the past couple of days. Since I want to take full advantage of the range of amazing food available here, I'm hoping I'll be better by tomorrow. As it stands, I went to the local grocery store this morning and bought some bland things to eat for today (bananas, bread for toast, yogurt). But even going for groceries was a bit of an adventure, as you might imagine. I always enjoy going to grocery stores in foreign countries, and here in Japan the offerings are even more unusual than those in the West.

Went out for a stroll for a few hours this afternoon. Shinjuku is a bustling, major neighbourhood in Tokyo, and just a half-mile from my apartment there are three major bus, metro and railway lines. In addition, there's a vast array of shops, including several huge department stores. I went into one this afternoon called Odakyu, which has about 15 floors and sells just about everything you can possibly imagine. Obviously, there is a massive selection of cutting-edge electronics here, the likes of which I've never seen. I spent some time checking out mobile phones, most of which do just about everything short of sing and dance. I saw some very neat ones that include both cameras and digital TVs! And not that expensive, either. I'd love to get one, but have absolutely no idea if they would work in Canada. I contented myself with buying some bejewelled decals like these to jazz up my phone at home, like pretty much all Japanese girls seem to do. If I can't have a cool Japanese phone, at least I can give my existing mobile some Japanese-style bling.

In the basement of Odakyu (as is apparently the case with all the major department stores here) there is a supermarket and large food court. The range of foodstuffs on offer was amazing - the seafood department alone was probably more diverse than any I've ever seen in my life! I also saw some examples of the odd Japanese predilection for premium fruit and veg. You can buy ordinary produce here, of course, at prices that are similar to what we would pay in North America. But certain posh shops have departments devoted to the highest-quality varieties of fruit and vegetables, which are picked at their peak and meant to be consumed immediately, to taste them at their finest. I saw boxes of grapes for $30, a tray of six peaches for about $45, and a glossy, basketball-sized watermelon for about $95! Unreal!

It's still pretty hot here, though not as bad as Vietnam - today's temperatures were in the low 30s. The next few days are meant to be a little cooler, though, with a chance of rain. I'm taking some time to do email and blogging now, and will probably go out again in an hour or two, once the sun has set and the temperature has dropped a bit. Just east of here is an area which is apparently quite well-known for its nightlife, so I think a stroll is in order. Normally, as a lone woman traveller, I wouldn't go out at night in a strange city by myself, but the streets here are packed until well past midnight, so I feel quite safe.

More updates to come...

Last Night in Hue

2008-06-30T21:40:00.000-03:00

We depart for Hanoi tomorrow night, but have had a wonderful stay in Hue. I'm so glad we had a bit of free time built in to this visit. Our friends at the university here have been very warm and incredibly generous hosts - in fact, we've hardly been left alone for a moment. We spent yesterday making a field visit in the morning to one of the local fishing villages here, and then in the afternoon were taken sightseeing to an area south of the city which is littered with the tombs of Vietnamese emperors. We toured two tomb complexes, both incredibly interesting. Coupled with the sights of the Citadel (which we will visit tomorrow), it is no wonder that Hue has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There's some amazing history here, and quite a romantic atmosphere as well.

We spent this morning meeting with our other partners here in the city, and then touring their learning site, which was further outside of town than we went yesterday. In addition to visiting two fishing villages on the lagoon there, we also went out in a traditional (and very rickety) wooden fishing boat - lovely to be out on the water for a bit, if only to get a break from the oppressive heat!

We've just come in now from a fantastic dinner, hosted by our friends here at the science university. As is usual, there was a procession of about 8 different courses, all of which were delicious and beautifully presented (I felt like a fool, snapping pics of the food - but really, it had to be documented).

Tomorrow is our last day in the city. We will have another university meeting in the afternoon, and then will be taken sightseeing and shopping in the afternoon. A great end to a very nice stay here in Hue - which I much prefer to Hanoi.

Arrived

2008-06-28T09:18:00.000-03:00

OK, so I'm in Vietnam. Arrived here in Hue City last night (i.e. Friday morning in eastern North America). Remarkably, it was an uneventful trip - no delays or lost luggage. The 15.5-hour flight to Hong Kong was grueling, but at least I had a bulkhead seat and was able to prop my legs up, so I was far better off than most. The plane was really nice (a Boeing 777), though there's never much to do during these flights other than eat, sleep and watch movies. I got through four (The Other Boleyn Girl, 27 Dresses, Shine a Light, and Charlie Wilson's War), plus a few TV shows.

Friends of ours from the university in Hue - two women who've come to Dal to study under the aegis of our project - met us at the airport on arrival, with bouquets and much fanfare (which was lovely, but a little embarassing). The hotel is quite nice - better than the one we stay at in Hanoi - and it was a relief to finally get some sleep last night, after having been on the go for about 32 hours since starting the journey on Thursday.

