August 18 Weekend

When Blake works the night shift, it can be very hard for us. He sleeps all day, wakes up for an hour, then goes to work. Repeat. Instead of sitting around the house, feeling lonely, I've decided to fill those weekends with friends and family.

On this particular weekend, my friend Vanessa came up for the day and I filled that day with a lot of fun activities. I started off the morning by taking Vanessa to an event organized by GreenUP in Peterborough called Open Hive. At the Open Hive event, we got to get up close and personal to a local bee hive. I contacted the organizer to get an idea of what the event would entail and I was given the impression that we would all be given protective gear, but that wasn't the case. When we arrived, a group of “girl guides’ (I think they were called Leader Girls) were there and they were all given protective gear, but the parents and other attendees weren't. We were mere feet away from open beehives. Surprisingly, there was only one casualty and, luckily, it wasn't us. Although, both Vanessa and I did have a bee in our hair at one point and we both definitely freaked out a little. The event was very informative and fascinating. These two hives had close to 60,000 bees and the hive was mostly made up of females. The best part was getting a chance to taste honey straight from the hive. That was an experience that I will never forget. Tasting that honey right from the comb, it was so sweet and delicious.

After Open Hive, we headed over to Beavermead Park to watch an old school live snake demonstration. Now that presentation was mostly for kids, but that doesn't bother me too much. It's still great to learn about anything and everything. Also, snakes and turtles are cool … as long as they are tame and not darting out of a bush across my path. At this presentation, they had a couple of snakes and turtles. At the end, everyone was given the chance to come up and touch or hold the snakes. Vanessa didn't want to take the experience away from the kids, so we left soon after the presentation was over.

Onwards to the next plan, I took Vanessa to the Hutchinson House for some Scottish Afternoon Tea. I think I've written about this place before. We get served by young volunteers dressed in pioneer style clothes. It's fun, but Vanessa felt a little slave-ownerish because our server was maybe 8 years old. I like to lean more towards "it's cute". They serve delicious tea and scones with jam and whipped cream. All for only 10$. It was a nice light lunch to break up our day.

Next up, the Riverview Zoo. This was the one place that Vanessa wanted to visit. We walked through the park before taking the infamous zoo train. It's such a silly thing to do, but it's always fun. On the other side, the train takes you through "Crookedman Zoo" where they have abnormally sized cut-outs of different animals. There is a giant parrot and a small elephant. They even have a wooden mermaid on the other side. You can’t see this kind of stuff at the Toronto Zoo folks! Like I said, it's silly, but fun. This particular activity was on my summer bucket list and, since the summer is coming to an end, I was happy that I got to cross this one off of my list. We wandered around the rest of the zoo before heading back to my place.

At home, Vanessa and I spent some time with Blake before he headed off to work. Earlier in the day, Vanessa was saying that, although Blake and I have been together for 6 ½ years now, she doesn’t really know Blake too well. I’m glad that they got to spend some time together. Afterwards, Vanessa gave her thumbs up of approval. Thanks Vanessa! I think I’ll keep him!

Since we hadn’t really eaten much throughout the day, we went for an early dinner. I took Vanessa to Le Petit Bar on Water St. in Peterborough. Blake and I have been there before and, as everyone knows, we love a good charcuterie. The great thing about Le Petit Bar is the atmosphere. It’s high class, but relaxing. It’s always a great experience when we go. We always choose the “any 4 choices” option which means that we each get to choose one cheese and one meat. We had mixed reviews on our options, but overall it was tasty. Blake and I actually just went again this past weekend. We love it.

After dinner, we had come to the end of our adventurous day and Vanessa had to head home. It was a great day, spent with an awesome friend.

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