A very busy week, but a great ending! The condo has been sold, the project testing is over and we're going to start production installation next week, and Anne's residence got occupancy permission (at the 11th hour) from the city.
posted by Tom at 10:10 PM | link | (0) comments

The main news of the week is my grandfather's flirt with death. He seems to be fighting hard and is on the road to recovery, a huge relief to us all. I'm looking forward to seeing him again at Christmas.

Other than that, a busy weekend, but everything's out of 215-80 St. Patrick Street now. Well, almost everything: my dining room table and chairs remain behind in the hope that we can sell them this week, failing which we'll have to take them apart on Thursday and drag them up to Wychwood.
posted by Tom at 11:32 PM | link | (0) comments

Oh yeah, the wedding date is June 19, 2004. :-)
posted by Tom at 4:17 PM | link | (0) comments

Ack, a raider! Prepare to repel boarders...
posted by Tom at 4:16 PM | link | (0) comments

Hey Tom --

One: you should probably remove me from your blog!
Two: when are you going to post wedding date information??
Three: FAAAAABulous pictures! Wow...

Kelly
posted by Kelly at 8:20 AM | link | (0) comments

The photos of the trip are up.

I'll have to fill in the details, but here's the summary of the rest of the trip:

Friday night, Aug. 8, concert, drinks at the Duke of Duckworth.
Saturday, drive to Corner Brook with lunch at the Irving gas station in Gander, drinks at Murleys'.
Sunday, church a.m., lunch at Murleys', swim, concert, dinner.
Monday, drive to Rocky Harbour, boat trip to West Brook Pond, dinner at Java Jack's.
Tuesday, breakfast, climb Gross Morne, hot tub, dinner at Java Jack's.
Wednesday, sea kayaking a.m., drive to Deer Lake, drop off car with difficulty, flight back to Toronto!
posted by Tom at 12:04 AM | link | (0) comments

Well, it's been a busy week.

Tuesday evening's show at the Kirk, St. Andrew's, was fun but very quirky. The event was M.C.'d by a local band made up of a rather loud woman who was the spokesperson/singer/lead, a quiet guitar guy who doubled as sound technician, an old but still spry banjo player/comedian, and a 15-year-old accordian-playing wunderkind who could also sing (with a thick Newfie accent), dance, play fiddle and paint, apparently. We were an important act but only one of about eight. Other acts included a duet of a young mother/singer and an old pianist who performed "Give My Regards to Broadway" and the "Prayer of St. Francis", a classical guitar player who made self-depreciating jokes about his nervousness, the banjo player who sang "How Much for that Doggie in the Window" with dog sound effects from the audience, and lots of folk songs.

We had an early set but then waited while the show went on and on. Did I mention it was held in the church hall, which looks remarkably like a high school basketball court? We finally finished with the Ode to Newfoundland, the national anthem, at about 11:30.

On Wednesday, Anne and I slept in, then turned on the television to see that it was a beautiful day and the Royal St. John's Regatta was in full swing on Quidi Vidi Lake, just over the hill. After fortifying ourselves from Tim Horton's we walked over to the regatta, which was packed with people. The place of honour was the lake, and the 6-person sculling races upon it, but most of the people seemed to be there just for the sunshine, the food (fast food stalls and cotton candy) and the carny games which had the normal prizes of stuffed animal toys. After a look around, small tubs of homemade ice cream from a stall called "Moo Moo's" (with cow spots) and a slice of pizza each, we went for a nice hike around the lake and made our way back to the hotel.

On Wednesday evening we went out to Brian Power's parents' place out by the airport with the rest of the choir. We sat on the back deck as tray after tray of muchies passed around, culminating in cod tongues, before a fine dinner of rice, salad and seafood stew.

