We weren't feeling too optimistic about our first gig on this eastern 'tourette' -- Don was getting a cold, his injured hand was still bothering him, our host had been saying things like "I hope somebody comes" and "you can put CDs out on the table, but people don't buy CDs here", we were crabby after two days in the car together and not enough sleep, we were woefully under-rehearsed, due to numerous pressures on our time pre-departure, and the fact that while it's easy to catch up on work at the computer in the car, it's not so easy to practise lap slide and cello in the car (nor is it likely legal). We figured we'd just put a brave face forward, visit some friends and call it a glorified rehearsal. We were, thankfully, mistaken.
As we pulled in, Kathryn was watching out the bay window for us -- meaning she obviously saw us drive too far and double back. Oops... Kathryn is an old friend from Alyssa's Cannington days -- an avid folkie and a United Church minister. She'd actually been brave enough to hire Alyssa on several occasions to replace the church organist on summer vacations for services in "her" churches in Wilfrid and Eudora. (Considering Alyssa had quit piano lessons after a crash-course in Grade 6 for university entrance, we can only hope that God is forgiving... or at least has a sense of humour.) She'd transferred out to lead the parish in Clifton, NB a little over three years ago -- we visited her and hubby Roger on our way home from NS shortly after they'd moved, and given an impromptu house concert for the choir after their rehearsal. Since then, we'd all said we should play there again, but the timing had never worked out. This time, though, the timing worked perfectly, and we were invited to be part of Central United Church's 50th anniversary celebrations. Still, Kathryn was nervous about attendance, as she thought the community's tastes ran more in the country side, and she wasn't sure if they'd come out for some unknown Ontario folkies. She was, thankfully, mistaken.
We pulled in to the manse and sat down for a cup of tea with Kathryn and Roger, shaking off some of the stress of the road. This is not, mind you, a typical manse -- there are Buddhas everywhere, as well as First Nations, Celtic, Norse and other sacred symbols and art. Roger, the Buddhist, has probably been a source of much perplexity to this small town parish, but he still leads the church choir, and they seem to have gotten used to the concept. :-) Both have such a sense of openness and curiosity, it's not difficult to see how they ended up together -- but it must have taken some adjustment for a very traditional community to wrap their heads around the idea. The congregation really seems to have embraced Kathryn and Roger, though, so good on them.
We finish our tea as Gordon and Kay arrive -- Gordon is the church's sound person, and Kay is in the choir. They help us load things into the church and get set up for sound check -- which Gordon leads, assisted by Joanne and observed by Muriel. We opt to keep it simple, with a nice juicy condenser mic in the middle, and a vocal mic each, just to boost the lyrics up a bit when needed. Gordon says he's never had to do sound for this type of ensemble before, but the entire set-up and sound check takes only a half hour. Gordon and Kay come back to the house with us, where Roger is busy in the kitchen, preparing a light dinner for us. It smells fantastic!
The six of us sit down to poached salmon, a delicious quinoa dish, salad and warm bread -- and lots of fun conversation. Sure beats road food. :-) The church choir has prepared two songs of welcome to us to start out the concert -- Don asks if everyone thinks they might want to join us on a song, Kay thinks they'd be up for it, Kathryn's not so sure, but everyone agrees we might as well ask them! They head next door for the choir warm-up, and we do our own warm up and get changed before heading over.
Don brings his guitar down to the last bit of the choir practise, prepared for rejection but that was, thankfully, mistaken. :-) The choir is super-enthusiastic about singing along, and I can hear their voices coming up through the floor -- a joyful noise, indeed.
The church starts to fill up -- we got over 70 people by the end of it, much more than anyone was expecting -- and, contrary to Kathryn and Roger's warnings, they aren't all hiding in the back pews. There are also many people from outside the church who have seen the newspaper article and posters, and thought they'd give us a try. We are grateful to anyone who takes a chance on new music (especially ours!).
