Followers of this blog may have noticed a certain silence here. It’s easy to go and blame all kinds of factors, but the truth is, all kinds of things have happened since my last blog here. I can invent all kinds of things that may or may not be the cause of this silence, like “my internet didn’t work” or “the cat ate all my ideas”. None of this would be further from the truth.
Living in Halifax, Nova Scotia is great. I loved it. But with the prices of the rent out there currently, that was not a sustainable option. The pandemic seems to have awakened all kinds of money hungry individuals and corporations.
Rent for a 2 bedroom apartment soaring to nearly 2k per month is not a good investment. Ok, it included parking, a spot that required no maintenance and was accompanied by a tag in my car excluding them from any liability if anything happened to my car. Including chunks of cement falling from the ceiling. The building, as well as the manager was great, but hey, it’s only an apartment and money spent on that that is more than a decent mortgage cost is a loss forever.
View from a $2k apartment
So the first matter on the agenda was to find a different place to live. That is now done, Liverpool in Nova Scotia is a sleepy small town and our new home town. It is located on the river Mersey, just like its big brother Liverpool in England. And yes, I am aware of the Ferry cross the Mersey song. I have had that one in my head for weeks, even from before we purchased the house 
. The house is some 120 years old, old enough to have known the privateers for which the town of Liverpool is famous.
Original, restored wooden buildings of Liverpool
Most of the buildings in town are still the old wooden structures, just like my house. Some are being renovated, others are still waiting. Yet all of them are in use by either private people or by companies. None of the houses are left to rot in the rain.
View from the house
The house does needs some upgrades, even if the structure is perfectly sound. Wooden floors, painted in grey paint are not my favourite. So a subfloor had to be added. Since we haven’t found the right flooring yet, living on hardboard floors is our daily life. Other upgrades will be done by professionals. After all, burning down your house as a result of a dumb mistake is not the best thing to do. Professionals are plentiful here, but hard to come by. They all seem to be very busy helping other clients. Oh well, we’ll wait.
It’s always 5 o’clock somewhere
A few days before leaving Halifax, a small catastrophe struck. My camera went in the direction of the mud on the ground. Good thing I always use a strap, right? Well, this time it was the strap nut on the top of my camera that came loose. Nikon promised a “speedy” repair between 4 and 8 weeks. So I decided to find an alternative way to get it repaired. Repair shops are hard to come by nowadays. Most people no longer repair their stuff, they just replace it. Happily I had the camera also in my hand and the mud bath was avoided. Replacing a 2k+ camera is not an option for me, so repair centre it had to be. Three weeks later and my camera is back where it belongs. Now the question is to take pictures again. Taking pics with my cellphone was a weak alternative to the feeling of a big camera in my hands. The cellphone always seems to have a mind of its own as it comes to the picture mode or even the moment of when to take the shot. Setting it on a ledge to stabilize it invariably called a spirit called Bixby. Wherever that one came from is a mystery, but it was not welcome.
Just left of centre is the house
Having touch sensitive zones on all sides of the phone was also not a good idea for a camera. For phone functions, that’s fine. Just not for camera functions that require precision and obedience. I think I must have taken all of 25 pictures in the last 3 weeks. The environment here is simply fantastic and I will be blogging about it a lot more from now on. It’s true, I could have posted another nostalgic blog from my time in Ukraine, but those shots are already more than 10 years old. I decided to wait with blogging until things have settled somewhat.
Law Office
It’s not just the absence of the camera, it’s also that the house needs time, money and energy. The combination of those three are not conducive to a lot of photography. Well, that’s as far as I will go with explanations. None of that will get me new blog posts or new stories. My “sister” blog on audio by photo-bytes will also get more updates, even if the gear will have to stay to a minimum for now.
The house needs upgrades 
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That’s all I have for now, radio silence? Nope, just busy with other things for now. The frequency of the blog post may vary for the foreseeable future.
Until next time…