Today is about rest and practicalities. We got ourselves sorted out with wireless connections this morning, and in a little while we will be taken to the bank to get some currency. Tonight, we've been invited for dinner at the home of one of the project leaders here, which I'm sure will be very nice.

Oh, and the weather? Argh. It's 9am right now, I'm sitting in an air-conditioned hotel lobby, and I'm already a little sweaty. We can expect temperatures in the high 30s this week, with very high humidity. Gah.

Off to Asia (A Day Late)

2008-06-24T20:12:00.002-03:00

I'm headed to Asia this Thursday, for a work-related trip of about two weeks. I'll be spending the first week and a bit visiting four of our university partners in Vietnam. Once I'm done with work, I'm having a short stopover of four nights in Tokyo - a place I had planned to visit last winter, before that trip got cancelled. Very happy to have a second chance to visit again!

Originally, during this trip we were also going to visit the fifth university partner in our project, who are located in Iloilo, Philippines. But we were shocked to learn yesterday that the city has been very badly flooded as a result of Typhoon Fengshen, which struck the Phillippines last weekend. It is pretty much a disaster zone, with no water or electricity - so obviously, we immediately cancelled our plans to travel there and spent yesterday trying to rearrange our flight itineraries in order to avoid the Philippines altogether. We are also very worried about our colleagues there, and hope that everyone is safe - though the devastation to property is sure to be terrible.

So instead of departing tomorrow morning as planned, we will leave a day later, on Thursday, and will travel directly to Hue City, Vietnam, for meetings with two of our partners there. We will carry on next Tuesday evening to Hanoi for more meetings, and will be finished work by next Friday (4 July). My boss will head back to Canada that day, and I'll travel on to Tokyo that night. I return to Canada on Tuesday 8 July.

I expect to have internet access for much of my trip, and so plan to blog throughout. Watch this space.

The Road to the ICC: Paved With Good Intentions?

2008-06-16T07:23:00.001-03:00

A troubling story from Steph Nolen in The Globe and Mail this weekend, concerning the possible role of the mighty International Criminal Court in the continued propping-up of Robert Mugabe's murderous regime in Zimbabwe. The so-called "Charles Taylor Effect" will certainly give the ICC's detractors more fodder for their criticisms, that's for sure. This article is a sobering reminder that when it comes to justice, one size definitely does not fit all.

[As an aside, I see that the Globe has finally abandoned its stupid practice of locking online articles and restricting access only to subscribers - about time, too.]

I Want to Believe

2008-06-09T07:00:00.001-03:00

Continuing with the sci-fi theme, I only found out very recently that there is a new X-Files movie due out in late July. How in the hell have I managed to miss that news?! The X-Files was one of my all-time favourite TV shows, and was required viewing for many years - even towards the end, when the series went on far longer than it should have, with predictably lame results (I still can't forgive Chris Carter for the sheer ignominy of the Lone Gunmen's demise).

The new movie is called The X-Files: I Want to Believe (naturally!) and is supposedly set some years after the original series ended. Apparently, this movie was meant to be made and released only a year or two after the TV series ended in 2002, but various delays and squabbles meant that it's only getting a release now. It's all been a bit hush-hush, with very little news leaking from the set over the past year. I wonder if that's a good thing or not, though - if devoted fans like me are only just hearing about it now, it doesn't say much for building pre-release excitement.

No matter, though - I'll be at the cinema on opening weekend, to get me a long-overdue dose of Mulder and Scully and their criss-crossing flashlight beams. Woot!

Gaiman for Doctor Who?!

2008-06-03T19:22:00.002-03:00

Holy crap. There's a rumour going round that top fantasy author Neil Gaiman may write an episode or two for the next series of Doctor Who. Which, if true, would be beyond amazing.

*crosses fingers very tightly*

Dinner and a Movie

2008-06-01T14:00:00.002-03:00

Last night, we went for dinner at Morris East, a new downtown hipster hangout that opened last summer. The main feature of its kitchen is a fancy wood-fired oven, which is used in the production of the resto's central offering: artisanal pizza (the kind with a very thin crust and posh toppings, like arugula and goat cheese). We quite enjoyed it. Fun atmosphere, tasty food, efficient service and reasonable prices. I'm sure we'll return.

