It is a most elaborate garden with much attention paid to sheltering the roots with rocks - fabulous conifers, many alpine plants including my favourite platycodons. Surprise - even a patch of PLANTED prickly pears. Friends of the Garden supplied morning tea - not that we need it but when they go to all that bother you have to eat another blueberry muffin.
An hour and a half later and it was time to eat again, lunch at Antigonish where there is a causeway from the mainland to Cape Breton Island - still Nova Scotia but a separate large island with a huge lake, Lake Bras d'Or (Arms of Gold) running down the middle. We are staying at Auberge Gisele on the shores of the lake.
The people of Cape Breton have retained a separate cultural identity and are more Scottish than the Scots with some still speaking Gaelic, many Scottish place names, bagpipes and the ceilidh (pronounced caylee) which is an evening of singing and dancing. And we were invited to a lobster supper and ceilidh in the local hall (all except Peter who swept off to the dentist to get his root canal seen to - what bad luck on holiday!)
The entertainment was Jennifer on fiddle and Mark on keyboard playing Celtic music that made you tap your feet and want to dance but we had to concentrate on the food: fish chowder followed by great buckets of mussels with melted butter. I had 26 mussels - opposite me a lady had at least double - then salad then the lobsters all nicely broken up ready to poke at with lobster picks and get out every morsel. All very fresh and delicious. Finally Ginger pudding with lemon sauce. Jennifer told us the origins of their music and played some more toe-tapping music till we all walked back to the hotel.
Bottom photo is of Merryle enjoying her lobster :
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