Holiday Prep with a Local Flair

Living in one province and celebrating Christmas in another offers some logistical challenges. Sure, you have to do all of your Christmas shopping a little bit earlier and buy things that will survive a plane trip in a suitcase. But when most of your presents consist of Christmas baking, you have to get creative.

A lot of the more complicated baking, such as cookies with frosting on them, have to wait until I fly back (so if you’re looking for me anytime in the three days before Christmas, check my Mom’s kitchen first). But some things I’ve been making in advance, freezing, and then crossing my fingers they don’t crumble on the way home. It has meant that this year’s stout brownies have a local flavour to them:

This year they’ve been made with Garrison’s Martello Stout, which is one of their seasonal brews. And since the recipe only calls for 1 ¼ cup beer, I had some leftovers to drink. While I normally only drink beer you can see through when you hold it up to the light, I can’t let good beer go to waste. And this stout is really good because it’s not too heavy; it’s not unlike Millstreet’s Coffee Porter.

I also made a statement with this year’s Christmas cards. I frequently complain that Canada doesn’t do enough to support its local artists, so I decided to do my bit. This year I went local and bought hand-printed cards from Inkwell Boutique. The store itself is really cute and I could have happily bought all the cards I could possibly need next year in one trip. I also coveted the paper-based Christmas ornaments, but given that all of my decorations are sitting in a storage locker back home that didn’t seem too practical. The store’s website is http://www.inkwellboutique.ca/

Buying cards made by local artists certainly wasn’t the inexpensive way to go but that’s not the point of sending cards, now is it? I got to send little pieces of art to some of the family and friends that care about.  Most of the cards I chose were made from the store’s presses:

I also picked up two from Anna Stowe, an illustrator from Dartmouth (which is just across the harbour from Halifax):

So I hope you all find a way to shop local for the holiday season.

Proper Snows

When I woke up this morning, there was no snow on the ground but that did not last very long. Today, Halifax received its first proper snow fall of the season. By four in the afternoon, my neighbourhood looked like this:

The plow had some issues, as you may be able to tell, due to all the parked cars on the street.

The tiny specks in the middle of the road are a mom trying ever so hard to keep her toddler (dressed in a green one-piece snow suit) walking in a forward direction. He seemed rather interested in playing in the small piles of snow in the road instead.

As I write this just after 8 pm, the snow had ended and we're being treated to a lovely mixture of rain and ice pellets, so my walk to the bus stop tomorrow should be very slushy. Eww.

Urban Art

This post is an example of how blogging alters how I explore a new city- I see something interesting from the bus and then I have to figure out how to find it again so I can share them with you. When I first got here I noticed that most of the utility boxes in Halifax are not industrial green or brown in colour. In an attempt to prevent graffiti tags on the boxes, the city instead allowed local artists to paint them and turned them into little pieces of art. You may have noticed one set in the photo I posted of the Nova Scotia Archives (if not, look back at the 26 October entry). Some of them I encountered while out walking, such as this one:

It’s on Robie St. behind the one of the hospitals downtown. I pass it on Saturdays on my walk from the bus stop to Starbucks (I work on Saturdays and the whole experience a bit more civilized by starting my day with knitting and a cup of tea). This is both sides of a box located in Bayer’s Lake, out on the edge of town, near the Home Depot:

But all of my favourites seem to be utility boxes that I see on the bus. This required some planning and an epic Sunday walk a couple of weeks ago to get photos of them. These two boxes are located a few blocks from each other on Joseph Howe Dr and are inspired by Monet paintings:

There is a house behind that second one that has tall, tacky cement columns on it, but in order for me to get those in the shot as well I would have had to stand out in the road with oncoming traffic. So you’ll just have to take my word for it.

My favourite, however, is this abstract design located at the intersection of Quinpool Rd. and Connaught Ave. I usually pass it on my bus ride downtown.

Lovely.

