Thursday, October 11, 2012

Where'd a decade go?!


Looking back ten years!

Okay, I was going to post about soup this morning, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I started looking for something in iPhoto (I forget what now!) and ended up pulling a bunch of photos from 2002. How can it be that ten years have passed since I got my first digital camera?!

Some things haven't changed, but a lot has...


Ten years ago, I weighed at least ten pounds less, and we were living in beautiful Nova Scotia, about 20 minutes up the road from Peggys Cove. (Apparently they dropped the apostrophe in "Peggy's" in 1976!)This pic was taken not far from that famous little village.


 Ten years ago, we had two dogs: Tara (an English Setter I inherited from my Mum) and Chelsea, my Lab-Collie-Pointer, adopted as a tiny puppy at the end of 1987.


In 2002, Tara was 10. Chelsea was 15 and coming up to the end of a long, happy life with us.



Tara always knew she was a beauty. What a princess! You'll find her in the early years of this blog. We had to put her to sleep in 2006 when she was 14-1/2. She had a good life.


Chelsea was my heart dog. She was the first pup I could really call my own. I adopted her from the Pickering-Ajax-Whitby animal shelter in late 1987. She was an adorable puppy:


No digital camera then!



The vet came to our house in Nova Scotia to put her to sleep in August 2003. Chelsea will always be in my heart. She and I went through a lot together and she was always loyal and loving.


We had a two different cats back them...


Here's Mashka, adopted at the Toronto Humane Society in 1995. She was our first cat! Beautiful and with a very regal attitude. Gordon picked her because she was the only cat not sleeping in her litterbox, so he figured she was smart. And he has a thing for grey girls (good thing, since I don't dye my hair and 50 is just around the corner!)


Zoë joined us in 1997, just after my Mum died. She was a tiny, ringwormy kitten at the time. (In fact, she gave us all ringworm, despite precautions. Such fun!) It's a long story, but she came to me from Washington state. Deb, a friend of mine there, had rescued her and was looking for a home for her. I said, "If you can get her here, I'll take her!" Deb took up the challenge.

That mission was accomplished with the help of several wonderful volunteers who were active in dog rescue. The last leg of her trip involved a flight from Calgary to Toronto on Air Canada. The boss of a woman I knew in dog rescue had a business trip in Toronto (where we lived at the time) and agreed to bring the kitten to the airport and hand her over to us. She was so tiny, everyone called her "Itty Bitty Kitty." She came as carry-on in a really small crate, with her pet "skunky", seen on the top of the couch behind my shoulder.


We nursed her back to health and she spent the next ten years glued to either me or Gordon.

And yes, my hair is naturally curly/wavy. Only in the past two years have I been wearing it straight (thanks, flat iron).  I grew up with wavy hair in the 70s, when all the other girls wanted to look like Marcia Brady. Everyone needs a change now and then, but I'm sure it'll be going back to wavy before too long.



We lost sweet Zoë suddenly in 2007. The vet thought she had a tumour on her heart. She only got to live at the farm for a few weeks, but I'm glad she saw our new home.



Gordon had less grey hair back in 2002, but he still often sports a cat on his lap!

And look who's enjoying a catnip fix on the counter with Zoë...


 Why yes, it's Julius. He is our Nova Scotia kitty. He showed up at our back door sometime in late 2000 and never left. He has travelled all over Canada and lived in four provinces. He was much fluffier back then because he was an indoor/outdoor cat. He's got his full winter coat on in this photo.




This is the "High Head", a spectacular cliff walk near our house in Prospect, NS. Our house was on Shad Bay, which starts where the cliffs do in this pic, and leads down to the right. I used to see minke whales and seals right behind our house. Oceanfront property was very affordable in NS in 2002!


Just a stunning spot at any time of the year. I got that headband for Gordon at the airport in Iceland on the way back from England. He lost it somewhere on one of our many moves.


I still have that green jacket. It's now my barn coat in winter. 

I miss living in Nova Scotia, but I ended up where I'm supposed to be, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

So much has happened in a decade.


37 comments:

  1. I loved this blast from the past...it's great to look back.
    Jane x

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    1. Isn't it, though? Sometimes bittersweet, but always interesting!

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  2. What a nice trip down memory lane. And it makes me think of my own ongoing questions about time passing, and where did the last ten years go. As the Talking Heads song asked - "how did I get here?" Great to see these photos of you and Gordon and your cats and dogs over the years.

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    1. I can't believe I've been with G for 23 years now. Time sure flies...

