a backlog of blogs

Well, its been such a busy two weeks... and I am so behind in blogs and there is so much I want to blog about... so I am starting with my oldest blog subject and each day I will blog an event until I am caught up.

My Clare Curling Weekend... Blog Catchup #1

July 24-27 I had the extreme pleasure of participating in a very fun weekend

Clare, a french community that is 1.5 hours from my house, hosts this amazing event each year. There is a golf tournament on the first day of the event and curling for the next three. This was my very first time actually going around a full 18 hole course. I am not a golfer, in any way, but my three mates are all good golfers and it was a very cool experience. Some of my observations were as follows.... first off, the women I "golfed" with make the whole sport look very easy. The ease with which they swung those clubs made me think that I might be able to actually do it. Second, there is a science behind this game that I never really considered. The wind, the terrain, the distance you need all factor in to what number of club you need! Thirdly, the course itself was gorgeous. It was full of hills, greenery, hot spots, and breezy spots. All of that coupled with spending the afternoon with 3 very good friends.... made for a glorious day. The downfall of the day was the hot humid weather. We, in the valley are quite use to this weather, but we certainly didn't expect it down on the cool shores of Clare. But the fact that we were curling at 10pm that night got us through the whole day. After golfing, we relaxed at our beautiful rental cottage and caught up with our cottage roommates. The cottage is on Cranberry lake and this was my first time there in the summer. I have been there probably 3 times for winter curling but the whole atmosphere of the cottage was spectacular on this summer visit. One of the highlights was sitting on the little wooden dock and catching up on the events of the summer. Eventually conversation got around to girly subjects and the discovery of "VEET" was shared and I had lots of questions about this new hair removal technique. We giggled like school girls and made plans to have a VEET party sometime this weekend. Just picturing this event brought giggles to all of us. Curling was sooooo fun. First off, we dressed up in NS tartan shorts and comical Tee shirts, to show the other teams that we meant business... Taking pictures in a curling club is next to impossible because there are 4 rinks of people and the flash would disturb someone. But, on the hottest night of the summer when the outside temperature was 30, imagine trying to pull on leotards, then shorts, a sweater, and shirt... shoes and mitts! what a hoot. Then.... heaven.... we were suddenly plunged into -4 rink and working muscles we haven't really used in 6 months!! The bonspiel had 64 teams (thats 250 people) and they fed us very well.... roast pork, roast beef, lobster, scallops, homemade soups, homemade spaghetti.. and desserts each night. Our games were late at night (all between 10pm and 11:45pm) except one, which left our days free for shopping, napping and chatting. We tried to find VEET in the two drug stores in the village and no luck. Saturday afternoon, after our only afternoon game, we were trying to decide if we wanted to drive to Yarmouth (30 minutes) to find VEET or to just go back to the cottage..... we all gave up on the VEET and headed to the cottage for some lake swimming. Shortly after we got to the cottage, we had a surprise visit from our landlord. A wonderful gentleman that most of us have never met. He lives in Halifax, and using the cottage on weekends. He gave up his weekend there so we could use it, and we were very grateful. He and our cottage neighbour stayed for an hour and it was lovely to meet him and to share stories. We certainly learned a lot of answers to questions we have spent 4 years wondering about... After they left, someone commented that we were missing our lake time... to which Hazel pointed out... It could always have been worse!". If we had the VEET with us, he would have dropped by just in time to see 4 grown women lathered up (legs, bikini and pits) with VEET..... imagining that sent us into fits of laughter.. and actually it still does.!

While I was in Clare, Terry took the dog and the kayaks to Mattatal lake where Tom's cottage is. Tom, Tom's new kayak, his two daughters, Michelle, Scott and the pigs all went as well. They had a fun weekend and everyone enjoyed the kayaks...