Bonjour!!

My school girl French is not what it should be I'm afraid to say, having returned from a little visit to Quebec recently.

We are quite an impulsive family sometimes and a quick bit of planning saw Craig, Amber and myself packed up and en-route in the car to Quebec City. I wasn't quite sure what to expect visiting this province for the first time, which is less than a 12 hour drive away, still being in Canada I didn't have my hopes set too high on the scenery and lifestyle being vastly different from here in Nova Scotia. Well how wrong I was. It felt like we had been transported to somewhere back in Europe. As we got closer the forests got thicker and thicker, plenty of warning signs for Moose on the motorway and then suddenly everything was en Francais!

Quebec city is an amazing place, pretty, clean and well maintained. Of course it helped that the weather was perfect and unbeknown to us we arrived smack in the middle of their summer festival.

Staying in a modern hotel on the outskirts, we drove into the old city every day and parked up so we could walk around the pedestrian friendly cobbled streets.A combination of beautiful architecture, dozens of happy people in flip flops, sneakers and summer clothes, open restaurants and cafes lining the streets, the atmosphere was so vibrant. Buskers, free entertainment and live music everywhere, there was no shortage of things to look at and take in during our short stay.

Just a couple of the many cute little shops

We saw the band Rush playing live much to Amber's delight, a consolation for just missing the black eyed peas who performed the day after we left! Driving home late one evening we spotted performers from Circue du Soleil practicing on the side of the street and did a double take!!

Despite our lack of French language skills we managed to get by between the three of us and most of the locals did speak some English, with some creative hand gestures and facial expressions we were able converse successfully, most of the time!

So romantic by night too!

It did feel a little strange and sad not having Jemma with us, a first family holiday without our complete family of four. She was busy working, plus having been recently to China and New York she had to remain in Halifax this time. I would love to take her there in the future though as she loves architecture and still considers being an architect on her short list of chosen career options.

Now we are home again it's all mowing, weeding, mowing, weeding.... as I said to my friend Terri recently. No complaints from me though, the pleasant outdoor life is pretty short lived here, so we take what we can get. Although I am not a big fan of tanning myself, it is uplifting to feel the warmth of the sun on my back and gaze up at the vast blue sky. The humming birds are still flitting around and the family of raccoons have vacated our barn again (we missed their escape this year) I often think of little Archie, but have noticed a huge increase in the birdie population in our garden, which is nice to watch as they peck away at the bird feeders and pinch the odd ripe cherry from the tree :)

Au revoir my friends

Hazel xx