The choir files in, and begins with a song about the area, written by a local woman whose name I'm afraid I've lost, accompanied on piano. The second song is about the women of Baie Chaleur (which we're looking out on), accompanied by Joanne on guitar, and some other music on Roger's laptop. Unfortunately, there's a technical glitch, and while the audience can hear the recorded music, it isn't being fed back to the choir, and their voices get very very quiet, hoping to find their way back to the beat of the recording. The technical error is corrected, and they start again, this time with the choir being able to hear their accompaniment -- their voices are much stronger and their faces less strained on this second version. :-) A great job, and a lovely welcome -- we're already having a wonderful night!
We started our first set, and any doubts that the folks wouldn't "get" our rootsy music were quickly dispelled. Don asked during one introduction whether folks were interested in hearing the stories behind the songs -- heads bobbed everywhere, they wanted to know it all. We were home. :-)
A very quick stretch break, where we were warned half the audience would probably leave -- but very few did. We commented to each other how much fun we were having, and what a great community feel there was. Rather than disapproving comments from some of the older churchy folks, they were most enthusiastic, and even the apparent great-grannies stuck around.
The second set began with the choir joining us for Don's song "Oh So Much Pavement" -- another fabulous job. If only we'd had more foresight and time to bring them in on more songs!
After the concert, the UCW had prepared a reception -- and folks stayed to chat and nibble for quite a long time. We got many comments about how the concert felt like the old coffee houses, and one woman seemed positively thrilled when I told here they were starting to make a comeback in other parts of the country. And once again, we were pleasantly surprised when the CD table was surrounded by folks who wanted to take us home -- one woman even grabbed a handful of our postcards, to give to her brother and other friends who she wanted to tell about us. We were asked many times when we'd be coming back -- we feel loved. :-)
After packing up, we headed back to Kathryn and Roger's with Gordon and Kay for a glass of wine (or three) and more fun conversation. Kay and Gordon are both Clifton natives, with many generations ahead of them, so have lots of knowledge about the area, which was interesting to learn. They managed to pry themselves off home around midnight, and the rest of us kept chattering away. Around 1:00, Kathryn said it was time for bed -- but we still didn't actually make it there until about 2:00. Not such a big deal for we night-owls, especially with the time change, but I have a feeling the other four aren't used to such crazy bed-times! (Surprisingly, we weren't the ones keeping the conversations going, though.)
We all fell into comas (a very comfy futon -- Don didn't move once before morning, which is unusual for him) with big smiles on our faces.
In the morning, Roger demonstrated his electronic bagpipes for Don (he assured me it wasn't a hint to get out of bed, but I don't entirely believe him...), and then we had breakfast and yet more conversation. (One woman from the audience called to tell us how much she had enjoyed our concert -- warmed the cockles of our heart, it did!) We could have probably gone on for several more days, but there's a niece and nephew waiting patiently for us in Halifax, so we bid our adieu-s and frapped la rue. It's been a bit drizzly today, some places downright rainy, but the fall colours have been gorgeous, and we managed to avoid any close encounters with moose.
In a week where we've been busy, stressed, and perhaps a little on the cranky-pants side, this was EXACTLY the type of gig we needed -- the kind that reminds us why we've ditched stability for a life in music, and why we haul ourselves across the country to share it. Sharing our ideas with others, learning others' ideas and seeing how they all fit together. Music, religion, philosophy, science, tradition, integration, it all weaves together. Friends, community, communion. Music, love, wine, conversation and some really good food. What more could we want out of life?
Musically and movedly and moving rapidly toward Halifax,
Lyss & Don
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Happy Anniversary to Us
As many of you already know, we've been celebrating our anniversary week at the same place we honeymooned two years ago -- Sir Sam's Inn and Water Spa. We missed doing anything for our first anniversary, due to Don's cancer diagnosis and not knowing when where and how he would be treated. So we decided to celebrate health and life and love by going all-out for our second anniversary. As last year taught us, you never know what's coming your way, so you might as well do what you want when you want it. Our unborn children aren't exactly gonna be fighting over their inheritance...
It's been a lazy bunch of days, as we're realizing just how sleep-deprived we've been. Napping and reading have been a big part of the week, as well as pretending to read while we're really napping. We've had great intentions of doing more vigorous activity, but... it's also been bloody hot. Today (Wednesday) is the first comfortable day, in fact.