Farmer's Market

Last Saturday I took the opportunity of a day off to go to the Halifax Market. It’s open most days but on Saturday there are the most vendors selling yummy food, handcrafted things, and local produce. It’s located in this building by the harbour (which is how I ended up looking at the seagulls that I posted yesterday).

I had a lovely wrap for lunch (which was too delicious to stop eating and take a photo of) and was full enough to resist all the yummy baked goods I kept seeing. I did buy some yarn from the Lismore Sheep Farm located in River John, NS. Good thing the stall from the alpaca farm was only selling knitting things and no yarn because I would have easily have bought the equivalent of a few animals without trying. I also did some Christmas shopping. However, the most interesting thing I saw (and bought) was this:

Hand-carved oak buttons! How great are they? Now I just need to knit a sweater so I have something to sew them onto. And since all this talk of yarn is going to have my Dad freaking out (since my yarn stash currently lives at my parent’s house)... look, a brewery!

Garrison Brewery is located in the Farmer’s Market complex. They make a variety of beers year-round along with some seasonal favourites. They just released their Winter Warmer Strong Ale.

I enjoyed it, even though it’s not the kind of beer I typically drink. It has some seasonal spices in it but the taste is balanced, so they don’t overwhelm the beer. And they were selling nice openers too, so I just had to buy one. I look forward to sampling something else from Garrison soon.

Flurries

While I was on the bus to work this morning, something happened with the weather:

Still can't see it? All you had to do was stick out your hand and then it was hard to miss the big, fluffy white stuff.

Yep, there were snowflakes this morning. Which I know isn't a big deal to the average Canadian but remember that I spent most of last winter in London where it typically does not snow. Literally, this is the second time in 2011 that I have seen fluffy snowflakes. The flakes only lasted for an hour and none of it stuck, but still, it's a sign that winter is starting to creep up.

And don't worry- by March I'll be sick of the sight of snow like everyone else. But leave me to my childish delight for the time being.

Pretty By The Water

So I was rather pleased with myself that I 'caught up' on my blog posts during my long weekend, forgetting that three days off meant that I would do things that would require more blogging! So, big surprise, I am playing catch-up again. Here's a post of mainly photos to make it appear that I am sort-of up to date (even if I'm not).

I was walking down by the harbour (for reasons that I will post about later) and saw a huge flock of seagulls playing. They looked pretty against the lovely blue water, so I took some pictures.

I have come to the conclusion that I like seagulls much more in their natural habitat, being in or near water, than the ones I see back home. And by that I mean birds really much nicer when they're not in garbage cans, eating squashed lunches dropped in school yards, or picking at roadkill which are generally activities that I associate with seagulls.

On that lovely mental picture, here's some photos of the Northwest Arm that I took on a walk Sunday.

I was really enjoying taking snaps of this group of ducks, except for one small thing...

The duck on the right insisted on cleaning his tailfeathers every time I took a photo, then stopped doing it when I put the camera back in my purse... and then started the second I took it back out again. Bah!

The Miracle of Getting a Flu Shot

You may think that the title is a bit snarky on my part, but it really is something like a miracle to get a flu shot in Halifax. This is one area that Ontario seriously has it right- there may be hundreds of things wrong in my home province, but the distribution of flu shots is not one of them.

In Ontario, you can get a flu shot either from your doctor’s office or at one of the many flu clinics in your area. All you have to do is look at the schedule and find the day and time when your local school/mall/community centre is hosting a clinic. And there are lots of days to choose from and the time windows are fairly lengthy and convenient.

I was naive enough to assume this practice was the same all across the country. That was clearly silly of me.

