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!

Little Buddy

So I was sitting on a pier in Halifax harbour Saturday afternoon, enjoying a snack. It was this pier, to be exact:

The man sitting one picnic table to my left had his camera out and was taking photos of the seagulls as the played in the water. I feel like there are instances where once a camera is pulled out, all of the showy animals in the area appear at once and they all have got preening down to an art. This was one of those times.

There were a number of birds who were slowly making their way down the pier towards him. I was sitting there with my camera (I had finished my snack at this point) where I heard a noise behind my right shoulder. I turned and found a friend:

Less than two feet away from me, was a bird who seemed intent on having a chat. I told him he was pretty and no, I didn't have any food to give him. Then we were rudely interupted by some tourists, wanting me to take their picture (actually, they're the people down the end of the pier of the first photo in this post). And my buddy flew away.

I'm not sure if this was the same bird who, moments before, walked up to me to sing a little song. He then pooped on the pier and, looking quite pleased with himself, wandered off. One of life's more random moments.

And if you're wondering why I will admit to having a chat with a bird in public, I will refer you to the behaviour of my father. Last I talked with him he was telling me a story about a squirrel with a huge gut he saw in Queen's Park near his work (the story was more about how the squirrel sat with his hands folded over his gut, watching the world go by like some old man). So I come by it honestly.  

You can tell that the seasons are changing and I feel like winter is coming. I can see from the two weeks between visits to the harbour that the tourist industry is slowly winding down. For example, where I found Theodore Tugboat before, I found a big empty space instead:

And today the weather is absolutely terrible- a potent combination of rain and strong, cold winds that makes the window panes rattle. I had plans to go to the movies today, but only made it as far as the end of my street before some car drove through a huge puddle and sent a small tidal wave directly into me. I was not impressed and thought a mini marathon of Top Gear in my room was more to my liking.

The Liberator

So it’s probably about time for me to write something about the job that has brought me to Halifax. I’m working as an assistant for a private conservator who is treating a large parade banner commissioned by the Charitable Irish Society for the St. Patrick’s Day parade. The banner depicts Daniel O’Connell, who was an important figure in Irish Catholic Emancipation. The banner shows him in a heroic pose with a dog by his side and underneath is the title ‘The Liberator.’ It is double-sided, although both sides depict the same thing. All of the images were painted on by hand in the 1870’s and it is certainly showing its age, which means we have plenty of work to do.

The banner is part of the Charitable Irish Society Archive that is cared for by the Nova Scotia Archives. So, while I am working for the society, we are carrying out the treatment work at the Nova Scotia Archives. It looks like this:

 

Not the prettiest exterior, I will admit (although the trees to help obsure the blockiness of it), but it is a really good place to work and the staff are very nice.

My job consists of two halves. One part is being an assistant: cleaning things, tidying things, moving things, etc. So the compulsive organizer in me enjoys those bits. The other part of my job is doing conservation work which mainly consists of cleaning various bits on the banner. I have also spent a few days performing localized humidification- also known as flattening creases! The painted bits of the banner behave differently than the unpainted parts, so they need to be flattened separately, working one area at a time. That task looks something like this:

I’m not totally eliminating the creases, since they are really deep and have been stiffened by years of dirt. In one or two places, the dirt is actually holding the creases shut (eww). But by softening them it should be flatter when we re-line it, so they will be less noticeable. It’s not a quick process, but then again nothing in conservation is! (And yes, I do in fact dislike normal lab coats so much that I made my own wrap-around style lab coat).

I am really enjoying the job and find it much more satisfying than the mind numbing retail hell other work I’ve done in the past few years to earn a paycheck.

Photos of the Harbour

I only work for five hours on Saturdays, so I've been spending the remainder of the afternoon exploring Halifax. My first stop was to the harbour. What else can I say except that it's a beautiful view (and that it was very windy when I took these photos).

This is Georges Island.

I couldn't get over the deep blue colour of the water.

And here's a bit of the boardwalk that runs along the shore.

The path is actually quite well marked and maintained. Not surprisingly, most of the shops are aimed at tourists. Some of them are in beautiful historic buildings, so even if you're not looking to buy a t-shirt you can admire the architecture instead.

And no visit to Halifax Harbour can be considered complete without a visit to Theodore Tugboat!

I would say that getting all excited about a cartoon tugboat made me feel like a kid, but none of the children around seemed too interested in him but lots of adults made sure to take pictures of him.

News From Halifax

I had every intention of writing a few blog posts Friday night. I knew what I was going to write about, I had taken the appropriate photos, but then the internet sucked me in. There is no tv in the apartment I’m renting a room in, so anything I watch is via my laptop while I’m here. And I made the mistake of looking up videos for ‘The Car Show’ which completely enthralled me. On top of that, my landlady was out for the evening, so I could listen to The Car Show with the volume turned up and make all of the loud noises that I make when presented with fast cars without her thinking I was a lunatic. I’ve only known her for a week so she doesn’t know my particular brand of crazy, so one has to keep up appearances of being semi-normal (you, on the other hand, likely have know me for much longer than a week and know perfectly well what happens when I am presented with automobiles, so I don’t have to lie). I also had knitting. So it was a blissful, if unproductive, night.

