Vintage Hinckley

If you can't roll over in the morning and see your wife's lovely face, then at least you should be able to look out your window and see a Hinckley yacht. This is my version of heaven.

Such was my morning mourning of yesterday. No Wendy, but there was a vintage 1950 Hinckley yacht anchored across the lake from my lakeside estate, Narrowleaf.

Did that not sound wonderfully pretentious?

I am familiar with this yacht. She's lived in the channel from the Washademoak to the St.John River since I moved here. I used to motor past her in Maud regularly. She used to have a white, wooden hull but a few years ago she was retrofitted with what I believe to be a fiberglass shell. She looks magnificent. If I had the money, I'd buy a Hinckley and moor it out front for aesthetics. That's what Martha Stewart does in Seal Harbor, Maine, with her Hinckley Picnic boat. That's what many boat owners do. So few people use their boats regularly. I'm rambling.

Hinckley good. SeaDoo bad. End of story.

The Village Idiots Play Cambridge-Narrows Community Days Variety Show

Success! The Village Idiots debuted a new original song, Mayor Blair's Blues, last night at the Cambridge-Narrows Community Days variety show.

The performance went exceptionally well, but don't take my word for it. Check it out yourself.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYxxYsMLEeg

Flower Power

I could have bought a new car, perhaps a Corvette.

I could have taken Wendy on a trip to New Zealand.

I could have bought Julian a 1950s Gibson Les Paul.

I could have developed a crystal meth addiction.

I could have bought a used Hinckley Picnic Boat.

I could have attended missionary school...for 10 years.

But no...I decided to spend my retirement funds on rhododendrons. I decided, the other day, that I should count the number of them on our property. Take a guess. How many do you think I have?

If you said 117 then you'd be...................wrong. It's actually 34, still a respectable number. They're all quite young at this point, but some day I hope that 'spring in the Narrows' will be every bit as delicious as 'summer in the province'. That should have read like 'summer in Provence'.

In addition to my 34 rhoddies, I also have about 7 azaleas but they don't seem to fair as well. Of course, I only have myself to blame for buying Scottish azaleas.

What's Up, Dock?

Have you ever seen the television show Extreme Makeover? Typically some poor people get their house renovated by a team of slick builders/designers hired by even slicker Hollywood types. While the renovations are happening, the po' folks are put up in some swank hotel while they await their domestic conversion. Inevitably, when they're brought back, the chubby children are yo-yoing up and down as though their Ritalin prescription had long since run out. The chubby mother is always teary-eyed. It all ends with the family hugging the chisel jawed host.

The next week? A new chubby family, a new group hug. This is how television works. Find a formula Holstein, then milk it.

We're getting a bit of an extreme makeover here in Cambridge-Narrows. Our village wharf, which we had to call a 'dock' in order to get federal funding, is being re-fronted. The crew arrives every morning and starts their ratta-tat-tatting. I dinna mind the din as it muffles the sound of the sheltie's incessant yapping. Plus it's the sound of progress. The wharf, I mean the dock, was in dire need of some love.

When the last spike has been tatta-tat-tatted, I'm hopeful there will be a grand re-opening ceremony. The mayor could give a grand speech, the type that would be quoted for years afterwards. There will be other dignitaries (perhaps the Federal Minister Of Fisheries, Oceans, Ice Cream, Knee High Socks and Docks, or maybe the executive assistant to the deputy fire chief of Lower Jemseg??). Maybe the Village Idiots could write a song (Sitting By The Dock Of The Lake). The mayor would invite someone from the apartment building to smash a beer bottle, in lieu of Cranpagne, on the dock's edge (been there, done that) to make it all official, then the mayor would invite us all to go for a swim, but not before we enjoy a lengthy group hug.
 ,

Derelict House Thoughts

If tacos can walk, surely a house can talk, right?

The house in this image is located about one kilometre from my place. In the twenty-one years that I've lived in Cambridge-Narrows, I've never seen this house occupied. I've never seen anyone give it a sideways glance, other than me.

So what's the story, morning glory? Better yet, what's up, buttercup?

This house must hold a story or two, perhaps even some secrets, but how to make it talk? I'll have to start talking...asking questions....but this might involve talking to 'locals'. Let me think about this. I'll have to weigh the danger of engaging 7th generation Loyalists against my desire for investigative enlightenment.

What you askin' all these question fer, boy? Git git.

Oh, what the hell....I'll just ask Ken Appleby. He knows everything, and he's just a first generation Idiot.

Did Your Hear? Summer Has Been Cancelled

I remember about a decade ago a summer in which every day had some percentage probability of precipitation. It was horrid.

You couldn't, with any inkling of certainty, plan anything outdoors. The thong-wrapped, shower cap crowned boogie man was always right behind you, crying on your shoulder, and you couldn't outrun him. So as not to be sexist, the boogie man in a shower cap can be interchanged with meteorologist Nindy Day, reigning terror in her granny's 'modesty' bathing suit. Imagine that.

This summer is shaping up to be 'one of those' summers.

The moral of the story:

1) don't summer in New Brunswick.

The rebuttal to the moral:

1a) what 'summer' in New Brunswick?

We've had some nice summer days so far, to be fair, but there's always the threat of fun-ruining rain. Almost every morning starts off bleak and grey. Sunsets? Forget about it. Every day ends grey too. It's just plain weird....very unsettling. The stock market has been wonky and interest rates are on the rise. These are trying times. Thank goodness the Super Store avocados have been superlative lately.

Christmas In July...Barely

Happy Canada Day!

Alright, so now it's July....and we all know what that means: finally a four letter month that starts with 'J...U...".

What about June, Ian?

Doh!

Okay, what it really means is Christmas in July. To the best of my knowledge, Christmas In July is a name given to a series of tack shops that sell Christmas ornaments all year long. Their customer base is comprised of morons, dolts, mental midgets, the cerebrally idle, and quite possibly my neighbours. There's one of these shops in Bar Harbor, I believe.

Well, one must do something when it rains.

So, if there was Christmas In July, say on Canada Day, what would I ask Satan (not a typo) for? I'd  ask for a mooring ball boat. Lo and behold, voila and abra-cadabra, look what's right in front of my place this morning!

Thank you, Satan. You're way better than Santa. All I got for Christmas in December was a book about golf jokes (see below) and some freeze dried egg salad sandwich powder, the type Chris Hadfield favours after a studio session in space.

(As a couple approaches the altar the groom tells his wife-to-be, "Honey, I've got something to confess: I'm a golf nut, and every chance I get, I'll be playing golf!" 

"Since we're being honest," replies the bride, "I have to tell you that I'm a hooker." 
The groom replies, "That's okay, honey. You just need to learn to keep your head down and your left arm straight!" )

Why is there a mooring ball boat fifty feet off my shore? My 'siren' is in Italy, so it was nothing femininely nefarious. Last evening the mooring guy from Belleisle was about to move my mooring ball when his transmission conked out. Thinking quickly, and working in a strong southerly wind, he dropped a mooring block as an anchor and averted the inconvenience of a shipwreck. His boat was about to go up on my shore.

In all likelihood he'll repair the transmission this Canada Day morning and move my mooring ball closer to shore. As I said, Christmas In July.  I've been wanting to have the mooring ball moved for years.

Ho, ho, ho (see golf joke).