Kincardine, Ontario, Canada

Due to an illness in the family, we had to change our original plans to visit with friends in Canada for a couple of weeks and, instead, be satisfied with a shorter visit of just a few days but it was a fun packed few days, I’ll grant you that. Bob and Denise are the consummate hosts…bar none. Denise is everybody’s dream gourmet cook and Bob practically rewired his whole house to accommodate our computers. Talk about fitting right in and being comfortable. It was Five Star all the way.

Denise and I go back to 1994 when we actually met online in a sewing chatroom. She and I chatted back and forth (with our keyboards) getting acquainted, when we began to notice a pattern. We had a lot in common. We were both retired secretaries, both had been married the exact number of years (in fact our anniversaries were one week apart) and both our husbands were about the same number of years older than us. Our birthdays were just a couple of days apart. We both had white hair, wore hearing aids, loved to sew and read, and had the same taste in many other areas of our lives. We both also began to get uncomfortable with the coincidences as they piled up….each of us thinking, the other one has GOT to be faking this. So I thought I had topped her in one area and told her so. “ I’ve got two dogs…a very unusual breed….and I KNOW you won’t have one as well.” She said, “ Oh I have a dog….and it’s an uncommon breed. It’s a Bichon Frise.” Well, she couldn’t see me through the puter, but I fell on the floor…..I had TWO Bichon Frise’s. When I told her this I thought for sure she would think I was lying. And so it went….we have spent the remaining dozen years finding out how much alike our lives really are. I met her in Houston for a huge quilt show one fall and when she got off the airplane I immediately noted that we were wearing the very same shoes. I pointed that out and we had a good laugh. Of course she pulled the same brand of cosmetics out of her bag and so on…..the coincidences were exhausting. And a lot of fun.

Anyway, while we were at Bob and Denise’s house, I had a lot of fun looking at all her quilts she’s made and going through the ones she has yet to finish. (We call them UFO’s. Unfinished Objects).

Kincardine is a wonderful little town on the shores of Lake Huron. Of course, Lake Huron is so huge you cannot see across it to Michigan on the other side. It looks instead like an ocean. We went down to the lighthouse where every night, a bagpiper plays as the sun sets….an old tradition who’s story I will tell here in this blog in another segment.

Read the Legend of the Bagpiper to get the whole story.

Kincardine has other quaint traditions as well, mostly steeped around it’s Scottish history. Every Saturday night during the summertime, pipers from all around the countryside meet in Kincardine with their bagpipes and march through town playing while hoards of citizens and tourists follow them in the streets. There is also a fall get together where pipers and dancers entertain in the park centered in the town. It truly is a lovely place and I can understand why Bob and Denise resist the urge to sell their home and move to someplace else in retirement. They have a lot of history here. They raised two daughters and made lifelong friends. I think they had better just stay right here in Kincardine. It would be hard to find another place quite like it.

When we weren’t eating and touring the area, we were enmeshed in serious card play….boys against the girls….playing spades. We had a 3 night tournament which, I am proud to say, the girls won. Just barely. It must be because Denise and I think alike too and our instincts when it comes to playing cards work well for us. LOL RIGHT!!!!!