Happy 20th Wedding Anniversary

For those who were there for our wedding ceremony, and for those who were not, we send you our greetings on the 20th anniversary of our wedding, in Cloyne United Church, August 16th, 1997.

Today was a relatively homebound day.  We tried to do some business at the Hotel de Ville, but due to their summer hours they were closed at 11:30, so we'll have to return tomorrow instead to get our administrivia accomplished.  Instead of administrivia we did a lot of gardening, tearing out the rough and wild plants in the front of the house, and burning weeds out from among the paving stones with a torch.  We were happy to plant the wisteria, a blue spruce tree, and several lavender plants, some of which that have been with us in containers for many years. Our efforts are making the house feel much more like a home...

Likewise we are drawing some positive attention from our neighbours.  For example, Christophe and Isabel, just next door, noticed that we were cutting the hedges and lawn, and asked if they might hire Malcolm to take care of their garden.  (I wish that I had been asked, as he made a pretty penny cutting out all of the overgrowth with a hedge trimmer and then string trimmer, and going over everything with a gasoline mower.)  Bernadette and Maurice have also taken note of our zeal, as have Tomas and Veronique (to name a few of our neighbours), so I'm confident that we've made a positive impression as people who will take care of their house... definitely a good thing.

Some photos of this evening's celebration of our wedding anniversary... they may be rather "artistic" as they are viewed through the lens of our oldest son.

Ok, to be fair, these last couple of shots have been different: the first one is of me scraping the paint off the ivoroid binding on my telecaster.  Malcolm and I are getting close to finishing our guitars, and we are approaching that moment of clear coat lacquer.  We are presently occupied in devising the appropriate logos for the headstocks: these have to be designed, printed and applied prior to the clear-coat lacquer application.  This past week, yesterday and today, I spent time scraping off the red paint from the ivoroid binding.  If it sounds painful and agonising, then you have the right idea.  But it seems pretty much done, and I'm happy with the results, even if they necessitated magnification goggles and japanese straight razors...

I leave you with one image from our dinner out this evening, at a fish restaurant about 700m from our house...

Maggie really liked the shrimp main dish!