September Expenses... not bad!

We had a budget of $1,800 CAD ($1,290 USD) for the month of September, but I knew that was an ambitious target. Sure enough, we exceeded it by quite a bit. 

We ended up spending $2,289 CAD ($1,641 USD) which at first glance seems really good right? But considering we were house sitting for the entire month it's actually higher than we expected.

What are our winter plans?

One week from today, we fly to Mexico!

You can't fly direct to Mexico City from Ottawa, so we have no choice but to connect somewhere. This is where the choices got interesting.

Ruth's weekend while I was away...

So, I took off on Thursday afternoon to spend the weekend away with the boys. Ruth was looking forward to seeing some of the girls she worked with 35 years ago when she was a hair stylist at First Choice Haircutters.

They got together Thursday evening for dinner.

Update on my condition, and weekend away with the boys...

I went away for my annual guys weekend on Thursday afternoon. 

Of course the major concern was my medical condition, but we decided that if I'm going to feel like crap, I might as well feel like crap up at the cottage visiting with my long time friends. So first things first, an update on my progress in that regard...

No, everything is not entirely okay.

Regular readers will know that I had a "medical emergency" on our flight a month ago from London to Barcelona.

I had passed out on that flight, and taken to hospital when we landed. All of my tests were fine, and they didn't tell us that anything positive came back that would have given us any indication as to what caused it. 

Shopping for a new car

In the last post, I had mentioned that I thought my sisters car was going to be a write off, and that turned out to be true.

So now it was time for her to go shopping. The only question was... how much would the insurance give her for her old car?

Just an update...

We've been meeting with friends the last few days. And lots more of that to come over the next three weeks. And yes, it's only three weeks until we fly to Mexico City!

We spent some time with my older sister on Saturday. She was in a car accident on Friday, and I thought I might be able to help a little bit given that I spent twenty years in the collision repair business.

We know so many people around the world

We always come back to the Ottawa area in September. It's definitely the best time of year here in our opinion. The kids are back in school, the weather is still nice, and the bugs are usually gone.

And sure enough, this year has been perfect in that regard. the kids are definitely back in school, the weather has been great, and we haven't seen a mosquito since we got here!

We've been here for two weeks already!

Well, apparently there's not a lot of interest in gold and silver around here! That's okay though... it proves my thesis that we are only in the third inning and not many people are paying attention yet.

We've just been relaxing here at the house for the most part. Ruth is spending a lot of time sorting through and scanning old slide photographs that were her fathers.

Investing in gold and silver miners

As I mentioned yesterday, we have been invested in gold and silver mining stocks for several years. This has paid off substantially, yet I think the really big gains are yet to come.

Studying past bull and bear market cycles in the precious metals shows that we are maybe in the bottom of the third inning... gold and silver have been rising nicely and now outperforming the stock market, but the general public are only just starting to notice. 

Gold and silver

There's sometimes not much to talk about when we're sitting in Ottawa for six weeks. So don't expect daily updates during this time period. 

Also, I'm sure most of you have noticed that there is some kind of glitch occurring with this blog and you're often getting an error message. 

If it's not fresh, it's free

We did our weekly grocery shopping yesterday. It's a fairly stressful thing for us! Even though we know to expect it, we're still getting sticker shock every time we come back to Canada. 

So on Thursday evenings, the local store flyers are issued. Some are done online, but we can still pick up the paper versions down at the mailbox at the corner. Ruth prefers the old style paper one rather than the online one.

Race Day!

One of the things that we had planned for Cameron was to take him to the big indoor go karting track across the river in Quebec. I've known of this place for several years and have always wanted to go myself.

So, we had an early lunch and then headed off across the border.

Humane society and fishing

Monday morning we went and met for coffee with Mary and Blair, a retired Ottawa couple who are now living in their Airstream trailer, however have booked this winter at an Airbnb in Mexico.

They've been reading this blog for a while now, and wanted to meet up. And we like to meet our readers!

It's a bit frustrating...

When we were in Mexico in April, I tried to buy new shock absorbers for Igor. I'm pretty fussy about what brand of shocks I wanted though. There is a Bilstein model that's specifically made for the Econoline E350 chassis, and that's what I wanted.

