What a weekend! What a wonderful weekend! I just wish I could have more like it.
Actually, it’s been a pretty good week, all told, and fairly productive in all aspects of my life, except one. And there hasn’t really been anything happening in THAT aspect for about a year or more, so why should I expect things to suddenly change?
I got a lot accomplished at the office, thanks to working the Late Shift so I could do some work on the deck during the day. I’m hoping the bosses will see how productive it was for me, and let me do it more often. At the moment, I can’t work the Late Shift on Monday (because of Trivia) or Tuesday (I have to work at the other location), so I’ll have to see how things go later in the week.
On Saturday, L. and I went on another bike trip! It was just a one-day jaunt around the Niagara Wine Country, but it was quite enjoyable to be able to get out of town and spend some time with L. We were a little worried about the weather— the tail end of Hurricane Lily swept through the area the night before— but aside from a little wind and a little cloud— which wasn’t such a bad thing— it was a great day for biking. The sun even came out for a little while in the afternoon!
We went to the Newville Candle Factory in St. Davids, and I bought lots and lots of candles: a box of 25 9″ black dinner candles for $5, a box of 25 11″ purple dinner candles for $7, and a handful or two of SQUARE votives in assorted fragrances. I even got to dip my own complementary 9″ candle. They didn’t have a decent black available at the dipping station, so I picked a nice cobalt blue. Having seen the process, I think I’ll be able to do my own dipping at home. Gosh, I haven’t made candles in a long time. My biggest problem was how I was going to carry all these on my bike, but I managed to pack them on without too much trouble.
Then we went back up the hill to the Chateau des Charmes Winery. We kind of blew the timing for a Tour and Tasting of the operation, and we didn’t feel like waiting around until the next one. We hadn’t had lunch yet, and were starting to work up an appetite from our riding!
So L. bought a couple of bottles of wine, and I bought a bottle of 2000 Gamay Noir to try. I’m not big on red wines, and I wouldn’t normally go to the red wine section of the Liquor Store, so I figured it was a good opportunity to expand my horizons a bit.
They also had a number of interesting ice wines available, but at $25 to $60 for a small bottle, and a sugar content up to 25%, I didn’t think it was worthwhile, especially since I didn’t really have anybody to share the experience with!
From the winery, we went back down the road to Queenston Heights Park to see the Brock Monument. L. had thoughtfully packed a picnic lunch for us— well, okay it was a planned picnic lunch, but she always does it so well!— and we sat under a tree to eat. We had egg salad sandwiches, pickles, potato chips, orange juice, and baby animal crackers. Once we finished our lunch and were nibbling on the animal cookies, we gave a few to a local squirrel.
The next stop on L.’s agenda was the Laura Secord Homestead. “This is the historic home of the War of 1812 heroine, and visitors can look through the two storey refurbished cottage.” Except that it was just closing up as we got there. But that was because the maps we had weren’t particularly good, and because we went down the back street instead of along the ultra-busy Niagara Parkway— we didn’t want to ride our bikes next to all those idiots in their stinking automobiles… so shoot us!— we zoomed right past it the first time! At least we got to peek into the windows.
At this point, around 4:00 pm, we decided that we had seen almost all the places on our list, and it was time for Afternoon Tea, or would be by the time we got to the Kurtz Orchards Country Market. This was a place that L. had been to on previous trips to Niagara-on-the-Lake to see plays at the Shaw Festival. She said this place had an AMAZING ASSORTMENT of baked treats. It turned out to be a bit of a disappointment for us. L.’s meaning of “Afternoon Tea” was “tea in the afternoon”, not the Victorian- or Edwardian-style formal tea I was thinking of. No big deal, except they didn’t have the Empire Cookies she wanted me to try, either. So we each got a tea (in a styrofoam cup) and some goodies— I had a cherry tart and a trail mix cookie— and we went to sit at a picnic table by the pond. To complete our Day of Mad Shopping, I was going to stop at the market on our way out of town as we drove back to The Big City and pick up some goodies, like a basket of mixed fruit or some delicious baked treats. But when we got back there, they we just closing up— a full half hour before they told me they were closing! Drag!
So we drove back to town, got a quick meal to go from Wendy’s (I’ll spare you the story of that endeavor!) and came back to my place to watch a movie.
Today, I did some more work on the deck, which is progressing slowly but surely. I now have the entire upper deck framed (with temporary decking so I can still use the back door), the ledger board and joist hangers for the lower deck in place, and the footings for the remaining posts set to go.
And now, after all that enjoyable activity, I’m quite exhausted. Time for bed!
