Arrival in the ISLE OF MAN

After 36 hours of travel, we have finally arrived in the IOM.  The clouds over 

the Irish Sea were breathtaking!

The winds were in our favour, giving us a panoramic view of 

Port Erin & Port St. Mary as we flew in.

First stop, dinner at  The Station Hotel and Pub 

The manager, John, had my lamb shanks waiting for me.

We were joined by our friends Barbara and Eric who run a fabulous B&B at their Edwardian home, West Lodge B&B

We spent our first night in Ballabeg.  The garden and view were gorgeous!

After a well needed night of sleep, we strolled down to Port Erin harbour.

Only on this side of the pond can you find BAKEWELL TARTS.  I gave it the starring roll in this photo.

My Somerset friend, Christine will laugh knowing that my better-half almost had to fight a bird to enjoy his tart.

The bird lost!

Toronto bound

I had occasion to visit Toronto last week for a business conference.  Before heading out, I was treated to a Mother's day brunch at my favourite restaurant:  Days on Front

The eggs benedict and sweet potato fries were yummy!

I was amazed at how much Toronto had changed; 

so many new buildings and condos!

I stayed at One King West which is the old Toronto Dominion bank.

The conference floor is the old banking hall

 and still has many of the original features.

They even use the old vault for private functions 

(I hope no one slams the door shut)!

The first night I met up with an old friend 

and we feasted on mussels and steak tartare.

At least a bit of 'old' is still part of the skyline!

I couldn't resist this chocolate mousse cake on my final night.

We really needed a walk after sitting for 2 days,

 so I gathered up the girls and hit the pavement.

Old City Hall

A trip to Toronto is never complete without getting caught

 in bumper to bumper traffic

 on the 16 lane wide Trans Canada Highway!

A great learning trip, but it is always great to get home!

A birthday visit to Montreal

My niece was turning 16, so that was a perfect excuse for a family reunion in Montreal.  As you might have already noticed, we always focus are gatherings around food!  

The first day we tried out a new 'all you can eat' sushi restaurant.

We feasted on sashimi and mango chicken.

We felt a walk by the water was in order to help work off our feast.

The following day, we prepared all of the birthday girl's favourite foods!

 

Don't forget the cake!

You can't visit Montreal without 'smoked meat'; a reuben from Moe's!

We headed downtown for our last day and went back to Deville's (see previous post) and tried their fish tacos, chicken and waffles with maple sauce as well as the coconut battered onion rings!

On my drive home, I stopped at our local lock to watch the rushing water as a result of the major rain we have had!

 It was a fantastic few days!

Hollywood comes to Kingston

Guillermo del Toro's new film, Crimson Peak, had a few scenes shot here in Kingston recently.  The crew arrived a week in advance and started transforming downtown back to the turn of the century.

I had the distinct pleasure of being invited by the Producer, Callum Greene, who's mother I had spent a week with in England last summer, to come to the set and see what takes place.

They were filming the hustle and bustle of cars, horse drawn carriages and residents going about their business on 'Main Street'.  After each take, Cullum and Guillermo studied the footage to see if they were happy with the shot.

Even the lead actress, Mia Wasikowska, offered her thoughts on each take.

Guillermo is in the dark jacket

So much time and effort put into less than 3 minutes of actual screen time!

It was such a fun morning and everyone was so gracious and friendly!  My friend and I topped off a fabulous time with pasta at Atomica!  Yummmmm.......

Crimson Peak is set to hit the big screen in the fall of 2015! See if you can pick out the Kingston scenes!

 

Jett and the Sock saga.....

See my cute 'puppy' cuddling with his sister?  Well, he decided that a dirty, smelly sock would be a tasty treat!  Hard to believe that small bundle at the head of my blog can get into so much trouble!

My better half (K) said he found his socks and underwear down on the dogs perch, in the den.  He had accidentally left them in the bathroom on the floor, after his shower (mistake 1).  He thought he got it all back from Jett, but was not worried that he only found one of the socks (mistake 2).  Two days later, in the middle of the night, Jett horked up the sock.  K took the gooey smelly mess out of his crate and threw it on the laundry room floor (intending to toss it later) and closed the door (mistake 3).  I kept asking him to throw it away (Jett IS HIS dog, after all) and said he would, eventually (mistake 4).  I went into the laundry room the following day and said, oh you threw the sock away, and he said NO I DID NOT! (MISTAKE 5).  So, he said I must have opened the door (of course I did not, I KNEW the sock was there; I wasn't going to touch that stinky thing).  The long and short of it is at some point the door was opened, then closed and one of the dogs ate the tasty horked up morsel.  We are blaming Jett (if it walks like a duck)…..

We decided to take him to the vet, as we were worried it might go through his system and get stuck.  They gave him something to made him throw up, but nothing came up, so we just hoped it was working its way through his system.

Another vet bill of $150 and no sock back! (Not that we wanted it!!)

Well, the good news is that Jett did ‘pass’ the sock.  I know because 2 minutes after I let him out into the pen, I notice something hanging from his mouth.  The f’ing thing was about to go round 3 in his stomach!  Imagine a slow motion movie with me running into the yard yelling Noooo!  I sprinted at full speed outside into a fridged -30 degrees in my PJ's and grabbed it out of his mouth. YUCK!  Now, that was fun!  A sock that had spent time in his stomach and bowel, freshly shit out!  I washed my hands for a very, very long time!!! 

We do love our animals, don't we!