Thursday morning found us, once again, lazy lumps sleeping in. Hey, it's a vacation, ok? When we finally emerged, we met most of the rest of the choir down at the docks for a trip on the tourist tour boat the S.V. Scademia, a fine looking but rather impractical vessel, somewhat too narrow for stability on the open sea. We saw several whales from a moderate distance but it was, on the whole, a disappointing trip. After we got back, Anne and I went with Gabrielle to the Classic Cafe for hot roast beef sandwiches and chowder. Then we repaired to Gabrielle's room to watch "Finding Nemo", a beautiful and very fun Pixar movie. By the time we were hungry enough for dinner most everything was closing, so we ended up at the Pasta Plus Cafe for the third time.

This morning, our last full day in St. John's, we all got up and went up the hill to Cochrane Street United Church, where we'll be singing tonight, for a rehearsal. It's a nice space with a good organ, but a very live acoustic under a domed roof. At the end of the rehearsal a gang of 13 of us zipped out of St. John's and down the coast to Witless Bay for another delicious lunch at the Captain's Table. Afterwards I dropped off Anne and Julia at Bay Bulls, and the van brought most of the others, where they picked up a whale and puffin watching tour. As for me, I went back to the restaurant where Gabrielle was holding down the table and had dessert.

From the Captain's Table, Gabrielle and I drove out to Cape Spear, which she hadn't seen. I wrote my postcards while she looked around. Finally, we picked up Anne and the others. They'd had a fabulous trip and saw a whale frolicking up close. The guide said he'd counted the young whale breaching 37 times! We returned to St. John's to prepare for the concert.
posted by Tom at 8:20 PM | link | (0) comments

Yesterday (Monday) we met up with Craig and Susan and, after coffee and a partridgeberry muffin at Tim Horton's (yay!) we hit the road to Cape Spear, North America's easternmost point, just 18 km down the coast from St. John's. The weather had turned cold, rainy and wet, but the rain stopped shortly after we arrived and though the clouds stayed fully overcast the sky brightened. After inspecting the coastal fortifications we were delighted to spot two Minke whales making their way up the shore line, quite close to us. We followed and watched their steady progress, marvelling at their size and power. They were clearly having a good time rolling along just under the surface and coming up regularly for a leisurely breath.

After the whales had passed we went up to the lighthouse, a recreation of the nineteenth century lighthouse built for the tourists in 1982. (The current lighthouse, just below the "old" one, is concrete, fully automated, and rather boring.) The Parks Canada guide in the entranceway gave us a very interesting little history lesson on the life and times of the early lighthousekeepers. One family ran the Cape Spear lighthouse for eight generations! Considering how cold, windy and desolate the spot was, in August!!!...

From Cape Spear we continued our way down the coast. In Witless Bay we stopped for directions to a lunch place and were very glad we did. We ended up at the Captain's Table for our best fish and chips to date.

Just down the road from Witless Bay we came to our destination, Stan Cook's Sea Kayaking in Cape Broyle. Craig wasn't interested in joining us, but Susan, Anne and I set off with a group of 9 others and two guides for a 2 1/2 hour tour of the bay. After a half hour tutorial on shore we set out in two-person kayaks. They were stable and dry and we progressed well, working our way slowly along the shore line at first as we got used to the rudder mechanisms. When we crossed the bay we got some bigger waves, but were able to keep up a good pace and found the craft much easier to handle and steer than canoes would have been. By the end of the tour we were pretty tired. We drove back to St. John's, stopping for supplies in Bay Bulls.

At 8pm we met the rest of the choir in the lobby of the hotel. Most flew in during the day, though Stephanie, Bruce and Julia arrived just in time by car, having driven from P.E.I. in just over 24 hours. After a welcome and briefing from Steph and Brian Power, whose family live here, we gathered a group to go back into town. We had a lot of inefficient walking before finding ourselves back at the Pasta Plus Cafe on Duckworth for a slow but delicious meal. After dinner we were joined by Gabrielle and Mary in Susan and Craig's room for a game of Kill Doctor Lucky, the other Cheapass game I'd brought, a kind of reverse "Clue".

