What a week!!

What a week!! Its been a week since posting to the blog, so here I am . Its foggy ,way to foggy to walk, pea soup out there.

So lets start with yesterday(August 27) and work our way backward.

Remember this was the first week back to work after a two week holiday, so it was the longest week ever.

The morning walk was dark,as it was cloudy, but by the end of the walk, Venus and Saturn broke out of the cloud. It was warm, and hazy and the air was thick with moisture. I did manage to get in for a swim, the water was 24C, it was very relaxing.

We worked, we ploughed through the day and then when the weekend began, we were ready for it.

After work and Dad's, we headed downtown (Kingston, Ontario) to Latina Sol for dinner. Its a new restarurant in town, that has been open for about a month, and we have been waiting for 6 months for it to open. Its a mixture of Mexican and Latino food, and the Corona is always good. The salsa is their own brand, with lots of cilantro, and just a touch of hot peppers to warm up your mouth and wake it up. Kevin had beef hard taco, and I had the chicken soft taco, and the salad was like a ceaser but different because it contained lime. We did have desert which was a apple caramel on a tower of light pastry, very good, this was a shared event.

As we started to walk over to the restaurant, there was a few drops of rain. We were going to sit on the patio, but the rain came heavier. We were watching the roadies put up the light beam in the rain and cover up the speakers. Thinking that it was going to be a very wet event, the rain did stop, the dark grey clouds left and the sun actually came back out. It stayed relatively clear

Once done, we went walking down Princess St, and ended up at Indigo book store. Perused the store, bought a couple of magazines, then went back to the van, to drop this off and get the chairs for the evenings event.

The evenings event was the Friday night show on Pricess St of the Limestone City Blues Festival.

Lasts nights opener was Michael Pickett he could make that harmonica do music like no other. His main guitar that he used was a tin/metal guitar that was made in 1931. He played for about an hour , then the Headliners came on.
The Fambulous Thunderbirds with group leader, Kim Wilson.

These guys rocked the house, ok the street. They played non-stop for 2 hours. The blues ranged from slow to high beat. They came back for one encore with 2 songs. Each had their own solo, and Kim Wilson had played the harmonica for his solo for around 15 minutes. Once this song was done they broke into a lyrical song, no breaks. Though the piano player had issues with his chair, and the guitar player had to change a string 3/4 way into the show, done and tuned within 2 minutes.

I love these guys. I know I am dating myself but I have their cassette tape Tuff Enuff, from my later teen years and listening to them on the radio on the House of Blues Radio show host Elwood Blues (aka Dan Aykroyd). If you have never listened to this show, find it on your radio, its a wonderful show that introduces to you the old and new blues singers/players and lets you know how they started on their passion.

After the encore, the band was on a bus off to the TO airport (I think we passed the bus on the way home) to play tonight in Jim Thorpe, PA. We finally got home after 11:00 pm and pretty well crashed, from being up at 5:00 am that morning.

So today, we are going back in to the Heirloom Tomato tasting and then the Blues Festival after that. There is an up and coming Blues player named Shaun Riley, which we purchased his cd last year from the show he did at Rouge Hollow's Day in Newburgh, Ontario

More on this event later

So now we are back to Thursday (August 26), well not to much of anything happened this day. I walked, we worked and came home , did some things outside,came in and starting working on a new Canadian Meteor Work webpage, but more on that later.

Wednesday (August 25), well after some final decision making the meeting for the 2004 Fall N Stars Star party went. Though we are a little dissappointed in the late date start of the event, we will get it done. This is a Star Party that is in conjuction with the RASC Kingston & RASC Belleville centres. This is year 5, and I at least am determined to see it keep going. All is undercontrol, and it will go on.

Tuesday (August 24), again not much no walk, it rained, work, (we had a break in at work, 1st one in 21 years that I have been there, that was the excitment for the day, not to much got done, but the would be robbers, we taking my cans of soup) we went home after some shopping, dinner and relaxed.

Monday (August 23), first day back to work.....it took forever. I did go for my walk, it was plesant, the creek is just a small flow right now, but still soothing. We came home, had dinner late, because we were working on the observatory, and I think we were in bed early......just to get back into the routine of non-holidays.

