A winter day near the end of 2017

12/30/2017

When it is cold and snowy outside Jack enjoys making comfort foods like his infamous Irish soda bread that he often serves at the B&B. Wholesome ingredients and so yummy! This guy is always trying out new recipes to serve for breakfast at our B&B.

We remember the flowers blooming in our gardens not so long ago. Hard to believe on a day like today!

We remember the blooms...

And the guests who touched our lives as the year draws to a close.

So many who brought joy to this sanctuary in the heart of Stratford and enjoyed a good sleep and breakfasts surrounded by Jack's art including the author of The Handmaid's Tale and her husband and groups, couples and individuals from around the globe.

A photo of us above on January 1st, 2017. The day after tomorrow it will be the first of 2018! How the year has flown by!

A member of a group of regular guests snapped a shot of us in one of our front gardens as we were going out to dinner on our 36th wedding anniversary on August 1st, walking downtown to Pazzo's Taverna where we had reserved a romantic booth for the occasion.

And right after Jack's birthday last early January we returned to Puerto Morelos, Mexico with Puccini who is originally from there and who adopted us there and we rented a sweet little home for two months. Puccini travels back and forth with us in his soft sided kitty carrier in the cabin of the plane with us.

While there we noticed two abandoned dogs nearby both female. One, a pit bull left chained to a tree and the other one who was "free" and not chained we discovered was deaf. We ade sure that they had food and water and I began walking them and making every effort to find them good homes. On the afternoon before our flight back to Canada finally the deaf one was adopted and after we had her to a vet and discovered that she had 2 treatable conditions that would have prevented her from travelling to Canada.

Saying good bye to Shena was difficult.
We thank Stratford based actress LInda Prystawska from the bottom of our hearts for organizing a fund for both dogs rescue and care and for actually flying down to help out! Miriam for getting the pit bull rescued and Jorie and her organization for getting Sheena to the vet for blood work and medications and Alana from Seattle for adopting Sheena and giving her such a loving home.

What a year it has been!