Oh No…Don’t talk To Me

WARNING ! BLOWOUT! Today I wanted to renew our car registration. These days you can do that kind of thing online, which should come in real handy if you live 60miles away from where the offices are. So I called up the renewal page of Service New Brunswick. When filling out reg.number and the first 6 digits of the VIN I got an error message. I tried again, but the same error kept coming up on my screen. So I decided to call the office in charge, which is on the Canadian mainland. Dial, dial dial…..ring, ring, ring, ring….you get the hang of it. Finally a machine kicks in.  “Welcome…..blah, blah blah…..All our agents are busy with other customers. Pls. call our telecentre for help”.   Dial, dial, dial….ah a voice “For service in English please press 1”.  Ring, ring, ring.  Ah a voice….”Due to a high volume of calls we may have an unusual long wait time. Please stay on the line and your call will be a……..”  15 minutes later I was still listening to happy music tunes from my receiver interspersed with “Due to a high volume of……” Then I hung up. What in raving hell is wrong with our government offices? If everybody would “work” like this we’d be a third-world country.

Finally The Fog Lifted

When Sunday dawned the fog was gone. Instead we woke up to a crystal clear day with lots and lots of sunshine. At 11:30a I was down at the Roosevelt Park float dock to take 6 arriving guests up to the cottage. After their cottage tour I had them on a 90-minute sightseeing through the Natural Area of the park. With a clear day like yesterday this is indeed an experience most people will never forget. We took Molly on a nice beach walk and gathered a few more round stones and a few more pieces of driftwood.                                    Duck Family on their morning excursion Sunday’s musical events were running at Herring Cove Provincial Park and were mostly of the folksy kind. The Park has an outside stage and the audience can just place themselves where ever they like. The campground was booked solid for the weekend. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Sculptures along the beach While we were wandering along the beach we saw a few sculptures, built by a creative mind.

More Fog And More Music

Day 2 of the Fog Fest started with fog so dense it was hardly possible to see the neighbour’s house. This festival sure does honour to its name. Looking at the program we decided to visit the library Gala at noon. The program there consisted of song writer and book author Brian Flynn’s presentation where music and literature were equal parts. I have to add that this Brian Flynn is not just Mr. Anybody. Brian Flynn has been working with the U.S. Government for more than 20 years as Assistant Surgeon General, Associate Director, at the Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.  Brian has been at the most horrible places. He was in Manhattan after 9-11, he has been in Littleton, Colorado after the school massacre, in Oklahoma in the aftermath of terrible tornadoes, has seen horrible floods and remnants of coastal hurricanes. He has met people who didn’t know whether there would be a tomorrow or whether life could go on. His long experience with the darkest hours of life has provided him with a unique gift of putting words to beautiful songs. It has also made him a gifted author who has recently produced 2 very interesting books “The Wisdom of Stones” and “The Voices of Stones”.  ”The Wisdom of Stones combines fine photography and inspirational text intended to provoke thought, promote reflection, and engender connections between people and their environment. The book was born of psychologist/ photographer Brian Flynn's observation of people's fascination and connection with beach stones on the shores of Campobello Island, Canada. Many of the island's visitors spend time walking silently on the beaches, seldom looking up from the stones underfoot. Periodically, beachcombers stoop down, pick up stones, examine them, and place them in their pockets. This often goes on for hours. At the end of the day, they proudly display their treasures for whomever will look. Seldom has a vistor left without a bag full of stones to display or add to their collection. Brain Flynn's work has been focused primarily on large-scale trauma--disasters and terrorism. These experiences have fueled his passion to find beauty where others do not (or cannot) see it, to find order in what others see as randomness and chaos, and to nurture hope and meaning where and when he can.” Brian has a home on Campobello Island. From 3:00p to 5:00p we went again to the beautiful Prince Cottage for yet another musical event. The performers were part of the Lubec,ME Summerkeys program. It was time to have sweet romantic dreams when Winslow Browning played South American melodies on his Spanish Guitar.   Another marvelous experience on this Saturday. On our way home we saw mighty thunder clouds moving in. They all went by with some rain, but no thunderstorm.

It’s FOG FEST folks!

When the fog is rolling in on Campobello it is best to be inside and listen to some real good music. That was exactly what a whole lot of people did today. It all started out with “Harper’s Mae” at Jocie’s Porch at 10am. Two young people, he with a nice guitar sound and she had a pretty voice to sing off a number of  folksy songs and known melodies from long gone days. The place filled up pretty quick, Bobby and his mother Angela served the best coffee in the world (way better than any Starbucks or even Tim Horton’s) and everybody was enjoying himself.                                                          At Jocie’s Porch From 3:00p to 5:00p we could listen to Philip Albert’s eloquent variations of known classic jazz sets. And to give this an appropriate frame it happened in the Prince Cottage in the Roosevelt Campobello Int’l Park, The Prince Cottage sits just below the Roosevelt Cottage and opens its long classical facade towards the Passamaquoddy Bay. I couldn’t but imagine what life was like for the folks who once owned this magnificent place. The piano was part of the original furniture and dates from 1851. While Philip brought out the most beautiful melodies I looked through the large windows and saw the fog waltzing across the bay. The house was warm and offered a cozy elegance. Great coffee and cookies after Eleanore Roosevelt’s recipe.  What a treat! Philip Albert at the piano                                                  The Prince Cottage Fog Fest is lasting for 2 more days, so if you happen to be in the neighbourhood why not take a trip over and see us? It’s sure worth it. Campobello Island has taken a major step forwards being a destination. Thanks for dropping by!