What a crazy weather day we are having today! We woke up to a grey, rainy, windy day and now its sunny, but still pouring rain and the winds are gusting up to 29km/hr and Newman is shaking like a leaf!
When I woke up Richard was already up,shaved and showered. He said he had heard from our neighbour Jim that he had a flood in the basement of his brand new Newmar Baystar! The PEX connection on his basement water line fitting came apart. Jim discovered the water leak when he lost water pressure in his RV. Richard was ready to go and help Jim, but Jim said there was no room for two people. Jim has put some clamps on the pipe to hold it together, as he can’t get a crimping tool on the connection to fix it. I think Jim will be visiting his dealership in May in Penticton when he is driving back to Fernie, B.C. with a long list of complaints!
St. Stephen arrived this morning to fix the ceiling light in our hallway bathroom.
The tools required for the repair.
The light fixture is a mess of wires.
St. Stephen fixing the light. Very finicky work!
There were lots of little connections which had been ‘McGyvered’ to keep the ceiling light working which St. Stephen had to cut and re-wire.
3 of the 4 strips LED light strips are now working. We needed a soldering tool to be able to get the connection for the last LED strip of lights work, but no one in the RV Park had a soldering tool to be able to help us out.
The new light connections which are directly wired now into the fixture.
St. Stephen screwing in the light fixture after repairing it.
And away St. Stephen went in his chariot! Thank you again for bailing us out of a jam! We are definitely going to miss you when you’re off the Island!
St. Stephen’s chariot!
The weather was definitely getting worse this afternoon.
A shot taken on one side of Newman at 1pm.
The other side of Newman at 1pm! Crazy weather!
We decided after St. Stephen left that we would head down to Nanaimo so I could visit The Bay. We have avoided shopping malls since we’ve been up here in Fanny Bay, but I did need some Kiel’s face cream which is not sold anywhere on the North Island and if you’ve read the blog, you know how difficult it is to get anything delivered via courier to us. The plan was that I would quickly go into The Bay and then we would head somewhere on the coast to take some photos and have a hike.
As we started driving towards Nanaimo, the weather improved! By the time we got to Parksville, the roads were not even wet! As we were driving into Nanaimo I said to Richard “How much further is it to Ladysmith?” Richard said “15 minutes give or take, why?” I said “We could go to Ladysmith and pick up some cinnamon buns for St. Stephen and Karen and drop them to them after visiting Nanaimo. So instead of pulling into The Bay in Nanaimo, we kept on driving to Ladysmith.
By the time we got to Ladysmith and Old Town Bakery, it had started to rain again. With social distancing Richard was waiting in the rain to get inside the bakery.
A great decorative display of baking implements in the top window of Old Town Bakery.
As we were standing in line and keeping a good distance from the person in front of us, I noticed that the trays where they keep the cinnamon buns were empty. I said to Richard “I think they might be sold out of cinnamon buns already.” Richard being the optimist that he is said “I bet they have more in the back of the bakery on another rack!” Sure enough when we got up to the cashier to order some cinnamon buns, we were told they were “Sold Out” and next time we should call before we arrive and they will put them aside for us.
Now what? The selection of what the bakery did have left in stock at 3:30pm on a Friday was kind of slim pickings. We decided to get butter tarts for St. Stephen and Karen as well as some for our neighbours Jim and Danielle since they had a tough day with their RV.
hmmm? Which one shall I choose?
We left the bakery and decided to walk around Ladysmith since we did not see all of the town the last time we had visited. In particular, we wanted to visit a couple of antique shops that we had seen.
We visited the first antique shop and found this great sign that we are going to give St. Stephen when we see him!
Very cute sign!
We had seen this very large antique shop from the Hwy #1 in Ladysmith, but the hill to get to the store was very steep and was not easy to walk down or back up to Jerry.
.Walking down the hill to the first antique shop.
The yellow pizza place behind me had a very eclectic garden to sit and enjoy a meal.
The antique store is at the very bottom of Roberts Street at the intersection of Hwy 1.
The ‘Post Office Antiques Mall’ which holds 35 various vendors goods for sale in the store.
The former Post Office & Customs building, which is now ‘The Post Office Antiques Mall’ was constructed between 1908 and 1910. When the Post Office & Customs building opened, it was one of the most impressive buildings in the City of Ladysmith. The stone for the exterior of the building was quarried from around the Nanaimo area and the floors were made from Eastern Maple. The doors, window casings and stairway are made of the finest mahogany. The staircase in the building reminded me of my maternal grandmother Barton’s old house in Orillia which was probably built around the same time as this old Post Office & Customs building. They definitely do not build staircases as solid and beautiful as that anymore!
Betty Boop anyone? Or a scale model of a sailing ship?
The building closed as a Post Office in 1963 when the Post Office was moved to the Main Street of Ladysmith. The building has over the years been a candle factory, a pizza parlour, a ceramics shop, a restaurant and now an antiques store. We really enjoyed wandering through all 3 floors of the store looking at the wares for sale. Each of the 35 vendors certainly took good care of their section of the store. We both thought it was one of the best antiques stores we have ever visited. And no we did not find a light for our sunroom ceiling today, but we found an interesting book which I had to buy.
I can’t wait to read up on Qualicum Beach and find out a bit more of its history, which I will be able to report back to you in the blog, once I’ve had some time.
We headed back up the very steep hill on Robert’s Street to where we had parked Jerry, across the street from Old Town Bakery. We decided to head north up the Highway to Nanaimo, so I could visit The Bay. We arrived at exactly 5:15pm to find that The Bay closes at 5pm! I couldn’t believe it! A large department store such as The Bay closing at 5pm on a Friday night? I quickly googled to see if there was anywhere else in the mall that would sell Kiehls and sure enough there was a Sephora store in the mall. Richard dropped me off and I wandered around the mall at a brisk pace to find the Sephora store. I couldn’t find any Kiehls products so I inquired and was told that because the store is so small they don’t carry it in the store, but I could order it online. UGH! All of our driving today to be disappointed yet again today! Sometimes things just don’t work out as planned and we seemed to be having one of those days!
Speaking of planning, it seems like our golf plans for tomorrow at Pheasant Glen Golf Resort in Qualicum Beach are probably not going to work out either! It’s rained now for the better part of 2 days on the Island and it is supposed to be an 80% chance of rain tomorrow, turning to a light drizzle in the afternoon in Qualicum Beach. Since we were supposed to play 18 holes I wanted to take a cart to play golf, as I’m not sure I could walk the entire 18 holes of this big course. I’m sure with the rain we’ve had it will be cart path only, which means double the amount of walking, so I think our golf plans for tomorrow will probably not work out either.
Oh well....we’ve learned to roll with whatever comes our way. The good news is we have our bathroom light working and instead of cinnamon buns, we’ve got butter tarts to eat. It’s “ALL GOOD!” as a Newfoundland colleague of mine used to say at the Bank.
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