Month: October 2016

What do you look for in a fashion retailer?

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Several months ago, one of my favourite fashion bloggers, Pam Lutrell at over50feeling40 wrote an article for Midlife Boulevard entitled “What Retailers Need to Know From The Midlife Woman“. It was a great conversation starter and it certainly got me thinking about what my preferences are when I shop for clothes.

What do you look for in a fashion retailer? 

Quality and price are always my first considerations. I like to shop for clothing that’s stylish and up-to-date without being too trendy. As a woman in my 60s, I’m not trying to look like a teenager, but I definitely don’t want to look matronly either.

I like a store that’s clean and well lit with attractive displays and not overcrowded. I rarely shop for clothing in department stores because there’s just too much to choose from. The racks are usually overfilled and customer service is almost non-existent.

I like to be greeted by staff who are friendly and helpful without being pushy or overbearing. I don’t want to hovered over, but neither do I want to feel invisible. If the sales associates spend their time standing behind the counter talking about last night’s date, I probably won’t hang around long. I also expect to be treated with respect and as a valued customer regardless of how much or how little I spend.

Dressing rooms are an important part of the shopping experience. They should be well lit, large enough to move around in and have somewhere to put my purse and belongings. A three way mirror in a well lit spot near the dressing rooms is absolutely essential.

Lastly, music that’s loud and intrusive is definitely a deterrent. I want to be able to hear myself think! Something quiet and relaxing in the background creates the kind of atmosphere that I appreciate in a clothing store.

What do you look for in a fashion retailer?

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Peggy’s Cove

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Peggy’s Cove, a quaint fishing village on the eastern shore of St Margaret’s Bay, about 45 km from Halifax, Nova Scotia, is probably one of the best known and most visited locations in Canada. Though we’d been there twice before, we couldn’t resist stopping at this picturesque spot again as we made our way from Halifax to our next destination at Mahone Bay.

The iconic lighthouse dominates the rocky point overlooking the crashing waves below.

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Though it’s the lighthouse that attracts the most tourist attention, I love walking around the village photographing the colourful boats and the houses that cling to the rocks around the cove.

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Also of interest is the Fisherman’s Monument carved into a 30 metre granite outcropping by artist, William Edward deGarthe, who emigrated to Canada from Finland in 1926 and settled in Peggy’s Cove in 1955.  The sculpture depicts 32 fishermen, their wives and children, a guardian angel with wings outspread, and the legendary Peggy of Peggy’s Cove.

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Halifax Seaport

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We spent most of our weekend in Halifax exploring the harbour area. Our first stop was the newly renovated Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, Canada’s last standing ocean immigration terminal. It was here that a great many of the immigrants who arrived in our country between 1928 and 1971 first stepped onto Canadian soil. As well as offering a fascinating step into the past to experience what it was like to immigrate through Pier 21, the museum showcases the vast contributions that newcomers have made to Canada’s culture, economy and way of life. I was particularly touched by the wall of testimonies written by previous visitors to the museum. Here are just a few of them.

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As we explored the Halifax Seaport, a vibrant waterfront area and a popular destination for both locals and tourists, we passed “The Emigrant”, a beautiful bronze and marble monument depicting an emigrant leaving his home country to start a new life in Canada. The piece was designed, sculpted and donated by artist, Armando Barbon, himself an immigrant who wanted to say thank you to his adopted country.

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In addition to being the place where many new Canadians first stepped onto our shore, the Halifax harbour was also the location where thousands of First World War soldiers last stood on Canadian soil. A trail of footprints burned into the wooden boardwalk traces the path of the long-gone fighters to a memorial arch bearing the words “The Last Steps”.

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The Seaport is also home to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. There, I found the exhibit devoted to the 1917 Halifax Explosion most interesting. On that darkest day in Halifax’s history, at 9:06 a.m. on December 6,  a dreadful miscommunication between two ships in the harbour resulted in an explosion of cataclysmic proportions. 2,000 people were killed and 9,000 more injured. It was the largest man-made explosion in history prior to the first nuclear blast.

In addition to exploring local history, I loved just walking the boardwalk and enjoying the harbour sights.

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Hello Nova Scotia!

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As I write this post, I’m sitting in the sunshine on the beautiful south shore of Nova Scotia! These are the views out the window beside me.

With this trip, we’re killing four birds with one stone. First of all, we celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary on Sunday and we wanted to do that somewhere other than home. We spent the weekend in Halifax where we stayed in a lovely Victorian bed and breakfast that is older than the town we live in! Ascendence Harbourside Mansion was built in 1891 for the Auditor General of Nova Scotia. We stayed in the luxurious Auditor’s Suite. Our hosts went above and beyond, placing chocolates and fresh flowers in our room when they learned that it was our anniversary. The breakfasts were wonderful and we had a great time visiting with the other guests around the table each morning.

Our main reason for choosing Nova Scotia as the destination for our anniversary trip was the fact that we’ve been wanting to return to Mahone Bay for another visit with the pen pal that I inherited when Richard’s mother passed away. The two little girls began writing to one another when they were 11 years old. When Mother passed away in 1993, the family asked me to write her pen pal to let her know. In return, I received a beautiful letter from Myrna telling me that she didn’t want to lose touch with the family that she’d known only through letters for so many years. I began writing to her and the relationship between our two families has now been going on for 77 years! As I write this, I’m sitting in her son’s living room three doors down the road from her house at Indian Point, just outside the beautiful little town of Mahone Bay. You can read about our first visit in 2009 here.

The third reason for this trip was our longtime desire to see the spectacular colours of eastern Canada in the fall. So far, everyone here has been apologizing for the fact that the trees aren’t in full autumn colour yet due to the extreme lack of rain in this area this year, but we are still seeing colour we would never see at home! Hopefully we’ll see more before we return to Alberta over a week from now.

Lastly, we had lots of Air Miles to use up before they begin expiring on Dec. 31. We’ve been collecting them for years and had enough saved to pay for our flights and our little rental car and still have enough left over for a mid winter vacation!

Stay tuned for future posts and pictures as we continue our travels. Right now, the sun is shining and the locale is too beautiful to spend any more time sitting at my keyboard!