Playing through the pandemic
Margaret MacGregor-MacDonald charmed SaltWire's Joey Smith with her COVID-19-inspired composition.
The Antigonish, N.S., woman has been playing and teaching music for most of her life and wasn't stopped by stay-at-home orders.
Memes and GIFs brought her some joy, so she decided to make her own contribution to lockdown entertainment.
“One thing the pandemic is doing is making people create things,” she explained to Smith. “So I said one day, ‘why don’t I try something?’ So I sat at the piano, and I have to say, it sort of fell on the keys. And then the next day I tweaked it a little bit and thought, ‘that’s what I want.’”
Click/tap for video of MacGregor-MacDonald's Pandemic Waltz.
Storied storeys
If the walls of Sydney’s historic O’Brien House could talk what a tale they might tell.
The 18th-century house, one of Cape Breton’s oldest European-built structures, is now up for sale. Along with the 235-year-old house, the new owners of the harbour-facing Esplanade property will get an intimate opportunity to learn more about the structure’s varied and mysterious past.
Present owner Jim MacDonald purchased it in the early 1980s. Now 72 years old, MacDonald tells the Cape Breton Post's Davis Jala that it’s time to divest himself of the house that has intrigued him for almost four decades.
Creativity for kitties
Sisters Andi-Lee, 13, and Janie, 11, make sure the kittens who come to stay with the family have cardboard houses and tiny costumes, thematically aligned with the baby cats' names, of course.
Their mother told The Guardian's Dave Stewart that the whole family loves taking care of the kittens.
“We feel like we’re the lucky ones because we get to take them home when they’re at their most playful sweet age and have so much fun with them, care for them and make them into good cats before we give them back."
Click/tap for more photos and video of the feline darlings and the Reardons' own three adult cats and one dog.
Playground payback
While his wife Elaine spent more than a year away with their son Brian as the five-year-old underwent cancer treatment in 2011, Albert MacKay's neighbour Noline Francis brought dinner over to him every night.
On May 22, 2011, Elaine and Brian were rushed to the IWK in Halifax by ambulance after an orthopedic scan revealed Brian had stage 4 neuroblastoma.
As a repayment for the assistance he received from Francis during the difficult time, Albert recently built a large bulldozer playset for his neighbours, complete with a tire swing and solar lights for the night.
“I just put the last nail in it Wednesday night,” Albert tells the Cape Breton Post's Sharon Montgomery-Dupe. “I had added a swing set to it.”
For Francis and her children, the bulldozer playset more than made up for a pandemic-cancelled trip to Disney World.
Check out more photos and this heartwarming story of paying back a neighbour's kindness.
Birthday surprise!
The Second World War veteran turned 99 last week and no pandemic would prevent a celebration.
Jenna Fitzpatrick told The Telegram's Glen Whiffen that the visit from legion colleagues made her grandfather's day.
“He was surprised, and I think it’s fantastic,” she told Whiffen. “Normally, we go out for a buffet every year — the whole family — to celebrate his birthday, so not being able to do that this year (due to COVID-19 restrictions) was disappointing, so this was a wonderful surprise.
“The legion is his second family.”
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