Afterwards, we headed over to the cinema, as I've been anxious to see Prince Caspian, the latest Narnia film. As is to be expected, it looks great - it's wonderful how, with technology now, they can really do justice to the fantasy genre. All the magical creatures of Narnia were well-represented in this film; the visualization of the chivalric mouse Reepicheep was particularly good! Performances from the human cast were fine too, with the actors who played the Pevensie children in the last film returning for this one. The adaptation from the novel was quite credible, with perhaps one exception (a scene involving the return of the White Witch, which I felt was unnecessary). By the end of the movie, the stage gets neatly set for the next installment in the series, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. All in all, it was solid and respectable enough - though I felt that there was a little too much emphasis on big, macho battle scenes. I'd have liked more magic and wonder, and less in the way of sweaty men with big swords running around yelling "yaaAAAarrrrRRGGhhhh!"

But that's just me. ;-)

Sarah Slean

2008-05-30T07:12:00.002-03:00

Saw Sarah Slean play live last night, at the arts centre on campus. Her current tour is called the "Books & Ballgowns Tour". How could I not love that?! (And indeed, on stage she wore a very fetching teal taffeta cocktail frock, complete with chiffon "wing"!)

I've always liked her music (some of which can be heard here), and am glad I went to see her show. She's quite the kook, though adorably so. Her opening act, a guy from her band called Royal Wood, was good also. I'd recommend you go see her, but Halifax was the last stop on her tour!

Speaking for Herself

2008-05-29T08:59:00.004-03:00

Just finished listening to a CBC radio interview with Cherie Blair. She's got a memoir coming out soon, Speaking for Myself, which I first read about in the Globe a few weeks ago.

I'll be picking that up, I think. I've always admired Cherie, despite (or perhaps because of) her general excoriation by the media. Must be difficult to be a fiercely intelligent, ambitious person in your own right, but knowing that history will forever view you in the shadow of your spouse.

Fleet and Garrison Ball

2008-05-25T12:56:00.004-03:00

Went to the Fleet and Garrison Ball last night down at CFB Stadacona - the first time we've attended in several years. It was a good time - only about half the numbers of 2005, but a nicer atmosphere. This year's theme was the 1940s, and the organizers did a great job. They had reprints of interesting wartime posters up in all the rooms and corridors, a screening of Casablanca in the chill-out room, and copies of old Halifax newspapers on all the tables in the dining room (many of which I surreptitiously filched at the end of the evening, to take home and peruse at my leisure). Even some of the guests made an effort to dress according to the theme, which is always fun - although two or three ladies seemed a bit confused about fashion history, showing up in Flapper-style dresses and sporting feather headbands.

Dinner was sumptuous, as is to be expected at mess events - though whether we'd have been offered such dainties during wartime is debatable. ;-) We had:

Spiced Grilled Quail
White Asparagus Soup with Truffle Oil
Blackcurrant Sorbet
Beef Wellington and Lobster Thermidor
Caesar Salad
Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee

Afterwards, though there were two bands and a DJ on offer, we spent much of the evening in the ballroom listening and dancing to live swing/big band music (which seemed fitting, given the evening's theme). Later on, we had cocktails in the Bridge Bar at the top of Juno Tower, which has an outdoor terrace with a stunning view of Halifax Harbour.

All in all, a lovely evening - and of course, I always love any excuse to get dressed up and indulge my inner glamour-puss.

It's "Point and Laugh at Timmy" Time!

2008-05-17T10:16:00.003-03:00

Went downstairs to a pretty funny sight last night. We'd let two of our rabbits, Fawn and Timmy, out of their cage for their usual evening runaround, and Timmy - inexplicably - managed to up-end a plastic basket over himself. So when I walked into the room, I found this basket scooting around on the floor, seemingly of its own volition. Luckily, my camera was handy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pzUL5o6NXI

Poor Timmy. He's got a big heart, but his lack of brains meant he never did figure out how to extricate himself from beneath that basket. We had to remove it from him, once we'd finished having a giggle and decided the poor fella had had enough. Bless his demented little heart.

The Producers

2008-05-11T14:21:00.003-03:00

Last night was our last show of the season at Neptune. My mother joined us for the weekend, and we saw The Producers. It was great - one of the best all-round musicals I've ever seen, and certainly the funniest. It was so politically-incorrect, yet so OTT, that I found myself cringing and laughing hysterically in turn. There were blatant stereotypes aplenty (Nazis, gays, Swedes...), and the show-within-a-show, Springtime for Hitler, was the craziest, most offensive and yet hilarious thing. You can't imagine the setpieces. A kick-line of goose-stepping SS officers! Chorus girls in glittery head-dresses shaped like pretzels and wurst! A cameo appearance by a tap-dancing Stalin! Awesome stuff. And a good thing, too - since next year's Neptune musical is going to be dismal. The playlist for the 2008-09 season was just announced a few weeks ago, and the choice? Disney's High School Musical. Oh gawd.