But I couldn't seem to find them available in Mexico. I even tried to order them in from Amazon U.S., but there was some kind of shipping problem that wouldn't allow them across the border.

August Expenses - Another expensive month

We spent the first 15 days of the month of August on a cruise ship going from Southampton, England to Greenland with stops in Ireland and Iceland.

While the cruise ship trip was inexpensive by cruise ship standards, it still added quite a lot to the monthly expenses.

We thought they lost Cameron's bag!

Lindsey drove us to Halifax Airport yesterday morning and we got there with lots of time to spare for our 12:35pm flight to Ottawa.

Oh, yesterday I said that it cost $322 CAD ($234 USD) per person for the two hour flight. And while that was true, we didn't pay a dime!

Heading back to Ottawa

Well that went by quickly! Here we are on August 28th already, and we have tickets on Porter Airlines to fly to Ottawa this afternoon.

And we're taking grandson Cameron (14) with us for a week with Grandma and Grandpa.

Splashifax Water Park

We always give experience gifts to the grandkids for their birthdays, and granddaughter Sadie has her 12th birthday coming up this Friday. Unfortunately, we have to fly to Ottawa on Thursday so we took Sadie and her friend Violet to her birthday outing yesterday.

She chose to go to Splashifax Water Park.

We ended up getting a decent rain

Probably not enough to remove the hiking restrictions here in Nova Scotia, but better than nothing. We've only got another two days here, so it really doesn't matter much to us anymore.

Yesterday afternoon, we went to Blue Beach. It's not a swimming beach, it's a beach where they have found a lot of fossils over the years.

Big forest fire

There's a massive forest fire burning about 75 kms (47 miles) west of here. Nova Scotia doesn't normally have a problem with forest fires, but this summer has been particularly dry. They've even had some evacuations called.

Yesterday, there was a big cloud of smoke coming through the Annapolis Valley...

A good day for ice cream!

Saturday was another beautiful day here in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley.

Ruth and I went for an 8 km (5 mile) walk from the house into the nearby town of Wolfville. 

Valle de Bravo water levels

We will arrive back in Mexico on October 8th, just over six weeks from now.

So I was thinking about the lake at Valle de Bravo, which is the place where we will be renting a house when we return. When we left there in early May, the water level was really low.

It's all totally free!

Yesterday was another beautiful day.

Lindsey took us to Aylesford Lake Beach. It's a municipal park with a nice sandy beach, and kayak rentals. And the cost? Amazingly, it's all totally free!

That's a great workout!

Yesterday, we took Lindsey and the family to the OnTree Adventure Park. It's a really fun family activity center with zip lines and obstacle courses that run through the tree tops in the forest.

We had been there three years ago, but Lindsey had been working at the time, so she wasn't able to make it. But the rest of us had such a good time, we wanted to return... with Lindsey!

Arrived back in Canada

We had breakfast in the premium lounge at Barcelona Airport then relaxed there for a couple of hours before our flight. With this new Scotiabank Passport Infinite Privilege Visa card that we've got, we each get 10 lounge passes annually, so now we don't mind using them for the occasional airport breakfast as well. These will come in handy over the course of a year!

I had booked this WestJet flight from Barcelona to Halifax because it was really cheap.

Well that was an interesting night. One that we wouldn't want to repeat!

We had planned to spend last night in Barcelona Airport waiting for our 11:15am flight to Halifax, Canada.

Instead, we spent it at a hospital in Barcelona!

A gorgeous day in London

Really lucky to have such a great day in London. The temperature was about 25C (77F) and sunny. Just perfect, and so of course there were lots of other people enjoying a beautiful Sunday as well.

We didn't go downtown though. We just spent the day with Ruth's aunt, and did a nice long walk to Victoria Park.

Day 16 - Sea day and arrived back in England

Just another day at sea on Friday. Regular schedule, and in the evening they had a ventriloquist as the entertainment and he was really good. He had been a performer on the America's Got Talent television show. Very funny.

Oh, and I took some photos of the library on board the ship.

Day 15 - Sea day. Would we do another cruise?

Another day of looking out and seeing nothing but the sea. It's been much calmer than it was when we did our last three sea days in a row headed the opposite way towards Greenland.

