Reflecting on Victoria Beach

July 5, 2014February 2, 2015 / betstravelsabout / 6 Comments

“It’s not our experiences but how we reflect on them that make us whole”.

These words were quoted by Jane Fonda at a TEDx conference in December 2011. You can hear all of her speech on blog.ted.com/2012/01/04/lifes-third-act-jane-fonda-on-ted-com. Her topic is on the subject of aging. We are living on an average of 30 years longer than our grandparents so how we deal with this is crucial to our happiness. She calls this new life phase “Life’s Third Act”.

There is certainly much ‘food for thought’ in this quotation. Since most of my friends and I are now in the third act of our lives, most of us agree we don’t want to end our lives as our parents and grandparents did. To prevent this, we are experimenting with all types of different experiences, but are we taking the time to reflect upon them? This is the crux of it all, isn’t it? How can we take our experiences and use them to become a whole person? On hearing this, from Jane, I immediately zeroed in on my travel experiences over the last seven years realizing just how much they have contributed to my own personal growth. This then led to my reflecting on how my life here in Victoria Beach has also contributed to my well-being. In fact, I can take this whole business of experiences and the ability to reflect upon them one step further and include every experience in my life, be they good or bad, as my own personal growth enhancers. I understand more clearly than ever how we can grow so much more from those experiences that are the most challenging rather than those that are the most fun. What makes it all somehow easier is that as we age, we have more wisdom to deal with those challenging ones, the greatest being the ability to deal with aging itself.

Last spring when my husband and I returned from our travels to Victoria Beach, we began to question whether we wanted to stay and keep on living the rural life in an old house in a remote area so far away from our children and grandchildren. We decided to put our house up for sale. Luckily we had only a few nibbles because now after more soul-searching and a closer look at our finances, we have decided to stay here for the time being and enjoy what we have built up over the past eight years. To move back to Ontario would mean having to start all over again which somehow seemed to be taking a step backwards. We realized that by remaining here, we can have the best of two worlds: temperate summers and lovely autumns here and five months of sun in a warm country. So long as we have our health and enough money for airfare to get us to an undeveloped country where the cost of living is less, we can not only escape winter but also experience different cultures.

So what are some of the growth enhancing experiences that I have discovered while living in Victoria Beach? Here are three of them:

1. The fact that I have unspoiled nature all around me. I can see the great Bay of Fundy from my living room window. I can go for walks along our beautiful road (the oldest in Canada as it boasts of the Habitation in Port Royal founded by Samuel de Champlain in 1604) which takes me through woods and fields where all that reaches my ears are the sounds mother nature and an occasional passing car. I can hear the fog horn in the distance when it’s overcast. I can wake up to the sound of the birds in the morning. I can see the stars and phases of the moon clearly at night. I get a thrill from seeing and hearing the Princess of Acadia, the ferry which goes right past us on its way from Digby to St.John every day. And, yes, I can even learn to like, just a little bit, the sound of the wind whipping around our old house in the late fall and the winter if ever I have to stay here.

Looking out to the Bay of Fundy from Victoria Beach.

Looking across to Digby and the ferry from Victoria Beach.

Blossoms on an old apple tree along side of our road.

2. The most incredible sunsets which are present at all times of the year. I have seen many sunsets in my travels but none to rival what we get here. Every one of them is unique and always a challenge for my amateur photography skills.

Just another incredible sunset at Victoria Beach.

All have their own beauty.

3. Finding a sense of community has to be number three. Victoria Beach has about 50 houses inhabited by locals going back several generations and an increasing number of ‘come from aways’ as the locals like to call us. People from the US, other parts of Canada, Germany, Scotland, and England have come here and fallen in love with what this area has to offer. It took us awhile to feel this ‘sense of community’ but after eight years we have it. We have made friends from all sides both in and around Victoria Beach. When we leave our home for the winter, we have neighbours to keep an eye on things, take in our mail, and water our plants. We know our old house is in good hands. Maybe everyone knows our business, but I have come to realize this is a good thing.

One of the oldest houses in our village.

Yes, I owe Victoria Beach a great deal. It enriches my soul with its unspoiled nature, its sunsets, its sense of community which goes back more than a hundred years, and its friendly inhabitants. I am glad we have made the decision to stay a little bit longer. It just wasn’t the time to go.

The Doe

June 18, 2014January 14, 2019 / betstravelsabout / 10 Comments

Here she is, and isn’t she lovely?

“Oh my God”, I exclaimed to myself when I saw this beautiful creature standing there right in front of me. In fact, my first sense was a feeling that something or someone was watching me. When I looked up there were these big, beautiful brown eyes staring at me. Dare I say that they touched my soul? They seemed to be asking me, “What are you doing here?” For one short moment, she literally took my breath away.

Recovering from my state of breathlessness, I realized I had a terrific photo opportunity right in front of me so I quickly but quietly raised my camera to take this shot of her hoping this wouldn’t scare her off. It didn’t, and not being satisfied with the first shot, I immediately zoomed in to get a close up of her. Alas, she must have sensed this tiny movement and barely audible sound because like a bolt of lightning she took off into the woods.

