Well yesterday I drove to Kensington some 45 minutes from Charlottetown down HWY 2, the wind was high and snow drifted across the highway but the sun was shining over a bright blue end of Winter sky. The country side is quite picturesque. Nick and Nora were snoozing on the back seat of the car wrapped in their blankets. They were going to the groomers who live on a farm. After leaving them, I went to Kensington and then to Summerside which is just about 5 minutes away and I like to have a coffee at Samuel’s, they truly serve a wonderful coffee, rich and flavourful and I had their raspberry jam cheese pie, again wonderful dessert.
Around the countryside of PEI there are lots of place where home made desserts, pies, breads and jams are always available, you could say it is a culture of the home made. It is very good and so much more pleasant than the usual factory made dessert.
So in about 8 days we go back to Summer time and that makes a big difference. This weekend the Canada Games are ending and we will have fireworks tonight at 8pm on the cruise ship docks about 500 feet from our house.
Today I went to the Vet to get some food for Nora and the place was busy with humans and their pets. It is quite amusing to see the interaction and how pets are far more than that to us humans. We talk to them and comfort them at the Vet and no one thinks you are crazy. The Vet and staff do the same thing. I wonder what the various pets make of all this.
My Bialetti Coffee maker and what I have discovered thanks to Matteo D’Ottavio on YouTube. I have learned quite a bit from him on how to take care of my Moka. You would think that after 40 years using one I would know. There were somethings I did not know. Life is a learning experience. I now clean my Moka with white vinegar and water, the boiling effect on the stove gets rid of the excess coffee oil and other residue. I also only put the heat on medium low or low. In the past I always used high heat and Matteo shows how that is a mistake, a Moka is not an espresso machine. I am happy with the results now and enjoy my coffee even more in the Morning.

Tea not all the same around the world and how people drink it. I remember that depending on the geographic location of the country where you are having your tea and also on the capacity to pay for packages of tea, the quality is vastly different. In Egypt where tea is a all day drink served in small glasses, it was mostly stems and very bitter, to tone down the taste half of the glass was filled with white sugar. I simply brought high quality variety of boxes of tea from the UK or Canada. I also gave boxes as gifts to staff at work and they marvelled at how nice it was, for them it was a luxury. In China, in Beijing, I discovered the tea market which was a gigantic modern warehouse with all manners of tea merchants and tea furniture and exquisite porcelain tea services. I would go there with Chinese friends who knew the culture and the many varieties and which tea pots to use, glass or porcelain. I do prefer loose leaf tea and I really do not like the cheap brands sachet powder teas or orange pekoe tea.

So last night the Premier announced that he was calling for an election on April 3. It was no surprise but the media took it as if we were going for a picnik and it was going to be so much fun. The issue is healthcare which is a disaster and wait times now are year long. Of course Conservative Premiers like ours are calling for privatization American style. The only problem, the majority of people have no money to be able to pay for private care and have no memory of Canada before 1965 when you had to pay for any and all medical services. The other issue is housing construction, there is very little of it going on. The population is growing rapidly each year, in fact little PEI has the highest population growth in Canada. The situation is beyond the crisis point. For our size we would need 1800 units per year just to stem the crisis, not resolve it and that is not happening.
The Official Opposition in the Legislature is the Green Party, they have not been very effective and the Liberal Party is no where to be seen. So it looks likely that the Conservatives of Mr King will get reelected.

Morning routine, well you know a lot of influencers always have a morning routine, well so do Nick and Nora as the No1 influencer in Charlottetown. Look at those pictures, this is their routine, as I sip my Espresso surrounded by two Dachshunds snoozing/snoring away in their blankets, it is a must, they are so Zen. Of course they insist it has to be this way, the whining alone forces you to do as they wish.
Here is Nicky in a deep sleep after his walk and breakfast, time to enjoy a morning snooze. But I have to be sitting next to him, otherwise the routine is disrupted and that is not acceptable for a dachshund.

Nora snoozing and dreaming, her little paws twitching and she huffs and puffs at imaginary figures in her dreams.
