Exploring with Giselle

Our friend Giselle, from Ottawa, has been visiting with us this week. We have been enjoying walks on the beaches, sitting out on the deck in the sun and chatting.

Yesterday we decided to do some beachcombing on the beach in the Janeville area and have a picnic. It was a hot, sunny day with a breeze - just perfect.

My regular blog readers are now familiar with our trips to Carey's Chalets in Janeville and the owner Tomi Carey. Tomi invited us in to her home so Giselle could see her many treasures that she and her husband have collected over the years on their travels. On my last visit to Tomi's art gallery my friend bought two of her hand-painted chairs and yesterday I bought the third one for my craftroom. Here is the artist, Tomi and me, the new proud new owner of her chair. Red being my favourite color and pansies having special memories for me of my Dad and Grandmother, I am very happy.

I was proudly wearing my Canada tee-shirt as it was Red Friday.

After our visit with Tomi, Paul, Giselle and I headed for the beach for a walk and some beachcombing. You can walk for miles here and never seem to get to the end of the beach. Here are my two beachcoming buddies checking out some treasures.

After some time I found the sun just too hot for me so I decided to find some shade and found a great spot near an old wooden wall. While I was moving around the small rocks to make a flat place to sit, I found a special treasure - a small blue mermaid tear. It is said that you find blue one in 500 times. I was so excited that I made a yell but there was no one there to share it with at the moment....but I still yelled - YES!

Giselle and Paul liked my resting place in the shade so we decided to have our picnic lunch there. The ocean was just at our feet - it was an awesome day.

We finally had to drag ourselves away from this perfect place by the ocean with all our little treasures. We drove back to Bathurst to the downtown, strolled along Main Street and then went to the newly-developed Pavilion area.

This is the bridge coming into the downtown area.

Located near The Nectar Restaurant is the new gazebo which is used for music events in the summer and becomes a skating rink in the winter.

Here are a couple of shops located around the outer rim of the gazebo. There is an art gallery, ice cream shop and also a gift boutique which sells only locally-made crafts, such as seaglass jewellery, wood carvings, photos, etc. Giselle was kind enough to leave a little of her money in our local economy.

After a long day, our next stop was for a cool drink and dinner so we went to The Nectar Restaurant which has a deck overlooking the bay, with a very nice view. It was very sunny but unfortunately windy so Paul's beer flew off the table with the aid of my menu into Giselle's lap. Paul got a replacement beer rather quickly but Giselle took some time to dry. For dinner she tried the local clams which she said were very good.

In the evening we were treated to a beautiful full moon over the water. It was difficult to capture the true essences with a camera.

This morning we had a leisurely breakfast of french toast, fresh fruit and coffee on our back deck. It was nice to share this moment with a friend.

We are all now having a down day to relax.