Ah, but I'm not here to talk about today, I'm here to tell you all about yesterday, our actual anniversary day. You see, I've been posting the food and beverage reports to friends on FB (and somehow, they still seem to like us), but somehow the anniversary day needs a bit more space.
Even on such an auspicious day, Don still got up early to do his workout. I took the time to work out my imagination and dreaming technique, which was actually quite good that morning -- none of the wacky stuff you've caught glimpses of in my other blog, nope, it was all deer and flowers and sunshine. Yes, really. Yes, me. See what a week off can do for a girl?
When we'd both finished our respective workouts, it was time for breakfast! Yes, breakfast. Yes, me. Pick yourself up off the floor people, it happens sometimes. Most especially when it comes as part of the vacation package (hey, I'm cheap, suck it up), and when there's a chef like this cooking it for me! Keeping with the "go big or go home" attitude, I allowed myself to give in to the temptation of thick-sliced lemon-poppyseed French toast, doused in a home-made strawberry and blueberry maple syrup. Holy mother of pearl, was it ever good -- and I almost managed to finish the whole damned thing, almost... Don went the good boy route (keener!) and had a western omelette with sharp cheddar cheese, with strip bacon, just to be different (he usually goes for the peameal). Also to be wild and crazy, he had decaf instead of his usual tea. I tell ya, things can get pretty zany when middle-aged folks go on vacation. ;-)
We took our last coffees to go, and grabbed a pair of Muskoka chairs in the shade of a nice old tree, with a bit of a breeze coming off the lake. I've FINALLY been able to start reading a book by one of my earliest friends (we met in grade 1, thought each other terrible snobs at first, but then realized we were both incredibly shy and became fast friends shortly thereafter) -- Caitlin Sweet's "The Pattern Scars". Now, Cait has always been a writer, even in grade one, but HOLY CRAP, this novel is incredibly powerful. She's really pushed it into the next level, and it's no wonder she keeps winning accolades and nominations and CBC book contests and all that nifty stuff. (I'm only half-way through, so don't anyone spoil the ending for me.) I'm not just saying that because she's one of my friends, I'm saying that because it's truly an amazing book. Go buy a copy, in hard cover, and one for all of your friends. (No, she's not paying me to say this, although she does know my favourite chocolate, hint, hint...) Don's got his hands on John Irving's latest, "In One Person", and is over half-way through too. He doesn't gush quite the same as I do, but he does say "it's a really good book, I'm enjoying it." Of course, he's trying to actually read it right now, so... perhaps he'll gush later.
Our shady reading was interrupted by a need for our favourite daytime drink here: cranberry and orange juice, 50-50. Sir Sam's is very enviro-conscious, and use the compostable cups for their outdoor "to go" glasses -- yay Sir Sam's, we really appreciate it!
After our oh-so-busy morning, we headed up for a hot shower to prepare ourselves for our Spa Bliss. We've had a couple of massages here already with Cindy and Sheryl, who are AMAZING, but for our anniversary day, we upped the ante and booked them for TWO HOURS.
It started with a Mango Scrub and Wrap. First, they donned loofah gloves and exfoliated our bods until they were shiny. Then they drizzled warm mango goop all over us, and wrapped us in cocoons for the remainder of the first hour, while they massaged our necks, heads and faces. Then they sent us into a warm shower to de-goop -- our skin was so soft, and we were so relaxed, we could hardly walk in a straight line, or even form coherent sentences. We floated our way back to the massage tables, where they poured moisturizer and essential oils all over us, and went to work massaging the rest of us -- mostly shoulders for me, which are always ridiculously tight. Even after 3 massages in a row, there are still knots back there -- although they've been reduced to little marble-sized knots, as opposed to the big chunks of marble I showed up with. I think I need a personal masseuse to just follow me around all day... who also cooks breakfast... and maybe we can outfit our bathtub with one of those shoulder massagers... no, those things are so powerful, it would probably send our old tub directly to the basement, ah well.
