We woke up to another stunning sunrise this morning over Fanny Bay. I had an early start today as I had to be in Courtenay at ’Extreme Ends’ to see Christy for 9am this morning.
The temperature was not very nice out at 0C when I left Fanny Bay. By the time I got to Courtenay it had only warmed up to 2C.
Christy, my stylist greeted me and we got to chatting about the new restrictions that were imposed on restaurants in B.C. as of today. No indoor dining, Take out or patio service only for the next 3 weeks. B.C. does not believe in having various zones like Ontario has tried because people move around and since they do, what is the point of restricting the mainland of B.C. if people just jump on the ferry for the long weekend and come to the Island that has no restrictions? Gyms are also closed again except for ‘one on one’ personal training sessions. The North Island has done a pretty good job with managing to keep case counts of Covid quite low, but it doesn’t matter in B.C., these new restrictions apply all over B.C. Christy was telling me that she thinks people are just tired, and have ‘pandemic fatigue’. I guess its probably true, but we are almost there, or will be soon enough with vaccines now in Halton Region booking for age 65 and up starting tomorrow! Woohoo! And more Pfizer vaccine coming sooner to Canada. All good news which is what we need right now! We are hoping to watch for Niagara Region starting to book at age 60+ and then we will book while we are still on the road, for when we get home. Let’s hope this reality comes true!
What we do to look good! I’m glad I was able to get my hair done before we leave. It’s one less thing to worry about when we get home!
Today was a day for running errands! I had left Richard back at Newman and he was doing more prep work while I did the ‘in town’ errands.
Richard unplugged everything on Newman as if we were on the road, brought all the slides in, fired up the Diesel engine, brought the legs up, backed Newman up, drove him forward, cleaned all the windows, started the diesel generator, cleaned all the plants off the front dash and put them in boxes. What a lot of work, but of course when I came home I asked him why he hadn’t fixed the roof leak over my head?!!
The roof leak is now fixed! A McGyver job! The crank antenna which we never use on Newman’s roof has been leaking all winter, but I haven’t been sitting in the passengers’ seat, so I didn’t care. Now I care! We’ll get Newman’s roof replaced this summer by St. Stephen and his friends and then we won’t have to worry about McGyver fix it measures anymore! And it is supposed to rain on Thursday when we leave, so that roof better not leak on me as we drive down the road!
After I was finished at Extreme Ends, I decided since I was right next door to our favourite butcher shop ‘Butcher Block’ I should go in and get some cold cuts, pick up some lunch and some ‘Steak and Beer’ meat pies for a road meal one evening in Newman. Last year when we were leaving to come out West, I was still working full time up until the day we left on our trip. I was also, not that mobile, so getting ready to leave was a lot different than getting ready to leave this time. I feel that I’ve also had the benefit of living full time in a RV for 5 months, to understand how to organize my pantry, as well as how to make meals in Newman. After driving all day it is much easier if we have homemade meals that I’ve frozen or meals that are easy to put together, without a lot of fuss. We don’t BBQ when we are on the road for example as that would mean getting out the BBQ, setting up the propane tank and its just not worth the hassle - especially if we are in a Walmart parking lot BOONDOCKING!
What do I order???
Steak and Beer pies! They were very heavy! I think they will make a nice hearty meal one night on the road with a side of salad. We like to buy the bags of salads when we are on the road. They are so easy to make and after a long day sitting in Newman, neither one of us has a ton of energy to make gourmet meals!
While I was downtown Courtenay I had to stop into Scotiabank and I thought I would take one last opportunity to walk up and down 5th Street, which is the very nice downtown shopping area of Courtenay. I went into a great little home store called ‘Home & Garden Gate‘ to take a quick look around. What caught my eye was something that I’ve done without all winter!
Oven mitts! I thought these were really cute too. I’ve been using crocheted pot holders and I keep burning my fingers every time I take a hot tray out of the oven, so today we finally have oven mitts as we leave the Island!
I also had to go to Canadian Tire at Richard’s request, to get a can of the slide lubricant to replace the one that Jim our neighbour gave Richard to use yesterday. There is one thing about me going to Canadian Tire, it is ‘in and out’. no meandering looking at what I might want, cause there isn’t anything I want at Canadian Tire usually!
I picked up two cans of this stuff. One for us and one for our neighbour Jim. Trying to be thoughtful and not using up all of Jim’s slide lubricant and leaving town!
I also went to Quality Foods in Courtenay to stock up on groceries today, rather than waiting for tomorrow. We may have last minute stuff we need to do tomorrow, you just never know, and having food on board now is pretty important!
