Since moving here we have made frequent visits to Grand Bend where one of Kevin's friends has a cottage she lets us use. It may seem strange to drive from once beach town to another but the cottage is free and we always have a very quiet, relaxing weekend there. We used to go every year, sometimes twice but her guest book indicates we haven't been there since December 2006 so we were overdue. We left here Thursday. The drive was good and the weather beautiful. As is our habit we stopped at The Yarn Factory Outlet in Listowel to stock up on yarn for my knitting projects. We dined on a whole grocery store chicken (we always do that then we have enough leftovers for sandwiches) and spent a quiet evening watching movies. Friday morning Kevin woke up cold (very unusual). The cottage is roughly 400 square feet plus a sunroom and the propane fireplace - the primary heat source - had gone out. Kevin had a hard time getting it going and we had to use the electric space heater and call for the repair guy. Jason (the service guy) replaced the broken thermal coupler and the high pressure regulator (just in case), cleaned the orifice and poured boiling water on the tank top to make sure it was thawed. He didn't like the look of the pilot light and the fireplace kept going out if the thermostat was turned below 6 (outof 7). And whatever he sprayed on the fireplace glass to clean it triggered the smoke detector and we had 8 hours of it going off. We spent Friday and Saturday alternating between firepace off and on full bore. From one extreme to the other. Last night it was more than 84 degrees in the cottage before we went to bed and I was dripping sweat. Jason came back early this morning and injected methanol into the propane tank (something to do with absorbing water vapour), adjusted the low pressure regulator, took the whole thing apart again and cleaned it all again. The pilot light was finally straight and fat and blue and the fireplace stayed lit! Then we left.
We went swimming Friday night at a motel indoor pool but mostly just relaxed. If any of you ever go through Grand Bend you have to visit Grandpa Jimmy's Scottish Bakery. We went 3 times! They have great whole wheat bread with no sugar and yummy cherry loaf and shortbread. We had their cinnamon buns and rhubarb fritters for breakfast and turkey pies for supper. My favourite though was the millionare squares - a thick layer of shortbread covered with a layer of caramel and chocolate topping - heavenly.
6 comments:
Sounds like you brought your house troubles to the cottage which naturally left your house safe. That's not such a bad idea.
The bakery sounds wonderful and I'm off to check both website now.
I'm very interested in the knitting store. Probably mail order would work better from their then the bakery.
Even know you had some difficulties it sounds like it was just nice to get away, I don't know if I would say relaxing but nice.
I forgot that we were disturbed last night be an animal (presumably a racoon or skunk) trying to scratch it's way into the house. As selfish as it is I am glad the problems weren't with our house this time.
I got an e-mail a week or two ago the Yarn Factory was having a big sale ....
It wouldn't have mattered what had happened, after going to that, the whole weekend would be great!
They had some glow in the dark yarn, did you happen to get any?
I looked at it but who would I knit it for? Can you visualize Kevin wearing a sweater with a glow in the dark skeleton on it?
He'd be the envy of the neighbourhood! LOL
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