We were advised to not bathe or shower for at least a few hours, so all the moisturizer had a chance to soak in, so... we headed to the patio for more cranberry-orange concoctions and books. It looked for a while there that we might get another thunderstorm, but we stayed safe and dry.
Then we headed up to our room for a hot soak in the massage tub. All the goop in our skin caused the jets to turn it into a bubble bath! Hopefully nobody slips in there...
Then we got dressed and headed down to dinner. All our favourite staff were on duty in the dining room, minus Claudio (who we had previously, inadvertently, frightened into thinking I was a restaurant reviewer, when Don asked for a copy of the menu so I could write about it on the internet -- but he gave us awesome service!). Tara was bustling around, looking after everything for everybody -- she's always got tons of energy, and is really amazing at her job, Savannah dropped by to say hello and happy anniversary, and Chris was overseeing it all. Omar was assigned to our table -- a really sweet and fun guy here from Mexico, who has taken it upon himself to teach Don some Spanish this week. He's only been here a month, so his English is still a bit rusty, but he's obviously been a waiter back home for a while. And he does some pretty fancy tricks with a wine cork, which he's promised to show me, so I can entertain people at parties. :-)
And speaking of wine... we once again decided to go above and beyond, for this celebratory day, and chose the Veenwouden Classic Private Cellar 2003 from Paarl Region, South Africa. We can't remember having wine from South Africa before, but this was a fantastic introduction -- layers and layers of flavours, sharp and round at the same time, made our mouths ever-so-happy!
And speaking of happy mouths... we both started with the Lemon Butter Poached Prawns, with mango hollandaise on a bed of young frisee. If you think that sounds like lemon-buttery-goodness, multiply that by 1000. Definitely not diet food, but proof that God wasn't fooling around when we were given taste buds.
They did have a purely vegetarian offering tonight, but it was a meatless chicken breast, and (TMI?) that tends to cause issues with my digestive system, so I stuck with the fish. It was a Pan Seared Ontario Yellow Pickerel, with a puttanesca sauce and an onion tortilla. And the portion size was perfect for me, though I didn't finish the onion tortilla. To be fair, though, the onion tortilla was actually two slices of multi-layered towers of ten tortillas, filled with onions and cheese -- absolutely delicious and decadent, but (TMI!) my body cannot handle too much of that richness, and I didn't want to spend the rest of the night in either agony or the bathroom... (OK, the squeamish can read again.)
Don went for the Confit King Cole Duck Leg with lemon scented risotto and a grape preserved & reduced balsamic reduction (yes, a reduced reduction... I'm just copying this down from the menu). The meat was cooked so tenderly it was practically falling off the bone, and he adopted some of the cooing sounds he always grins at when I'm eating something divine.
We were so stuffed, that we decided to just split a dessert (yes, even cheap old me couldn't justify ordering two), and chose a chocolate peanut butter mousse cake, topped with roasted almonds and served with strawberries and whipped cream, and a drizzle of caramel. It was surprisingly light and fluffy, and after thinking we'd each only have a bite, we finished the whole thing. :-) As it was a special occasion, we also ordered two decaf Spanish coffees -- whoops, ESL thing, we were brought two decaf coffees, and he served them to us in Spanish. Maybe if we had asked for Irish, it would have been more clear... But he's so sweet, we didn't want to embarrass him, so we just drank our coffees and smiled.
After dinner, we headed to the bar, where we were the only ones around -- unlike our last trip here, everyone seems to go to bed pretty early this week! Maybe it's the heat. Chris offered to buy us a round, since it was our anniversary, but our plan was to go for the single malt (not the wine he was used to serving us), so we let him off the hook. I had the Balvenie, and Don went for the Lagavullen. Some of the staff dropped in and out to chat as they were finishing up, and Omar joined us for a while as well, but then even he had to go to bed, as he was on breakfast duty and needed a snooze first.
And so we toddled upstairs with a wee tipple, and toasted two adventurous years. Ain't life grand.