Sunday (August 22)- Our last day off. Well some walking, and gardening, and astromomy (solar) and it was a windy day. We had took our last afternoon nap, and had a steak supper and drank way too much wine, and watched our burning pot and talked about life, the future, elderly parents and misconceptions. Off to bed semi-early for preparation for work. I slept great.

Saturday (August 21)- We went into town early,as I helped out with the Kingston Horticultural Show's 2004 Flower and Vegetable show. I bought a burning pot,
after the show, did some shopping, went to Dad's, Sara's then home. In the meantime, while I was at the show, Kevin, did a bunch of shopping gpt some deck blocks, for the new shed, and some formica for the roof runners on the obervatory.

We came home, and worked on the observatory, and observed the sun. We wanted to do some observing at night,so we laid down a bit. We did go out and
observe, but it was cold, cold dew in the air, the temps were around 6C for August, that is like fall weather.

We went in early than we wanted, but we did observe some meteors and constellations.

Friday (August 20)

Great day with friends. Hank and Di took the day off work, and we went over to Picton. The goal to go on a wine tour. That we did. We made it to six wineary's. All at various levels of display, some very laid back, some very high tech, and dropped lots of bucks to build it. Prince Edward County is becoming the next Niagara Region for wine. This area however, has more limestone so the taste of the wine is different than that of the Niagara Region.

Now we also went shopping in Bloomfield. I got a great sun planting pot, currently holding a Mom but soon to be brought inside for winter use, and some great nick nacks, which have already been placed around the house. A day is not complete with shopping until you go into the Taste of Country, more purchases, but we did that before we got to Napannee, see below.


Kevin and I picked up a bottle or two from every wineary, as we like to sample and purchase Canadian wine. We started at Waupoos Estates Wineary and ended up at the Huff Wineary, but we did not get any wine from here, did not enjoy the flavour- I guess after 5 other places and tastings, they were all starting to taste the same.

But what we did get was at Waupoos: Honeysuckle 2003 med dry, Seyval Blanc 2002, Vidal 2002, all mainly white, as we have enough reds at home but did get one Peal Noir 2002 it is low in tannins. I cannot seem to drink the reds due to the tannins. I have been able to drink a Gamay, but they were out, and Gamay is low in tannins. The girl at the tasting bar remembered me, but then again is this good or bad. We have been their 3 years in a row, and I generally do get a couple of bottles each time. Will she remember me next year????

Next The Black Prince Winery, in Picton. We got the Auxerois 2003 and the Vidal 2002. Just stating out, but a very nice area though off the main road coming out of Picton heading west.

3rd stop Chadsey's Cairns (no website yet) and I got a Riesling 2002. I like the german wine, Kevin does not....oh well more for me. This place is just coming online, and they are building a deck on the back to look out over the fields. When you first enter the laneway, there is a very old cemetary dating back to the 1700's , sort of makes you wonder at first.........every read Stephen King???

We did stop off at Carmilla Wineary, very nice place, with a nice restaurant, but did not purchas anything. They have a very upscale planting operation with large fans in the fields to keep the frost away,and air moving.

Next stop The Grange of Prince Eward Inc., Estate Wineary, in Hillier Ontario (no website yet). This is a lovely area on an estate, that loves wildlife, and natural ponds. They took the old barn that had been raised and used the original beams inside to make this fantastic building. Windows all around to view the lands, and still more room downstairs to expand. There is also a patio to sit out on. We tried a few wines, and purchased the Trumpours Mill Gamay 2003.

Next on our drive, as we looked for the last wineary for the day, we stopped at a yard sale, and Di got some old wooden box and a box front for a steal of price, I should have gotten more, but I still have too many things at home I have to do the projects on.

We ended the wine tour with the Huff Estate Wineary. This place has a helicopter pad, a patio, restaurant and many new fields, in which some of the grapes were seen. Very upscale place, lots of cement work.

We finished the drive home with a trip into Napannee to get Chinese food for dinner. Went back to our friends place, pigged out on Chinese food, read our fortune cookies and had a drink to reminise about the day.

We left around 9:30 pm to let our friends relax and for us to put things away, what a great day.

This should take use back to Thursday August 19, when I last posted to the blog. As you can tell.......What a week!!