In Nova Scotia, you go to your doctor’s office to get a flu shot or go to the clinic at your workplace. Now, what do you do if you don’t have a doctor and your employer is not holding a clinic, like me? Well, you go on this website, which is clear as mud:

http://www.gov.ns.ca/hpp/cdpc/influenza.asp

In my case, on the map I can click on the links to either ‘Capital Health’ or ‘IWK Health Centre’. Capital Health has a flu page, but it doesn’t really tell you where to get a flu shot. You just click on links that send you round in circles. And IWK Health Centre’s page has no information about flu shots and if you search ‘flu shot 2011’ on their website, the only thing you will find out is what the schedule was in 2009. Very helpful.

Then I contemplated waiting to get my flu shot until I was back in Ontario but then I kept seeing people cough into their hands and then touch the poles on every bus trip I made that week, so that option was clearly out. I had the flu in 4^th year university and I didn’t want to go through that again if I could help it.

So and this point I became rather frustrated. So I ignored all of the government websites and just typed ‘flu shot Halifax’ into Google. You will find one useful link, to the website of a chain of walk-in clinics. They have one location in downtown Halifax. Great! This is their schedule for the flu clinic at that location (I was looking this information up the last week of October):

Wednesday Oct. 26- 5:30-9:00pm

Saturday Nov. 5- 9am- 12pm

Tuesday Nov. 8- 1-4pm

That’s it. I had missed the Wednesday clinic and the two other time slots are during my regular work hours. Fortunately, I was able to start work late on the Saturday, so I got my flu shot then. The government stats say that 38% of the province’s population got their flu shot last year. I’m surprised the numbers are that high, given the hoops you have to jump through. But I got one in the end, so that's all that matters.

Halifax Citadel

The last weekend in October I visited the Halifax Citadel. It’s quite easy to find- it’s the fort on the top of a very large hill in the middle of downtown Halifax. I wanted to go before it closed for the winter. There are two roads up the hill, so you either go up the main road or the back road. I happened to pick the back road. I climbed up to the top of the hill and walked by this fee booth:

It was empty and I figured that you must pay inside. So I went through the big arch marked ‘entrance’ and found myself in the Citadel. Which is how I accidently got in for free (sorry Parks Canada, but it wasn’t intuitively obvious that I needed to walk all the way around to the other side of the Citadel to pay. It won’t happen again).

The highlight of my visit was the view. You can see all of Halifax from up there and also have the pleasure of standing next to a cannon while you admire everything.

Now I love historic buildings and spaces but I wasn’t enchanted by this one because, frankly, not much has actually happen at the Citadel. It’s a very important fort that represents a number of historical eras, but not very much has actually occurred there. It’s never been invaded. It didn’t blow up in the Halifax Explosion. No political prisoners or King’s riches have been stored in its rooms. Sure, it’s a part of the story of the history of the Halifax harbour, but it’s not on the waterfront.  It’s been rebuilt four times but unless you are an architecture nerd that’s not very thrilling. But it still is the kind of place that you should go and visit for the costume interpreters.

Because I was there on the last weekend they were open, there were only a few interpreters working. I’m sure in the summer there would be lots of them, which would make a visit more interesting. However, I was content with the demonstration of this one:

See that rifle in his hand? He told us a little about its history and how to use it. And then he fired it, which makes such a loud noise that my fingers were in my ears (so I don’t have any photos, sadly). Oh, and I really liked his pants. Even if they are a costume, not many people can pull off plaid pants without looking silly.

Finally, a pretty shot of the parade square, even if it was taken from the entrance of the bathrooms:

Random-ness

I have seen a few things out on my walks that make me stop and think 'hmm, that's kind of random.'

The telephone pole using another telephone pole as a flying buttress to keep it upright?

Random.

This nautical decoration outside one of the shops along the harbour that could be used in wedding photos as a huge ball and chain?

Random.

But possibly the most confusing thing I've run across is the City of Halifax's attitude about fountains. This fountain is in the public green space near the Armoury (see post below), but I've seen other examples around town.

Really? A complete fence around the fountain preventing anyone from touching the water, throwing a good-luck penny, or being able to properly admire the fountain at all?

Very random.