It's been a lazy bunch of days, as we're realizing just how sleep-deprived we've been. Napping and reading have been a big part of the week, as well as pretending to read while we're really napping. We've had great intentions of doing more vigorous activity, but... it's also been bloody hot. Today (Wednesday) is the first comfortable day, in fact.
Ah, but I'm not here to talk about today, I'm here to tell you all about yesterday, our actual anniversary day. You see, I've been posting the food and beverage reports to friends on FB (and somehow, they still seem to like us), but somehow the anniversary day needs a bit more space.
Even on such an auspicious day, Don still got up early to do his workout. I took the time to work out my imagination and dreaming technique, which was actually quite good that morning -- none of the wacky stuff you've caught glimpses of in my other blog, nope, it was all deer and flowers and sunshine. Yes, really. Yes, me. See what a week off can do for a girl?
When we'd both finished our respective workouts, it was time for breakfast! Yes, breakfast. Yes, me. Pick yourself up off the floor people, it happens sometimes. Most especially when it comes as part of the vacation package (hey, I'm cheap, suck it up), and when there's a chef like this cooking it for me! Keeping with the "go big or go home" attitude, I allowed myself to give in to the temptation of thick-sliced lemon-poppyseed French toast, doused in a home-made strawberry and blueberry maple syrup. Holy mother of pearl, was it ever good -- and I almost managed to finish the whole damned thing, almost... Don went the good boy route (keener!) and had a western omelette with sharp cheddar cheese, with strip bacon, just to be different (he usually goes for the peameal). Also to be wild and crazy, he had decaf instead of his usual tea. I tell ya, things can get pretty zany when middle-aged folks go on vacation. ;-)
We took our last coffees to go, and grabbed a pair of Muskoka chairs in the shade of a nice old tree, with a bit of a breeze coming off the lake. I've FINALLY been able to start reading a book by one of my earliest friends (we met in grade 1, thought each other terrible snobs at first, but then realized we were both incredibly shy and became fast friends shortly thereafter) -- Caitlin Sweet's "The Pattern Scars". Now, Cait has always been a writer, even in grade one, but HOLY CRAP, this novel is incredibly powerful. She's really pushed it into the next level, and it's no wonder she keeps winning accolades and nominations and CBC book contests and all that nifty stuff. (I'm only half-way through, so don't anyone spoil the ending for me.) I'm not just saying that because she's one of my friends, I'm saying that because it's truly an amazing book. Go buy a copy, in hard cover, and one for all of your friends. (No, she's not paying me to say this, although she does know my favourite chocolate, hint, hint...) Don's got his hands on John Irving's latest, "In One Person", and is over half-way through too. He doesn't gush quite the same as I do, but he does say "it's a really good book, I'm enjoying it." Of course, he's trying to actually read it right now, so... perhaps he'll gush later.
Our shady reading was interrupted by a need for our favourite daytime drink here: cranberry and orange juice, 50-50. Sir Sam's is very enviro-conscious, and use the compostable cups for their outdoor "to go" glasses -- yay Sir Sam's, we really appreciate it!
After our oh-so-busy morning, we headed up for a hot shower to prepare ourselves for our Spa Bliss. We've had a couple of massages here already with Cindy and Sheryl, who are AMAZING, but for our anniversary day, we upped the ante and booked them for TWO HOURS.
It started with a Mango Scrub and Wrap. First, they donned loofah gloves and exfoliated our bods until they were shiny. Then they drizzled warm mango goop all over us, and wrapped us in cocoons for the remainder of the first hour, while they massaged our necks, heads and faces. Then they sent us into a warm shower to de-goop -- our skin was so soft, and we were so relaxed, we could hardly walk in a straight line, or even form coherent sentences. We floated our way back to the massage tables, where they poured moisturizer and essential oils all over us, and went to work massaging the rest of us -- mostly shoulders for me, which are always ridiculously tight. Even after 3 massages in a row, there are still knots back there -- although they've been reduced to little marble-sized knots, as opposed to the big chunks of marble I showed up with. I think I need a personal masseuse to just follow me around all day... who also cooks breakfast... and maybe we can outfit our bathtub with one of those shoulder massagers... no, those things are so powerful, it would probably send our old tub directly to the basement, ah well.