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  3. That was fun, Natalie. Yes, we all wonder where ten years goes but this is why I love photographs so much. They take us back to the very moment. Your English Setter looked just like a dog I walked for a good friend years back when I had a dog-walking service. Her name was Angie and she could have been her twin. Chelsea looks like a dear, sweet dog. I see Kane in those eyes now that he is aging quickly. He will be 13 this coming summer. I only hope he gets to live a few years with us in Manotick once we move. He loves it there. Love to see all your cats from the past. All so special, I'm sure. Deb

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    1. Here's hoping Kane has many years left in him. He's so well cared-for and loved by you, I suspect he'll be here for along time to come.

      Aren't photos great?

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  4. What an extraordinary look back; we've lived all over and I finally think we're where we should be, but I'd never say definitely. I've never been to Nova Scotia, but seeing your photos, it's added to my Bucket List. XOXO

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    1. It remains one of my favourite places on earth. I would have stayed there forever, but it wasn't the right place for Gordon (career wise) and we needed to be somewhere we'd both be happy. But I just love it, especially the rugged granite coastline and the smell of the ocean everywhere!

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  5. Nova Scotia (New Scotland?) does look like a wonderful place. Loved the photos. Bittersweet memories.

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    1. New Scotland it is! Or Nouvelle-Ecosse for the French speakers of Canada. A very Scottish place: lots of plaid, bagpipes, Scots Gaelic up in Cape Breton!

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  6. Those Shad Bay photos are stunning.

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    1. I just about died when we had to move from there. I finally recovered! :) I've been back to visit a few times and it's hard to tear myself away from the ocean.

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  7. I so enjoy your photos, and vicariously your pets, ducks, chickens, and (less so) bees. It's fun to have a blogger to follow who has such beauty in her life and most certainly brings much beauty to it herself.

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  8. DOGS! Yes!

    Decades just haven't been the same since they reduced them to only ten years.

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    1. I know, you need more dogs. I will work on that!!!

      And yes, shocking the way they fiddled with the decades, isn't it?

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  9. Thank you for such a wonderful trip down the memory lane. It was nice to meet your animal angels.

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    1. AH, they never leave our hearts, do they?

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  10. Thank´s for taking us with you on your memory lane :)

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    1. Glad you came along for the trip!

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  11. Kinda scary to look back ten years! But you also see a past image that was great. So a picture made you look back and contemplate your life.
    And tomorrow I can look forward to some good soup.

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    1. It doesn't take much to send me off on a tangent, REd!

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  12. Wonderful post! Sad to see our animals who are gone but nice to remember giving them a great life while they were here with us.
    Nova Scotia looks so different from where you are now. How wonderful for you to have enjoyed both of these locations.

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    1. Barb, it's really different. I like that about Canada, so many different landscapes. I want to go to the Far North next. THat's one part of Canada I haven't seen, although I did get to Alaska!

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  13. Anonymous11:20 pm

    And alas, that was among the warmest and most comfy of headbands. Those Icelanders sure know their ponies and protect the ears from freezing gear!

    g

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    1. I need to get you another one online!

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  14. You were just a kid!

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    1. :))) I didn't think so at the time! Hahaha!

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  15. Some stunning views, especially 3rd up from the end, a very lovely lady on a sofa with long wavy hair, and in photo 2 some big feet? Or big shoes on dainty feet?

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    1. Hahahaha! My feet are huge, size 10 in Canada. I think that's 42 in Europe or some such thing. Pontoons!

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    2. Bloody hell. I'm a size 10/42 too (We use the 10 in UK, not continental European sizes) and I'm 6 foot 4 tall. Let's focus on my "lovely lady on the sofa comment" and forget about feet. AND..., one of the many things that puzzle me about women is that for years they spent lots of money trying to turn straight hair wavy and curly, but now they buy expensive apparatus to make curly wavy hair straight. Never happy with what they've got? Your long wavy hair was lovely (and may even have distracted people from gazing at your huge feet :) The Rude Don

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    3. Okay, I looked at an online conversion thing and it says a North American 10 is a European 41 - 42, and it claims in the UK I'm a 7-1/2. But I do have big feet. 10 is the largest size you regularly find in shoe stores here. Any bigger and you usually need a specialty store.

      Now now, I'm not very high maintenance with the hair. After all, it was curly wurly for about 46 years! Change is good once in a while. Eventually I'll get fed up and let it go back to its unruly self! But thank you for the compliments about my hair. :) I doubt it'll ever be that long again, but I'm sure it;ll be curly again. You should see it when it's humid/damp out. Afro!

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  16. Nova Scotia looks beautiful!

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  17. I love this post - I love to read about the past!!! And I love to see the old pics! Thanks for sharing!

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Thank you for all your comments, which I love to read!