I’m sure a more seasoned photographer of nature would have got the perfect shot that I was striving for; however from this brief encounter I realized that when taking pictures of wild animals you have to remain perfectly calm and not hesitate for even a second. I wonder what will be the chances of ever having another opportunity such as this one?

I met up with this doe while walking on a small country road in Seabright, Nova Scotia where I spent much time as a young girl, first with my grandmother and then with an aunt and uncle who basically adopted my brother and me at 10 and 12 years respectively. We spent many weekends in Seabright at “Greenrigs” where my grandmother lived, and later on after she died, at “the camp” which she left to my aunt and uncle on another cove not far away.

“The camp” really was a camp in the true sense of the word. In fact, it was originally my grandmother’s hen coop! It was small and had no running water with an outdoor toilet. Over the years, my uncle put his carpentry and landscaping skills to work to fashion out ‘the camp” as we knew it. It was situated on a sheltered cove off the main part of St. Margaret’s Bay so swimming, diving off the wharf, rowing, water skiing, when my uncle could afford a motor boat, fishing, and picnicking on one of the many islands are some memories of my life at “the camp”.

Meeting the doe was a result of my curiosity to see what was now there where “the camp” once was. Some things still remain, such as a railing my uncle built leading down to the wharf and the many trees he planted. The actual building which morphed from the hen coop is there somewhere in the middle of the new monster home the present owners have built. The house and the surrounding property are all beautifully constructed but somehow it just doesn’t fit in to the place we called “the camp”. Could it be that the yachts and the homes are simply too overdone for this little cove?

In spite of the changes and the signs of modern-day progress now so evident in dear old Seabright, I am glad I took the time to revisit this part of my past. My visit turned out to be a memorable one because it not only provided me with meeting the doe, it also gave me an opportunity to reflect on the best part of my childhood there.

Present day monster home. The original part of “the camp” is to the right behind the pole.

The cove where “the camp” was located.

Adjustment, Reflection, and Realization

June 5, 2014April 23, 2020 / betstravelsabout / 16 Comments

My excuse for not blogging.

I am using my house as an excuse for not keeping up with regular postings on my blog, and I’m sure I could find others if I cared to dig deeper. For now, I’ll stick with the house and my life here in Victoria Beach. I have discovered that in spite of the work that comes with maintaining a house in the country, I must not forget that there is a silver lining to such a life style. Thankfully life here has made me stop and reflect upon my reason for being here, and how I can keep up with my blog when I’m not travelling.

We have had our fair share of challenges since we arrived home on April 25th. In the past I’ve found it relatively easy to get back into the old groove of living here, but this year we have been put to the test. It started when we arrived home on a bitterly cold day to an empty oil tank. However, thanks to our helpful neighbours and our furnace guy who drove all the way out to Victoria Beach from town at eight o’clock at night, we had our furnace up and running before bedtime.

Just when it seemed like we were getting nicely settled into our usual routine, our old house decided to test us once again. This time it presented us with a broken water pipe leaving us with no water for four days. Again our neighbours came to our rescue with bottled water and containers for carrying water from their taps. God bless them!

Then our two old cars decided they needed some attention, too, so in they went for oil changes and inspections after being idle for five months. Mine was given a clean bill of health, but my husband wasn’t so lucky. He received the sad news that his car was facing uncertain death from a case of extreme rust corrosion. His mechanic told him in no uncertain terms that it was totally unsafe and had to be put down immediately! Our bills by this time were mounting up so hubby decided that he would try to find a new, but used car for no more than $4000. Fortunately, he found one in short order at his price which had not a speck of rust anywhere. In fact, it looks almost like a brand new car. This was another little gift from heaven to whom we owe much thanks to Andrew, his mechanic. In the meantime a lady backed into me at the Irving service station causing over $600 damage to my front bumper. Again this has all worked out well and my bumper will be replaced at no cost to me this week.

Every year for the past seven, I have been planting a vegetable garden, an interest which I believe I inherited from my grandmother. To this day, I can still taste her delicious veggies, fruits, and berries which probably explains why each year I tackle the task of coaxing our rocky soil into something suitable enough to yield us at least some fresh vegetables. This spring it’s been unusually cold and dry so not much is coming up yet other than those rocks that just never cease to crop up every year with a vengeance. I am happy to report that most of my seeds are in the ground and the peas and kale are beginning to pop up. Now if only the rain would come!

My garden as it looks right now.

Unfortunately, I’ve allowed all my time to be consumed by the house, the cars, and the garden along with a myriad of other chores required to keep a house running. One of the joys of travel for me is being able to take a hiatus from all of them! However, I do realize that if I am to continue my blogging, I must start delegating some of the household chores to hubby. Therefore, since he loves to cook, I have called on him to take over more of that. Sometimes it’s difficult to overlook the mess he can make, but I’m trying by heaping lots of praise on him for his efforts which seems to be working!