We were advised to not bathe or shower for at least a few hours, so all the moisturizer had a chance to soak in, so... we headed to the patio for more cranberry-orange concoctions and books. It looked for a while there that we might get another thunderstorm, but we stayed safe and dry.
Then we headed up to our room for a hot soak in the massage tub. All the goop in our skin caused the jets to turn it into a bubble bath! Hopefully nobody slips in there...
Then we got dressed and headed down to dinner. All our favourite staff were on duty in the dining room, minus Claudio (who we had previously, inadvertently, frightened into thinking I was a restaurant reviewer, when Don asked for a copy of the menu so I could write about it on the internet -- but he gave us awesome service!). Tara was bustling around, looking after everything for everybody -- she's always got tons of energy, and is really amazing at her job, Savannah dropped by to say hello and happy anniversary, and Chris was overseeing it all. Omar was assigned to our table -- a really sweet and fun guy here from Mexico, who has taken it upon himself to teach Don some Spanish this week. He's only been here a month, so his English is still a bit rusty, but he's obviously been a waiter back home for a while. And he does some pretty fancy tricks with a wine cork, which he's promised to show me, so I can entertain people at parties. :-)
And speaking of wine... we once again decided to go above and beyond, for this celebratory day, and chose the Veenwouden Classic Private Cellar 2003 from Paarl Region, South Africa. We can't remember having wine from South Africa before, but this was a fantastic introduction -- layers and layers of flavours, sharp and round at the same time, made our mouths ever-so-happy!
And speaking of happy mouths... we both started with the Lemon Butter Poached Prawns, with mango hollandaise on a bed of young frisee. If you think that sounds like lemon-buttery-goodness, multiply that by 1000. Definitely not diet food, but proof that God wasn't fooling around when we were given taste buds.
They did have a purely vegetarian offering tonight, but it was a meatless chicken breast, and (TMI?) that tends to cause issues with my digestive system, so I stuck with the fish. It was a Pan Seared Ontario Yellow Pickerel, with a puttanesca sauce and an onion tortilla. And the portion size was perfect for me, though I didn't finish the onion tortilla. To be fair, though, the onion tortilla was actually two slices of multi-layered towers of ten tortillas, filled with onions and cheese -- absolutely delicious and decadent, but (TMI!) my body cannot handle too much of that richness, and I didn't want to spend the rest of the night in either agony or the bathroom... (OK, the squeamish can read again.)
Don went for the Confit King Cole Duck Leg with lemon scented risotto and a grape preserved & reduced balsamic reduction (yes, a reduced reduction... I'm just copying this down from the menu). The meat was cooked so tenderly it was practically falling off the bone, and he adopted some of the cooing sounds he always grins at when I'm eating something divine.
We were so stuffed, that we decided to just split a dessert (yes, even cheap old me couldn't justify ordering two), and chose a chocolate peanut butter mousse cake, topped with roasted almonds and served with strawberries and whipped cream, and a drizzle of caramel. It was surprisingly light and fluffy, and after thinking we'd each only have a bite, we finished the whole thing. :-) As it was a special occasion, we also ordered two decaf Spanish coffees -- whoops, ESL thing, we were brought two decaf coffees, and he served them to us in Spanish. Maybe if we had asked for Irish, it would have been more clear... But he's so sweet, we didn't want to embarrass him, so we just drank our coffees and smiled.
After dinner, we headed to the bar, where we were the only ones around -- unlike our last trip here, everyone seems to go to bed pretty early this week! Maybe it's the heat. Chris offered to buy us a round, since it was our anniversary, but our plan was to go for the single malt (not the wine he was used to serving us), so we let him off the hook. I had the Balvenie, and Don went for the Lagavullen. Some of the staff dropped in and out to chat as they were finishing up, and Omar joined us for a while as well, but then even he had to go to bed, as he was on breakfast duty and needed a snooze first.
And so we toddled upstairs with a wee tipple, and toasted two adventurous years. Ain't life grand.
Monday, June 4, 2012
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