We actually saw some sea life yesterday for the first time. We were on the elliptical machines in the gym overlooking the bow when I spotted three or four dolphins (or porpoises?) in a group off to the side. 

Day 14 - Sea Day... things we have learned on our first cruise

Wednesday was the first of three sea days as we make our way from Iceland back to our starting point at Southampton, England. So, we easily got back into the routine that we are happy with on sea days.

We have to admit, three sea days in a row is about what we are comfortable with. We could do more without any real issue, but we both think that it would start to get a little monotonous.

Day 13 - Lots of waterfalls in Iceland!

We woke up Tuesday morning at anchor in the bay outside the town of Grundarfjörður. Ruth and I have been here before, during our 5 day tour of Iceland back in October 2012, however we were on a bus tour at the time and so we didn't get any time to explore. 

We were happy to return to this area and at least we had the day to get out and see the sights!

Day 12 - Welcome to Iceland!

But, Iceland is not a new country for us. We were here for a really good 5 day visit back in October of 2012.

At the time, we had stayed at the Center Hotels chain in Reykjavik. We had done some promotional work for them, and as a result, the sister of the owner of the chain started reading this blog. 

Day 10 and 11 - Two more days at sea, including a visit to the bridge!

So, we had a weekend at sea with no land in sight both Saturday and Sunday.

And again, we pretty much have a schedule worked out that we're happy with for sea days. Breakfast, internet time, an hour long workout in the gym, lunch, trivia and/or nap time, laundry, dinner, evening show, etc.

But, we had an interesting diversion today!

Day 9 - The magnificent scenery of Prince Christian Sound, Greenland

One of the highlights of this trip was the planned scenic cruise through Prince Christian Sound in Greenland. It sometimes doesn't happen due to fog or bad weather, so when we woke up Friday morning to fog, it wasn't looking good.

However the captain obviously knew more than we did, and as we neared the entrance into the fjord,  things started clearing up and it became a beautiful blue sky day!

Day 8 - The Greenlandic town of Qaqortoq

Given our experience with the tender lineups from yesterday, we planned things a little differently. This time, we were up at 6:00am, went and had breakfast at the buffet, and we were down to get tender departure tickets.

We were a bit surprised that many other people had the same idea, however this time we ended up with departure group 11, instead of group 18 like we had the day before. So, slightly better.

Day 7 - Welcome to Greenland, country #73 for us!

So, lets get this out of the way first... is Greenland a country?

Well, there are arguments for both sides of that question. The United Nations officially has 193 countries in it. However there are other countries that are not officially recognized as countries by the other countries. Examples are Kosovo, Taiwan, Western Sahara, Transnistria, Somaliland, Northern Cyprus, and Greenland. Among others. If you add these all up, it comes to 215 countries.

For our purposes, Greenland is a country! So, with that out of the way, welcome to Greenland...

Day 5 and 6 - Two more days at sea

We have been puttering along at about 35 km/h (22 mph) which doesn't sound very fast, however when you're doing it 24 hours a day, you do tend to put on some distance!

Writing this on Tuesday evening after a total of three days at sea. Wednesday morning we will wake up off the coast of Nanortalik, Greenland where we will spend the day exploring!

July Expenses - Everything just added up!

A little late getting this out, but regular readers will know that we've been busy!

We try and have some laptop time in the morning after breakfast here on the cruise ship, so I'll quickly get our July expense report out to you. July was an expensive month!

Day 4 - Our first sea day

Sunday was our first full day at sea, and we have two more sea days ahead of us before we arrive in Greenland.

So, what did we do all day to keep busy? Well, there is no shortage of things to do. In fact, it almost seemed like there wasn't enough time in the day!

Day 3 - Cobh, Ireland, and this could get interesting!

We had traveled overnight from Falmouth, England and on Saturday morning we woke up at 6:30am docked at the port at Cobh, Ireland. 

For those who don't know, Cobh is famous because it was the last port of call for the Titanic on its maiden (and only!) voyage to New York City.

Day 2 - Falmouth, England and the casino!

We were up at 6:30am because we had a plan.

The ship was visiting Falmouth, England but although Falmouth is a deep water bay, there is nowhere for the ship to dock, so they have to anchor in the bay and use tenders to bring people back and forth.