Old Buildings Downtown

I certainly have been doing less touristy things in Halifax compared to my time in England. There are a number of reasons for this. While it was great to do a museum a week in London (and still not get to a lot of the museums I wanted to visit) it was a bit exhausting. It kind of started to feel like an extension of my internship. Not having two consecutive days off also makes it a little difficult- if I don’t get something done on my day off Wednesday it’s going to have to wait until Sunday. Also, I have to go to the laundry mat every Wednesday- living out of two suitcases means I can’t go two weeks between visits because I will literally run out of clean clothes.

But I don’t think the only way to see a city’s history is by visiting its museums, although that is obviously important because if no one went to museums I’d be out of a job. So I go for a lot of walks. Downtown Halifax has some really interesting buildings and I thought I’d share some of them with you. Here’s a pretty Bank of Nova Scotia near the waterfront.

Halifax is also has the issue many cities in Canada face of how to keep and develop old buildings. This particular one is using the method that is popular in Toronto- keep the shell of a historic building and then build condos on top of it.

But there are a number of old buildings that sit vacant downtown. It seems that the city and its citizens lack a clear vision of what the downtown core should look like, so a lot of progress gets stuck in red tape, so things are empty for a long time (sound familiar?). Here are three building on Barrington St. that caught fire after it was vacated by Sam the Record Man. There are people working in the building, clearing it out, but there is no indication what’s going to happen to it.

But don't get the impression that all of the old buildings in Halifax are disused or falling down. One of my favourites is this building.  

From a distance I thought it was a fort or a castle and wondered what it was. So I happened to cross paths with it a few weeks ago when I went to the yarn store and found that it was the local Armoury.



More Used Books- Just What I Need!

While yarn stores do get me more excited than I probably should be in public, a good used bookstore can make me just as happy. So one Saturday afternoon I went for a wander after work to see what I could find. And what I found was exceptional.

This is John W. Doull books, located on Barrington St. which is one of the main drags in downtown Halifax. Quite simply, it’s two floors of book heaven. They have their own classification system of books (for example, the Military History- Fiction section is where the George MacDonald Frasier books live) and the map of the store is a funny spoof on the London tube map. And the map is posted through-out the store because it is quite crowded and easy to get lost. But who wants to pop into a used book store, instantly find one section and be out of the store in ten minutes? They are kind of stores that have to be explored. And this store has so many books that they have to resort to the same organizational system employed by Romni Wools, my favourite yarn store in Toronto.

When you run out of space, just start piles on the floor! And the whole store is like this- although all the passageways are clear, which would please the fire department. This particular section is the Canadian Military section (and possibly the Canadian Nautical section too), which is not to be confused with the sections on War, Historical Battles, or the Military History-Fiction sections. Those are in the next room next to the Paperback Mysteries. Just to be clear. So there are a ton of books to browse. Now, what could be better than that?

Try the second store up the road, The Jade W, which specializes in children’s and women’s interest books. That is where the knitting and textile books live. And I managed to leave with only one book even after the very helpful cashier pointed out that a stack of vintage knitting patterns had recently come in (and then gave me time to look through every single one of them). A must visit if you are in town.

Remembrance Day

I know I’m painfully behind on blogging but I unexpectedly have three days off, so I’m going to do my best to catch up. How do I have three days off, you may ask? Let me explain.

Not all holidays are recognized as statutory holidays in all the provinces in Canada. In Nova Scotia Remembrance Day is a holiday, meaning most people get the day off and services/retail stores are closed. In Ontario, Remembrance Day is a holiday only for civil servants, meaning most people go to work and all non-government services/stores are open. Now, I am working in a provincial building, so the surprise wasn’t getting today (Friday) off. The Archives is also closed on Saturday, which is normally a work day for me. So combined with my regular day off Sunday, I get a long weekend.