So if you wanted more blog and would like to send your complaints somewhere, please direct them to whoever gave Adam Carolla his own car show (likely, someone at Speed tv). Saturday was filled with work, visiting a new knitting store (!), and a Leaf/ Habs game so yesterday was no good for blogging either.

The news from Halifax has been centred on two things. First being the weather- on Thursday it rained over 10cm! And it had been raining the day before, so everything was already soaked. That’s a lot of rain in 36 hours. The result was flooding, road/ highway closures, serious traffic delays, and some unfortunate hair on my part. I was particularly offended that it started to pour with rain when I got on a bus, so I was greeted a torrents of water when I got off. Not impressed! It also made it really humid- it was 20 C but 28 C with the humidity in October, which doesn’t seem right to me. But given that I live on a hill we didn’t float away, which is all that matters.

The other is that the major chunk of a federal shipbuilding contract was awarded to Halifax. And that’s a pretty big deal here. So big, in fact, that a group was set up to promote the bid on shipsstarthere.ca. They have ads on the buses and I’ve seen a few houses with signs for the website. Here’s one that’s right near work (sorry it’s not closer, but given that I was taking a picture of someone’s front window didn’t want to be too close and look creepy).

It’s a refreshing change to see a community come together for a building project, rather than all the fighting/ threat of revoking contracts that seemed to be a cornerstone in the last Ontario election.

Public Gardens

Located next to my bus stop is Halifax's Public Gardens and since I have left work a little late the past few days (and have then had some time to kill before the next bus) I've done a bit of exploring. The park is also closed in the winter, so I thought I should cross it off my list of things to see sooner rather than later.

In it's current configuration, the Public Gardens were opened in 1867, although other versions existed in the early 1800's. In the middle is this bandstand, which hosts concerts in the summer.

Behind it is Griffin's pond, which is home to a number of ducks, seagulls, and a toy warship.

There are also a number of fountains. One of the more unusual is this one, which was created to honour those in the community who fought in the Boer War.

There are also a number of statues and other monuments along the paths. They are pretty, but I was really interested in this one to add to my photos of 'birds posing on statues'.

The park really is pretty, but I feel like it lacks the energy of the public parks I fell in love with in England. Maybe I'd like this one more in the summer.

Adventures in the Maritimes

So I have a contract for the rest of the year for a paid museum job in Halifax. I am so happy because I get to go on another adventure (a little closer to home than last time) and because someone is paying me for textile conservation work. More details on my job in a later post, but for now let me introduce you to the area near me.

I am renting a room on the top floor of this house.

See Aunt Brenda- I remembered to take a picture this time! I got in trouble with my Aunt because I didn't take a photo of the place I stayed in England. So that's covered.

My place is across the road from Chocolate Lake. And no, there isn't any chocolate in it; it's actually quite pretty and currently home to ducks.

Down the street is one of the worst inventions ever created by civilization- a roundabout! There are a few of them in Halifax and readers of this blog will recall how much I didn't like them in England. Althought this one is bigger and has two wide lanes, unlike the recent roundabout put in next to City Hall in Mississauga.

So getting from my street to the road that takes me to the grocery store (at the opposite end) takes a little while. But if one wants to stop and admire the view, this is what is located on the southeast end of the roundabout.

This would be the end of the Northwest Arm. Pretty, but it was a chilly day for sailing.

And don't think that I won't be getting any exercise in Halifax because the road I walk up from the roundabout to get to my place looks like this.

Rather steep and a bit rocky... should be fun in winter!

Blog Revived!

So the blog never really died, it just went on an extended vacation and got a new name. I spent the summer back home in Mississauga unemployed, staying at my parent's places (let's be honest- with all my apartment stuff in storage and my habit of only living in places for a short period of time Mississauga is still home).

While it would have been good to have made some money it was nice to have the summer off- last year I was in school and the few summers before that I spent most of my time working a crappy souless jobs umm.... working a retail job to pay for school. So it was nice to enjoy the weather. After my winter in England the sun was a wonderful relief.

One of things I normally don't get to do in the summer is gardening. I got to plant things in pots and stuck around long enough to actually see them grow. The cherry tomatoes grew all over the place, although one bush did manage to produce the odd 'Anderson' tomato. In my palm is a regular-sized cherry tomato and between my thumb and finger is the Anderson tomato from the same plant.

The name comes from the carrots that my Nannie Anderson managed to grow one year- while the green tops growing out of the ground were huge, the resulting carrot was about three quartres of an inch long and an eigth of an inch wide. It smelled and tasted like a carrot, but it was just really small. Hence, my delight at the Anderson tomatoes.

I did all kinds of other stuff too, but I think what I really need to do is tell you about my adventures in Halifax instead. More on that soon.