Words From The Window #1

Greetings from my living room in Nova Scotia. Port Lorne, Nova Scotia, to be exact. 

In fact, the full address is: Port Lorne, Paradise, Nova Scotia.

I now officially live in Paradise, and I can tell you I rather like it.

I am sitting here looking out of the window that opens like a children’s book out on to the ever changing Bay of Fundy. It’s lobster season and so the two fishing boats are out there on the blue searching for the riches that lie beneath the surface. 

However, first things first.

Drum roll… ta da!

Sorry for not being in touch for a while. Well, actually, quite a while.

I arrived back in Canada on March 16th, cutting short the Spring tour by 2 months. When I got back I had to self-isolate in my own house, which was strange, thankfully I had a dinner fairy who would leave me goodies at the bottom of the stairs then scamper off. 

I did actually write a song whilst in the attic. It’s called “Rubie Time” and I may very well perform it as part of the window series very soon. I also listened to a Stephen King audiobook [18 hours] called The Institute.

I read some books [I didn’t count the hours] and just looked out the window a lot like a wishful princess, perhaps like Rapunzel but with no hair.

My plan is to get active online and really try and put out new music and perform as much as I can for you. 

So I am going to steal the best ideas out there.

Every Monday I will post a Song From The Window. I’ll pick (or hopefully someone will request) a tune, then maybe speak about it, and then play it. This is something Mary Chapin Carpenter has been doing for some time now. If you don’t know Mary, then boy oh boy are you in for a treat. She really is one of the greats. 

I will also steal an idea from the genius that is JP Cormier. JP produced my album Years and Not Just Days and played most of the instruments on the album. If I could have persuaded him to do lead vocals I would have. Please go and check out JP and Mary and subscribe to their YouTube channels.

(JP’s Channel, Mary’s Channel)

I’ll be posting my videos on my Facebook and my YouTube channel.

— — —

When the two weeks were up I was free! But also free to make my own dinner (sigh).

I went for long walks and then wrote another new song, “Show Me How To Love,” co-written with Fintan, our youngest son. I also then — via the internet — released Solobrien4, recorded in the studio of Hermann Schmitz who also played keyboards on the record. 

After that, the real business kicked in: getting our new home built. 

This is the first photo after we had bought out little dream cottage. Louise found it on the internet around mid-December, 2017,
and by the end of December it was ours (although we didn’t take possession until the new year).

We arrived in Nova Scotia at the end of May 2017. We rented a house in the charming and oft-painted village of Granville Ferry. Whilst we were there, we searched for our new house. Time was running out and my 2017 Fall Tour was coming up fast and we still hadn’t found THE place. 

We made a decision to find a halfway home: a place we could settle into but not our forever home. So we bought a 1920’s Arts and Craft-style home in Bridgetown. The previous owners Dennis and Cathy Kingston had done an amazing job renovating it into an incredible home. It was perfect, except it wasn’t by the sea. But we loved the house.

We got to the cottage to find it was empty, the owner long since moved out. The house was old, built in 1870. The garden was completely overgrown; in fact, you could not see the ocean from the garden. But we fell in love with it. 

A few weeks later the deal was done, and so now we had two houses: one to live in and the other to dream about living in. Not much work was done in 2018, mainly clean-up stuff, but I was incredibly grateful to have my new friend Dennis Kingston helping me and being the project manager…which at that time really meant making sure I had brought a lunch.

You see Dennis and Cathy, the previous owners of our house in Bridgetown, had built their own cottage by the sea, and when Dennis asked me if I wanted help with our project, I said the following phrases:

Is the Pope a Catholic?

Do bears …. in the woods?

Is Trump criminally insane?

You know the kind of thing.

And so the work started in the Spring of 2018. 

Now to move into the future of April 2020. The big push started. We had sold the Bridgetown house and were due to move out in June. We knew the house wouldn’t be ready by then so we had organized another rental. It meant moving twice but there was no choice.

Dennis and I would be at the cottage every day, and when we had ripped out everything from the old house except the roof, the transformation could start. I counted over 40 different people were involved in the rebuilding of the house here are some of the names. It’s our very own… 

See I told you!!! What a great party that was !!!