I typically do one of two things on Remembrance Day. I either go to whatever service is being held locally or I watch the national service on CBC from Ottawa. I was planning on going to the Halifax Cenotaph, but then I looked at the weather forecast, which came to fruition and looked like this from my apartment this morning.

 That would be strong winds and a rather large rainstorm. It has been raining all day. It sounded like it briefly let up while I had my dinner but as I write this I can hear rain drops again. Most other places in the province did the logical thing and moved their service inside a legion or similar building, but the powers-that-be thought it wiser to leave it outside... in the pouring rain and wind.

So instead I watched the service from Ottawa, although this time I streamed it on my laptop instead of watching it on TV (because I have no TV). The ceremony was wonderful as usual, despite the fact that it was quite cold in Ottawa. I looked in hope to see my Great Uncle in the crowd of veterans (he lives in Ottawa) but I have a feeling that my Great Aunt did her best to make sure that he didn't go (she worries about him standing outside in the cold for so long, which is understandable). Normally she achieves this by hiding his cane.

The other issue I had was when to honour the troops with a moment of silence. While it is tradition to stop what you’re doing at 11 am and reflect on the sacrifice Canadians have made for their country that moment for me normally occurs during the event I am watching. But 11 am in Ontario is noon in Nova Scotia. So I decided to do what made the most sense. I did briefly pause at 11 am Atlantic Time (which happened to fall near the end of my yoga workout) but waited until the Ottawa service to stop and have a moment of reflection.

I’m not the only one who had this quandary today. On Twitter yesterday, British racing driver Dan Clarke (who lives in the States) posted “Which Brits on EST time want a 6am wakeup call for the 2min silence in UK to remember those gave their lives in World Wars for our freedom?” Yet another issue when work causes you to live away from home.

Happy Hallowe'en!

I hope everyone had a good time on my favourite holiday of the year. It was kind of an odd Hallowe'en for me for a number of reasons.

First, I had no costume to make myself. My sewing machine and fabric stash are in another province and even if I did have the foresight to make myself a costume in September (or August, or whenever) there was no room in my luggage. I had so little room (due to having to pack winter coat and boots) that I left my knitting needle roll behind! Going out and buying a pre-made costume is just not my style and I would have to somehow fit it in my suitcase when I flew back. I also typically wear a lab coat at work, so even if I was wearing a costume you would not see it. So, I compromised:

Hair accessories. Not as fabulous as a fascinator, but it served the purpose.

I can also say that I was the only person in the Nova Scotia Archives who was wearing anything Hallowe'en related. Most of the staff have Mondays off, and the few people who were there didn't dress up. Unless, of course, the two guys testing the emergency lights were only pretending to be electricians, in which case I am seriously impressed. There weren't a lot of people wearing anything Hallowe'en-ish in downtown Halifax either so there wasn't much to gawk at on my bus ride. By comparision, I highly recommend riding the subway in Toronto on Hallowe'en. You will be seriously entertained, even at two in the afternoon.

There was no pumpkin for me to carve either. Or, to be more precise, I didn't get to make my Dad clean out the guts of the pumpkin while I stood off to one side and made grossed-out faces, and then carve the pumpkin once the insides are cleaned out. So I went for a walk and took some photos of other people's pumpkins instead. This one gets the award for most angry:

This pumpkin lantern looked super creepy in the wind:

There were a few houses in the neighbourhood that had good decorations, but since Hallowe'en usually involves the dark it was hard to get any good photos of them. A lot of houses had a pumpkin or pumpkin lights out, but many houses didn't seem to be participating. My neighbours two over, however, made up for it with their display (which also had creepy music, but that obviously will not come across in a picture, so just hum your own creepy music while you look at it):

What impressed me so much? Oh, maybe it's what is that hanging from the mailbox?

Yes, that would be a plastic knife. On a mailbox. Flapping around in the wind. I'm not sure why I like it so much, but I do. Maybe because I've never seem anyone else do that before.

Happy Hallowe'en!