A Weekend at Rita's Retreat

As a child, I got a kick out of driving up the long driveway in Coxheath, Cape Breton and admiring that beautiful home with the well-manicured lawn and indoor swimming pool. "look, I think that's her in the kitchen" my mother quipped one day.  "Her" being renowned Cape Breton singer/songwriter Rita MacNeil.  Every time we went for a family Sunday drive, us kids would be in the back seat chiming "can we drive around Rita's mansion?". And that's what we would do. No one seemed to mind us taking a little peak.  Just a young, nosy family out for a drive, trying to catch a glimpse of a local celebrity.

 Years later, Sunday drives with my parents were replaced by coffee runs and aimless road trips with friends.  For many years, I didn't lay eyes on that beautiful home in Coxheath.  It wasn't until June of 2022 that I would get to see the house again and even sleep inside! 

I received a call from my friend inviting me to a party that was taking place at an Airbnb in Coxheath. After not getting out much for more than 2 years due to Covid, I jumped at the chance to get out of the house and do something different and see some people I haven't seen in a long time. Curious as to where exactly the Airbnb was so I would easily find it when the time came, I searched for the address on Google Maps. That's when I learned that I would be staying at that house I used to beg my parents to drive by on those long ago family drives!

I drove up to the house and it was almost exactly as I remembered it. I couldn't wait to get inside! I always imagined what it would look like inside and I have to say, I was quite impressed!  As an Airbnb, Rita's Retreat has everything!  Well, first of all it's huge!  The main house where I stayed had several bathrooms, a games room, a huge fully-equipped kitchen, dining room, piano room, sun porch, and large patio. However, the best part was the indoor swimming pool!

There was drinks and pizza around the dining room table before venturing to the bottom of the hill to sit around a campfire. Even though it was quite late when I returned to the house, I couldn't resist a late-night swim in the beautiful pool. 

All in all, I strongly recommend anyone local looking for a beautiful place to host an overnight event like a family reunion or any large families traveling in Cape Breton to book this amazing property but I hear it's quite popular and can book up quickly!

The Old, Abandoned Homesteads of Cape Breton

A few hundred years ago, Europeans (mostly of French and Scottish descent) started settling on the island.  The now quiet rural areas of Cape Breton were once bustling communities.  The very remote area of Framboise on the south coast of the island was much busier 100 years ago than it is now.  Today, it's much like a ghost town.  Businesses that once flourished closed and old family homesteads were left to deteriorate after residents headed out west and to the eastern United States in search of work.  When I come across an old home like this one pictured, I often wonder if there are grandchildren and great-grand children somewhere, perhaps in Calgary, Toronto or Boston, who have no idea that their old family home still stands in a desolate corner of Cape Breton.  Unfortunately, this old home burned down not long after I took this photo but many more just like it are still standing in remote areas of the island.  Left just as they were when their inhabitants reluctantly walked away, perhaps thinking that, someday, they would return. 

This old home must have once been beautiful before it was left to deteriorate. At well over 100 years old, it's owners are long gone but it's rugged and aged beauty graced an overgrown plot of land on Crooked Lake Road until it burned down a few years back.  My curiosity got the better of me one day and I peaked inside and on the floor in the porch was old newspapers from the 1930s.  Imagine newspapers almost a century old and still intact!

Just an Update....

Well, here I am still without internet. I managed to find some time to get to a coffee shop and avail of their wireless services but despite the lack of service at home, I have been kept quite busy these past few weeks. Things got a bit hectic at the end of my time at 2791 Lingan Rd. The day before we were supposed to vacate the property and have everything out, it still looked like a tornado had struck but with a few helpful neighbors with trucks and an extension that allowed us to have the entire next day to get everything out, we managed to have the place completely cleared by 5PM that day. I tried not to get emotional when the time came to leave for good but I just couldn’t hold it back no matter how hard I tried. I mean, I did spend my entire childhood there and it was really the only home I ever knew not to mention the memories attached to the house and the familiar surroundings that I could always retreat back to even after I went into the world on my own.

This past week, I found myself with a slightly difficult adjustment but not as hard as I thought it would be. I am still in Lingan at a house a few doors down from 2791 and have finally reorganized myself somewhat with pretty much everything I need to sustain a comfortable living with me and the rest in storage for the time being. I am staying with a friend for now until I find my own place closer to work. Speaking of work, I started that new job I mentioned in the last post and it is going very well although the adjustment from full-time freelancer working from home on my own hours to full-time 8-hour work days on someone else's schedule has been a bit trying. I am used to working at my own pace for as long or as little as I want each day and have done this for a little over two years after loosing my job in St. John’s and moving back to Nova Scotia. I now have a serious lack of free time but a few good things are already coming out of it; my hectic schedule means I am not sitting at my computer eating junk food and drinking wine in the evenings and this means I have already lost a few pounds of that little bit of extra weight I was carrying around since last winter. The biggest adjustment will, no doubt, be the lack of free time I will have to spend writing but having a job outside the house for a while will allow me to at least branch out and learn some new things, meet some new people, make some new contacts and spend some time outside of the confines of my room which I spent numerous hours holed up in trying to meet various deadlines to make a few extra bucks to keep me afloat while I searched for a “real” job.

Despite being so busy lately, I did manage to do the one thing that I absolutely cannot miss every Fall; a drive around the Cabot Trail. I went later in the season this time but, for some reason, the leaves are staying on the trees longer than normal and the colors seem to be brighter than in the past. I picked the best possible day to go too! The weather was perfect with a cloudless sky and temperatures hovering around 15 degrees the entire day! This past Saturday was the Annual Halloween dance at the Lingan Hall so I also made some time to put a quick costume together and enjoy the weekend with friends and a few drinks before starting a new week off with my first official day at the new job after a week of training.