Afterwards, we dug deep into our pockets and went for dinner at Bish, on the waterfront. As it's been quite the trendy place for the last few years, I wondered if it might be more style than substance - but I was happily surprised. Both the food and the service were really very good, and it wasn't quite as expensive as I thought it might be. Would definitely return.

Sea Change

2008-05-05T07:49:00.000-03:00

So, a significant development in our work lives over the weekend. On Saturday, A. tendered his resignation at the clinic where he has worked for the past four years. It has been a long time coming, and although it's a sad development, it's really for the best.

Fortunately, lack of income will not be a concern. Until A. finds a new position, the army will be happy to give him a desk job, and he's also planning to do some locum work with another vet. Hopefully, he'll also have time now to finish the landscaping work he began last fall, in the garden. All of this is good - and we're both looking forward to a better work arrangement for him, in the future.

Shhhhhh!

2008-04-29T19:01:00.002-03:00

The Times reports that regular patrons of the British Library have been complaining bitterly of late that the Reading Rooms are overwhelmed with undergraduates these days. The whippersnappers reportedly spend much of their time chatting with their mates, texting, using Facebook, and studying with their own books, rather than consulting rare and obscure materials from the BL's massive collection.

Given that I practically lived in the British Library (in both its old and new locations) while I was a postgraduate student, I was particularly interested in this story - and can see both sides of the argument. On the one hand, there's no doubt that the BL has a rareified, elite atmosphere (that's part of its attraction) and the readers can be a stuffy and inflexible bunch. When I first started going to the BL, it was still in its glorious original location within the British Museum. In a very grudging concession to modernity, however, there were about ten desks in the hallowed Reading Room with a power outlet nearby. If, as I did, you had one of those newfangled laptop computer thingies, you had to get there early in the morning to snag a suitable desk space. In 1997, when the new BL opened in St. Pancras, these Luddite tendencies continued as we laptop users were sequestered into one section of the new Humanities Reading Room - where the apparently intolerable noise of our fingernails clicking away on keyboards wouldn't disturb the scholarly peace.

On the other hand, flinging open the doors of the BL to all and sundry in the name of "access" is completely impractical, as workspace is finite. The BL is a research library, and there's no doubt that the average undergraduate has absolutely no need of its collections. It seems the BL's administration would have us believe that there are suddenly more undergraduates working on specialised projects, which require consultation of material in the library's collection. But I was also a bit worried to read that the Library's directors now receive performance bonuses based on the number of people who come through the doors.

Coincidence? I doubt it. So you can add me to the list of stodgy, elitist old farts wanting to bar the door against the philistines. :-D

Hitting the Gym

2008-04-16T19:06:00.002-03:00

After several months of consideration, I have decided to join a gym. It's quite a big step for me, as I've always maintained that I hate gyms. That said, my only real experience of them was the athletic centre of one of the universities here in Halifax. I used to go there semi-regularly as an undergraduate, to do step aerobics (which should tell you how long ago that was - how hopelessly passé). I never liked the damp, smelly locker rooms, nor the fieldhouse itself, not least because it had no private spaces for fitness classes. The facility had an elevated running track around its entire perimeter, which led to the not-very-nice experience of being watched, while one exercised, by men who were running laps around the track. Some were surreptitious in their glances as they went by, but others were quite blatant oglers, who would stop running, lean against the track railing with big grins on their faces, and enjoy the sight of all us ladies aerobicising.

So since that time, I've always avoided gyms, preferring to use exercise videos/DVDs at home instead. But exercise trends and venues change. Last year, I noted with interest that a women-only gym, GoodLife, had opened on the upper level of our local grocery store (?!). I liked the idea of an all-female facility, plus I've recently started weight training and I thought I might progress to using some professional weight equipment. Then two months ago, GoodLife dropped a leaflet through my letterbox, offering a two-week trial for $20. I decided to give that a go...and was quite surprised and impressed by what I found. It's a very well-kept facility, with nice change rooms, a good selection of equipment, and a full schedule of group fitness classes as well. I had an induction to the weight-machines circuit, and also learned how to use the treadmills and elliptical trainers. Finally, I tried three group classes - one cardio class with weights (which was very good but left my muscles in a world of pain for three days after), one cardio-dance class (who'dve thought I'd ever do The Robot in public?!), and one yoga/pilates/Tai Chi-hybrid class (in which I totally kicked ass...heh).

So, I've decided to give the gym thing a fresh start. A few weeks ago I met a woman who wanted out of her annual subscription, so I have taken over for the last five months of her membership (to the end of September). By then, I'll definitely know if I'll get good use out of it, and if gyms are really for me after all.