Macsen's birthday on June 6th was celebrated with an outing to the aquarium to watch the daily feeding performance of Loki and Snorkel, the resident seals. In addition to the seals, we admired the striking Delft blue coloured lobster and learned how slowly lobsters grow (they are still only 1,5cm after a year), that starfish have eyes at the end of their tentacles and that scallops are the only bivalve mollusk that can propel themselves about (and squirt Seb in the face). To complete the fish theme, Nana and I made a bright orange clownfish cake with two candles. HonGu joined us for dinner and presents and all in all I think Macsen had a wonderful 2nd birthday.
Kees and Mart from the big Pjotter arrived in St. Andrews a few days prior to our arrival. They had spent some time already with my parents and were enjoying the local people and scenery immensely and ended up making many friends and good memories while they were there. We spent some lovely times sharing meals, ideas and plans with them and generally enjoying their delight in this lovely little piece of Canada. The next time we see them will probably be in Curacao in February 2011.
On June 21st, the Seren (my parent's boat) and the Pjotter convoyed 30 nautical miles for a short visit to Grand Manan Island. Grand Manan is a beautiful little island with rugged coasts located in the middle of the Bay of Fundy. I spent many happy days there staying at my friend Hannah Grant's summer house when I was little. The Grant's were in residence when we visited and treated us to a yummy dinner and a couple of bags of the most delicious ginger cookies from the local pastry chef. Although there was little wind and rather thick fog for much of our sail we did see an exciting amount of sea life including both harbour and gray seals, porpoises, and minke, finback and sei whales (one curious one swam within 2 metres of our boat)!
Emma's birthday, on June 25th was celebrated with a visit to Kingsbrae Gardens to see the alpacas and play in the many playhouses - viewing the gardens was strictly a nice to have on this visit. Emma received a digital camera for her birthday and happily clicked both still life scenes and action shots. Balloons and presents followed and the evening culminated in the blowing out of candles on the mermaid cake (Nana and I again) and a very happy four year old girl toddling off to bed with her new camera in her hand.
In addition to these events, we spent almost a month in St Andrews enjoying lovely weather, eating extremely well, getting things fixed on the boat, attending some amazing concerts, going to the local pub, seeing friends and relaxing with my parents and enjoying ourselves immensely. A perfect time and it was difficult to drag ourselves away to move on.
No comments:
Post a Comment