People & Places
Wallace's Canadian Blog August 07
As the summer holidays draw to a close, Rachel Wallace, our blogger in Nova Scotia, provides her seventh slice of family life in Eastern Canada
I can't believe the kids are going back to school: Where have the last eight weeks gone! Compared to England I think we have had the better deal weather-wise. For a couple of weeks it was in the low 30s but the humidity was bad. We did get some horrible rainy days but overall it's been good, although the locals say it hasn't been a great summer. Good enough for us, though, and I even managed to get in the lake a couple of times, but the kids have been in tons of times.
We actually got to see a bit of Nova Scotia, at last. Jack and Kerry went to summer camp in Yarmouth, which is about five hours drive away. They were due to check in on the Sunday at 6.00pm so we had a couple of days touring on the way. We left Friday morning and drove up towards Digby, which is a nice little place. We then went on a whale-watching tour in the afternoon, which was absolutely brilliant. It was lovely and warm and so calm. We had a great trip and were really lucky as we came across a humpback whale nearly the size of our boat. I think it was as interested in us as we were of it. It stayed with our boat for about an hour surfacing up and around our boat. It was about three feet away and the guide said this was quite rare. We saw a couple of other whales but only for a few moments as they surfaced and swam off. On the Saturday we went to Upper Clements Theme Park (and Wildlife Park). The kids enjoyed it but it wasn't as good as Alton Towers or Chessington. We then stayed at Yarmouth and spent Sunday on the beach before the dropping the kids off.
It was strange (but quite nice!) without the kids. No moaning and mess – well, not quite so much anyway!! When we picked them up Friday teatime they were full of talk about what a fantastic time they had had. They had been canoeing, rock-wall climbing, water slide, big blob (huge inflatable in lake which one child sits on, then another jumps onto it which catapults other child into lake), camp games, etcetera. All the children got a certificate at the end of the week for something, and both Jack and Kerry got certificates for having the coolest accents! Jack actually sounds more English than ever but Kerry flits between speaking English with us and then into the Canadian accent whilst with her friends.
Yesterday we took the kids to a Provincial park five minutes away, where they did some fishing. One of our older neighbours took them fishing last week to show them how to use their rods but they didn't catch anything today. Apparently, spring is the best time.
The children have spent a lot of time with James and Louis, two boys down our road. They moved to Canada in January with their parents Karen and Phil. I went round in February to say hi as I thought it would be nice to meet another family new to the area. Since then we have all been the best of friends and meet up quite regularly. Next year we are thinking of all going away to Prince Edward Island for a holiday.
Finally for this month, Ian has completed a couple more exams and has his final one today. He did a couple of weeks work in New Brunswick, but hopefully he will be working properly come September, at long last. I'm still doing my couple of days a week in the book store. I'm going to have to learn to read more quickly to catch up with all the books I keep borrowing!
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