As I was driving home from Courtenay there was an accident on the Coastal Hwy. The Coastal Highway is such a great highway to drive and the speed varie from 60km-80km/hour between Fanny Bay and Courtenay. The highway is never really that busy, but someone wasn’t paying attention today and rear ended another car!
I’m sure this car didn’t know what hit them! The entire back end was punched in. There were two ambulances and police directing a single lane of traffic at a time, past the accident spot in Union Bay. How does an accident happen on a sunny day with little or no traffic on the road? It always amazes me how people don’t pay attention to the fact that they are driving and that’s their biggest priority at the time.
When I got home Richard couldn’t wait to show me what had been left on Newman’s doorstep after I left this morning!
Richard waited until I came home from Courtenay for me to open the little bag and see what was inside. How strange? My birthday has already passed and we weren’t expecting any gifts!
A card from Kristy who works with Cory on the fishing boat at C&N Oysters!
A little keepsake from Vancouver Island from Kristy! Kristy’s friend who lives in Royston makes these oyster shell wind chimes. She uses recycled glass bottles and a glass cutter and then fires the bottles in her kiln. What a beautiful touching reminder of our winter of 2021 on Vancouver Island and our time in Fanny Bay learning all about oyster fishing! Thank you so much Kristy! I hope we see you tomorrow to say thank you in person, but I know you read our blog, so I wanted to thank you here too! We will cherish this lovely handmade piece and it will have a place in our home in Fort Erie - not outside though, the winds off Lake Erie would blow it to smithereens, so we’ll hang it in our sun room and it will remind us of our amazing winter on the Island! Thanks again, you’re so thoughtful!
After finally putting everything away inside Newman I was hungry! I had picked up Richard a chicken samosa from ’Butcher Block’ and for me ‘The world’s best salad’ that they make with kale, quinoa, peppers and apples. Delicious and something I will make at home with a miso, ginger salad dressing! Yum!!
Finally eating lunch outside of Newman! We didn’t want to eat on the picnic table at the front of Newman as there was still a cool breeze coming off the water, so we ate at the side of Newman, where it was more sheltered. The sun came out just as I was having lunch. Perfect!
As we were eating lunch the sea lions were honking up a storm. Richard turned to me and said “I sure won’t miss those noisemakers when we leave here!” That’s one thing about living on the ocean, it is a lot noisier than living on the Lake! Lake Erie only has birds, fishing boats, canoes and kayaks...no noisy, stinky, obnoxious sea lions!
I thought I would walk down to the water to see what was going on with the sea lions and the fishermen. That’s one thing about living on a fishing harbour, there is always fishing boats and fisherman coming and going. I took a 360 video today that I will post on Facebook that gives you a really good sense of where we stayed all winter in Lighthouse RV park.
Low tide. The fishing boat on the left is full of bags of oysters, but they couldn’t bring the boat in, until the tide came in. I guess bringing the oysters in was someone else’s job, since these oyster fisherman were done for the day!
Hardworking oyster fisherman!
The RV park will look a lot different in a few days. We are leaving April 1st and so is the Prevost to the right of us. The big white rig on the left owned by Tim has to move to another spot and our neighbour Jim is also leaving mid April. It has been great to feel like we have no neighbours in front us, with this great view all winter!
As I was finishing up the blog Richard popped his head in Newman and said our safety lights for Jerry are not working. He and Jim tested them and they just won’t work, so he is off to Canadian Tire in Courtenay now to get new lights. We had inherited these lights when we bought Jerry, so I guess it was time to upgrade them to LED lights. Anyway, at $90.00 its not a big investment in our safety, and as a good friend of ours named Doug Kurtin always says “Safety never takes a day off!”
And for your daily update on St. Stephen and Karen’s progress they drove from New Liskeard, Ontario to Saint-Cyrville-De-Wendover, Quebec. That’s another long day of driving! I think at this pace they should be home tomorrow! Wow! What a fast trip across Canada! I’m not sure our days will be as long as theirs have been. We’ll see as we are both now quite anxious to get home now that we know we are leaving soon!
As we go through life we realize it is the little thoughtful and touching things that we will remember most of all. It was so nice today to have Kristy drop of the very sincere gift for us to remember our time on the Island this winter. Sometimes I think its about being aware of what is going on with others, instead of being wrapped up in our own stuff, so we know we can touch someone in small thoughtful way that they will always remember.....and that is my thought for the day!
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