There was one more item on my list I had to deal with before getting back to my blogging and that was getting my merchandise ready for the Saturday market which is already in full swing. All my boxes, except for one containing silk scarves, have arrived from Thailand and Cambodia safely. The scarves which I somehow overlooked and left in Chiang Mai have to be shipped separately at great cost. I am lucky that I was able to locate them at one of the guest houses where we stayed which has such an honest and helpful staff who have taken the time to pack them up and get them in the mail for me. So far our market is off to a fairly good start which hopefully will continue to get better as the tourists arrive from the US on the new Portland to Yarmouth ferry because my next winter escape depends heavily on the sales I can generate from this little importing venture.

My table of imports at the Mason’s Hall in Annapolis Royal.

Reflecting upon this past month, I have learned that when I don’t write and and take pictures, I feel like something very valuable is missing from my life. Too much physical work was making me more tired than I wanted to be and that old feeling of anxiety and unease was creeping in. I needed to write but I kept making excuses which were preventing me from doing it. I was also stymied by what I could write about. What was there to write about here in Victoria Beach? These were my reasons for not writing so what was I going to do about them? I came up with the following solutions which I would like to share with you, and if they can be of any help to any ‘would be’ writer like me, then that would be fantastic. Here they are:

Make time in your day no matter how busy it is shaping up to be to write something even if it’s only a sentence or two.
Find a quiet spot away from any distractions i.e. in my case a chatty spouse.
Open up your computer and go straight to your blog’s ‘new post’ page. Don’t check your messages or Facebook first.
Type out a title which will be somehow related to what you have a vague idea you want to write on. Let this just be a guide which you can always change as many times as you wish once you start to write.
Now just start to write – anything. You’ll be amazed at where this can go.
Once you see something take shape, you will be off and running and feeling great.

This usually works for me, but I need to constantly remind myself to do it so it will become a habit. Perhaps I need to write this list out and have it in front of me until it becomes ingrained in my psyche? As I look back on this past month, I shudder to think about the agony I have put myself through just thinking and worrying about what I could write about. Well, I believe that I have that problem solved, too, making this a second wonderful realization about writing. Why not start with where I live and write about life here? As for pictures, this place is a photographer’s dream. It has the most incredible sunsets, and it’s near the Bay of Fundy which has been nominated as one of the most beautiful unspoiled spots in the world. One day it will become one for sure because just how many unspoiled sites are left in this world? It’s all about using the resources we have around us before venturing beyond. I’m thankful now for the challenges our life here in Victoria Beach has presented. It has helped me learn much about what writing is all about and how therapeutic it has become for me. It doesn’t matter where it will all lead to, if anything, but the one thing I do know is that it brings me great joy and satisfaction.

One of our beautiful sunsets.

A Greek Pictorial

May 13, 2014January 14, 2019 / betstravelsabout / 3 Comments

Friendly people
Ancient history
Sheep, goats, and cats
Olives and lemons
Blue sky and water
White-washed buildings

These are the primary impressions of my most favourite country in the world – GREECE.

Last year I revisited this beautiful country on my way home from the Far East where I met up with my husband after three months of solo travel to Thailand, India, and Nepal. This was a return visit for both of us having each landed there what seems like eons ago in 1969. However, we were not together then. Young and still single, I had contacted the travel bug after two years of teaching elementary school and was travelling with a group of girlfriends, while he was travelling with his former wife and two small children.

My second time around last year was far more rewarding since I now had the opportunity to see Greece through more experienced eyes and truly fall in love with it all over again. As an added bonus, we arrived in April before the cruise ships and hoards of tourists on board, so we often felt like we had the country to ourselves, at least on the islands we visited. It also meant that accommodations and meals were within our budget which they most certainly would not have been later on during the peak season.

The following gallery of slides is meant to give you a bird’s eye view of the impressions that my second visit to Greece left with me. I know I will return again should the opportunity present itself.

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Paris in Three Days

April 27, 2014January 14, 2019 / betstravelsabout / 5 Comments

“ I love Paris in the spring time. I love Paris in the fall…..” These words are dancing in my head as I put together this last post for the end of our winter getaway. We began our odyssey in Thailand, spending over two months there, mostly in Chiang Mai, where I shopped for my small import business and had some dental work done. From there, we flew over to Cambodia to explore this small but fascinating country for a month, followed by another couple of weeks back to Chiang Mai dealing with some unfinished dental work. We began to wend our way westward and home taking a one month hiatus to visit Portugal for the first time. There we managed to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law in Lisbon for a few days. Since we had a connecting flight from Paris to Montreal, we seized the chance to spend three days in this beautiful ‘city of light’ knowing we might never have such an opportunity again.

We managed to cram in many of Paris’ highlights in our three days and would have liked more time but were just as glad we didn’t for this is one of the most expensive cities in the world to visit, especially for travellers on a budget like us. Instead of taking in all the museums and historical sites that charge huge entrance fees, we spent much of our time just walking around and enjoying the parks. I also devoted much of my time trying to capture the beauty and spirit of this city with my camera. The result is a short story of what we saw and experienced in those three days. I hope you enjoy them as I take you through the picture gallery I have attached to this post. To view each photo up close, simply click on the first picture and take the journey from there. Please feel free to make any comments or ask any questions you might have after viewing them.