That brings us to today. We started with a huge breakfast at the Bagel Cafe across the street from Tim Horton's, then walked up Church Hill to St. Andrew's Presbyterian, where we'll be performing tonight, for a rehearsal. We were still full from breakfast after the rehearsal, so we walked slowly back to the hotel, stopping for bookstores, CDs, postcards and stamps en route.

So far, Newfoundland has been great! Nice people, good food, beautiful scenery... It's a refreshing break from the city, and I'm very pleased to have found it... And it's so close to Tornto (and the currency so similary to ours :) ) that we'll have to come back. More to follow...
posted by Tom at 9:00 PM | link | (0) comments

Probably won't have time to finish posting this whole post in the 20 minutes I have left on my hour, but I'll get started anyway.

We've been finally having a lazy afternoon to catch our breath after three busy days in Newfoundland. The weather's turned cool and cloudy and there wasn't enough time to get out of the city properly anyway before our concert tonight. So, a good day to nap!

We flew in on Saturday morning after a busy week of work and a late night of packing. St. John's was bathed in spectacular sunshine and rare warmth, and we took full advantage: after checking in to our hotel downtown, and a nice pasta lunch down the road, we headed up the other way to Signal Hill, historic site of the city harbour's defensive battery and also the first transatlantic telegraph station. It was a nice climb but an even better view from Cabot Tower on top. We walked down to the lower trails and back around below the battery, coming out through a quirkly little cluster of houses huddled between the rocks and the water, the whole area so narrow that the path actually crossed one house's deck.

After freshening up at the hotel, we set out again in search of food. We walked along Duckworth to find George Street, a short little road tucked in between Duckworth and Water Streets. We had no trouble finding it: the George Street Festival is on, and live music was pumping out from the area, audible for blocks. There was a $10 cover charge to get in to the Festival, but after a quick scout around we decided there weren't many appetizing alternatives so we paid up and went in. We ate on the patio of Green Sleeves, one of the larger bars, but discovered that out of the sun it was actually quite cold in the wind.

Fortified with cod filets and scruncheons we wandered down the street to the stage, where an American band "High Holy Days" were trying to warm up the crowd before the headliners "I Mother Earth" came out. They were good, but nobody was really there to see them, just killing time, drinking beer, and staking out space.

By the time "I Mother Earth" came out, the crowd was packing the area full. The band was fantastic and hugely energetic and did not disappoint their fans or us. The high point of the evening was towards the end when they "screeched" a tourist, getting the hapless guy to drink some of the local rum, kiss a cod, and recite a Newfie oath, for the delight of the crowd. Great stuff.

On Sunday morning we woke up early despite the time zone change, ready for the long drive up to Trinity for the Pageant. Trinity is an old historic village about three hours' drive north-west of St. John's, in a sheltered set of bays that once harboured hundres of fishing boats from England and the rest of Europe. Now it's a quiet little community seemingly sustained by tourism. Its brightly-painted wood and stone houses were the backdrop for the Pageant, a 2 1/2 hour outdoor costume drama that takes place across the village, explaining the origins of the place, the life of the early settlers, the frequent impact of tragedy, and the gradual evolution of the fishing industry as the merchants tood over and the early government formed.

Though the weather started cloudy it brightened and cleared and we had a great day. We drove back to St. John's very satisfied with our visit. Back in the city we went around the corner from the hotel to a restaurant with the delightful name "The Crooked Crab and the Savage Lobster", where we had a wonderful meal of, once again, sea food. I had a very tasty dish of shrimp mushroom caps under a crust of cheddar cheese. Yum!

After dinner we connected with Susan, Craig and Mary for G & T's and a game of "Unexploded Cow", a card game and one of two Cheapass Games I'd bought on the Internet.

More to follow... The bookstore where I'm typing is closing up.
posted by Tom at 4:20 PM | link | (0) comments

Testing... Just lost a long post on this machine (good thing I wrote it in my journal first).
posted by Tom at 4:18 PM | link | (0) comments