Essential.

The garden was completely overgrown, so much in fact the ocean could not be seen. The trees we cut were diseased Cherry trees — I did feel bad about that but we will plant new ones. I was and still am terrified of chainsaws, so I was extremely happy Dennis did the chopping. I just did the hugging.

I really cannot say enough about how this project would never have been even attempted let alone finished with our dear friend Dennis. Now, I have to say in my defence, I was also working but someone had to take the pictures. As soon as this was taken I was right back on the job ripping out the old walls.

Most people dream of soft-top sportscars, but this is the dream ride for me.

It was a tough decision but we finally decided upon getting windows. I think we made the right decision.

And that’s how you put windows in.

Getting the back two windows took 5 very strong men, with Mark Thompson [Plumber] and my friend Mark Bezannson [Bass guitar] helping. I of course took photos.

The addition and the dynamic duo in action.

This is Fin drilling the subfloor. I estimated about 30000 screws but there may be more in this house. Fin was one of about 40 people who in some way were connected to the reconstruction of the cottage.

Fin walking away because he was denied a payrise…. actually he was denied getting paid at all. In the background is the other main man: Ray was the carpenter and sort of overseer. A wonderful man born and bred just up the road, who has been building houses for nearly 50 years.

The entire house was reshingled with Cedar. Many new houses these days do not do this but we wanted to keep the authentic look of the cottage.

We kept the roof, and the doors and the stairs, but everything else was replaced. Here Louise is stripping the Newell post. Think of It’s a Wonderful Life.

I really love this photo. It’s Louise in an almost Greek Goddess pose. She is in the attic and conducting a smudging ceremony with sage to clear out the vibe cobwebs so to speak and welcome in the new ones.

Ta-da!

Port Lorne 2020 Honour Roll:

Dennis Kingston — Big Boss
Cathy Kingston — Boss of Dennis
Ray Hudson — Cookie-Bringer and Carpenter
Lars Hansen — Seriously Strong Dude #1
Michael Körting — Seriously Strong Dude #2
Mark Thompson — Plumber and Joker with a Cute Chuckle
Marcus From Leipzig (heck of a commute) — Tiler
Dubravko From Croatia (another long bus ride) — Electrician
Winston — Propane Man (I can’t think of anything funny about Winston, but I liked his name and I had never met a tradesman called Winston before.)
Wade Ryan — The drywall guy who sang every day with a voice like Cher and Jesus mixed together.
Fintan O’Brien — Stair Slider (very dangerous, don’t try it home, unless you are videoing it)
Cormac O’Brien — Mover And Porcupine Exterminator
Paul O’Brien — Dead Raccoon Extractor
Louise O’Brien — or Colonel Colours, as we affectionately refer to her
Mark Bezanson — Window Installer [the really big, 500 pounds windows)
Danny Ryan — Building Inspector (we passed, so we love him)

I’ve missed out the gutter people (I don’t mean people who lived in the gutter, thankfully we have no gutter people here, but rather the crew that installed the rain gutters), Robbie Bent and his son who drove all the big Bob the Builder style machines, Darren from near Manchester who made the fence, never causing offence… sorry. Robert and Marty, our cabinet makers supreme. Doug who fixed our water. There are so many more, but now I’m bored, and that means you must have been bored for at least the last 20 lines.

Which brings me to now. I am sitting in our sweet little cottage by the sea. We moved in about four weeks ago. There’s still some work to do, but we are in. We are warmed by the woodstove and soul-fed by the water.

My Blue Mind is finally able to relax and breathe out.

So that’s the story… of course, there is other stuff too. Like.

We became Grandparents on September 11th, 2020, to Orla Louise Jay. Personally, I would have liked Paula as the second name but there some who said it didn’t fit….

Orla Paula……???

Fintan and his German girlfriend Gianna came back from Germany and are now staying with us whilst the pandemic does its thing.

Oh, and if you hadn’t heard, there is a pandemic going on.

But now I finally feel able to put away the work gloves and get those false nails on, and get back to being the unknown follically challenged journeyman folk singer-songwriter I was destined to be. 

I love my life xxxx

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