On the Beach

The sandy beach at Ormond is different every morning, depending on the tide, the weather, the winds. Every morning we walked the seashore, but unfortunately, there's a huge volume of garbage washed up on the sand every day, especially after a stormy night and a high tide. We filled a couple of shopping bags with junk every day. The worst offenders were plastic water bottles and lids. And remnants of balloons attached to indestructible plastic ribbon, just waiting to wrap itself around the legs of seabirds.

The oceans of the world must be full of discarded plastic. How sad.

Sunrise over the Atlantic can be stunning.

Of course, The Space Cadet claims to do his best work by the ocean.

The Atlantic was a bit chilly, but that just makes me scream louder when the big wave hits.

When faced with acres and acres of sandy beach, it's compulsory to build a sand castle, isn't it? Spot was a great help. He carried the heavy buckets of sand and collected the shells for decoration.

And I valiantly defended the castle from the incoming tide, just like fabled King Canute.

Unfortunately, it was gone the next morning, washed away by the waves. Oh well.... easy come, easy go. I hear that Canute didn't have much success either.

Once the castle is built, it's a good excuse to catch up on a bit of light reading.

The view from our little Beach House at night, the full moon illuminating the water and the light of a fishing boat on the horizon.

G is for Gardening Gloves

Gardening season has begun! We finally have some warm sunny weather here in S. Ontario.
I found these brand new Gardening Gloves in the local charity shop for $1.50, although the original price sticker says 3.95 UK Pounds. Is that Inspector Clouseau admiring the flowers on his day off?

Lots of jobs to get started on... here's the compost. The pile on the right has been fermenting for a couple of years and is ready to be sifted and spread on the flower beds. Then a new brick container will be built. The pile on the left is last year's compost, ready to be covered with soil and left for another year. It contains grass clippings, all the household veggie waste, coffee filters, eggshells, everything that can be broken down into compost.

Winter isn't very kind to my flower beds. This one is just starting to wake up, and obviously needs lots of TLC.

But at least the rhubarb is starting to sprout. It only takes a couple of warm days and everything starts going crazy, and making up for lost time!

The Space Cadet spent the afternoon cleaning out the winter debris that accumulates in the garage, and fixing some discarded computers that he got from a friend. So we took a well deserved break on the patio, and celebrated the (rather late) return of Spring with a glass of wine. Look closely, Spot was out there too!

B-Day Bowlerama

It's Birthday time for No2Son. A Quarter Century under the belt already! Reaching such an important milestone definitely called for a family celebration at Nava. We met at 6:30, well.... No1Son was 30 minutes late due to a traffic accident (he wasn't involved, thank goodness) so we didn't get started till 7:00. His Beloved, Ms L, was at work so couldn't join us. No2Son and his beloved Ms S chose salmon and spinach, No1 Son and The Space Cadet chowed down on pork tenderloin and I had pasta with pesto, asparagus and shrimp.... and lashings of GARLIC!!!! Warning.... better not get too close.

No2Son with his best prezzie.

And then came dessert......

but it didn't last long.

Then we headed to the bowling alley. All the ten pin lanes were busy, so we bowled "small ball", which turned out to be miniature ten pin bowling on a regulation size lane with a five pin ball.... a lot harder then regular ten pin I think.

The Space Cadet shows his rather unorthodox bowling style. He said he was pathetic. We were kind and said he was merely erratic.

No1Son sizing up his next shot. He won the first two games, but only because he could hurl the ball harder than anyone else.

Ms S in action....... she says she's better at baseball.

No2Son (the Birthday Boy) bowls a STRIKE! He won the last game by 3 points.... in fact it was a battle to the death with his brother.

Spot was there too, to help with the scoring and making sure TSC didn't cheat. Ms S won this one!

It was so much fun, we should do it again for the next birthday.

Day By Day

This afternoon we had the first Variety Show rehearsal on the stage. Since January we have been rehearsing in a church meeting room. One of this year's songs is Day By Day from the 1971 musical Godspell.

Of course, I'm far too young to remember that particular production (cough cough) but I'm told that it was the height of groovy flower power and hippie flower children, so what better way to add some colour to the song than to pass huge coloured paper flowers around the chorus as we sing.
I've been making these flowers from pleated craft paper (bought cheap at the local thrift store!) and as you may have noticed, Spot has been helping me.

Spot

The fairies who live on the stairs have invited a furry friend to stay for a while.
He has to go through their little fairy door on hands (paws?) and knees, but he doesn't mind.
His name is Spot.