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“If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.”
E. Joseph Cossman
So very much has happened in the last year; it is difficult sometimes to ‘get one’s head around it’. These photos were taken a year apart! Where would I rather be?…
Tags: Holiday, Mexico, Photo, Snow, Sunshine, Victoria, Weather, winter
“Snow makes a soft bed, but no man wakes from it. That was the wisdom of the North”.
Mark Lawrence
Some days – particularly at this time of year – the cold morning air is so clear that we get a quite startlingly sharp vista of Mount Baker and the mountain ranges that surround it.
At such time – even though my humble camera is unable to do the prospect justice – I can’t resist photographing it…
…or posting the results!
Tags: Mount Baker, Photo, Vista
“I painted it because I dreamed it
because we all dreamed it”
The Little Boy and the Painter
I promised some before and after images of the exterior decoration of our lovely house.
Ta-dah!…
Here are some before and after shots (double-click to enlarge):
The stucco colour is still light – we want the house to stay cool in summer – but the colours are much warmer. The woodwork at the front was previously stained but is now a fetching shade of ‘Stonehenge Greige’ (don’t ask – but it’s all the rage!).
More ‘after’ shots:
Tags: Home, House, Photo, Renovation
I wrote a piece within these pages back at the start of the year (well – February!) on the general subject of my level of fitness – and what it took to keep things that way. I made reference to having just restarted attendance at the fitness class of which I have been a regular pretty much since we came to Canada.
Of course, not long after I committed those musings to the digital equivalent of print, the COVID-19 pandemic broke and everything was turned upside down. The fitness class moved onto Zoom and was executed in the safety of our own living rooms. When restrictions eased a little as the summer unfolded we reverted to meeting ‘in person’ at the Shoal Centre in Sidney (a community ‘hub’ for ‘seniors’) where we undertook carefully socially-distanced classes wearing masks and with extravagant but necessary health precautions.
These classes have continued since then, but on each day when the weather permits – ie when it is not raining or snowing! – we have taken to exercising in the park across the road from the centre. This is not only much safer but it is also considerably more pleasant.
I took most of these pictures between exercises during yesterday’s class.
A few autumnal images from recent fall walks here on fabulous Vancouver Island.
It is no secret that autumn is not my favourite time of year, but one cannot deny that the season brings many beautiful things and if one wants variety – then fill your boots! Sometimes it looks like this:
…but at others it looks like this:
Tags: Autumn, British Columbia, Photo, Vancouver Island
High time for some more shots of things growing in our garden!…
…and possibly some other random images that I have overlooked throughout the last couple of months. Let’s see what I can find…
Tags: British Columbia, Gardens, Photo, Summer, Victoria, Vista
Well, here we are at the end of this short retrospective – one year on – of our 2019 trip to the UK and Greece. The Girl and I had a wonderful and memorable visit to Europe – a fine balance between spending time with loved ones and old friends, revisiting a bit of the old country and getting to wallow in glorious antiquity in a part of the world that neither of us had known well.
As is the way of such things, on our return to BC we immediately started thinking about and planning further excursions, little knowing that – along with everyone else – our future travel plans would all have to be put on ice for an indeterminate and possibly indefinite period.
The Girl and I loved Athens and you can read the notes of a year ago and view the photos that I posted here and here.
Finally – a few more images from those taken in Athens:
Tags: Europe, Greece, Holiday, Memories, Photo, Travel, United Kingdom
This time last year we had just returned from the splendid trip to the UK and to Greece that I am re-living vicariously through the medium of this journal.
The timing of this particular post is really quite apposite because – having rounded off our splendid reunion with the UK and headed south to join our cruise ship for the first phase of our Greek visit – it was no longer possible for me to publish posts to the blog, on account of the paucity and cost of the Internet connections on board ship. As a result I unleashed a stream of such postings after we returned to Canada – starting with this one.
I had visited Greece once before, though that time to a different set of islands – the Dodecanese. This time we would be mostly in the Cyclades. For The Girl this would be a first visit to any part of Greece and neither of us had been to Athens – where we would spend a few days at the end of our cruise. Much, then, to look forward to.
Now – with regard to the cruise itself the postings that I made on our return were really quite comprehensive and laden with (if i say so myself) quite lovely photographs. If the Greek islands are of interest to you do take a look around. As for this post – well – I will do my best to dig out any interesting images that did not make the cut first time around. I know that I took plenty – so I am hopeful…
These images are from our visits to Santorini, to Heraklion and Knossos and to Ephesus:
Several posts back in what is in serious danger of becoming a blog about gardening (a subject on which I am completely unqualified to write but which seems to be one of the few activities still open to one in these strange days) I spun a tale about the conversion of the redundant raised pond in our front garden into a new bed for plants. All that remained – I reported breathlessly – was to choose that which should be planted therein.
To give the gentle reader some broader physical context – this is what the bed looks like in situ:
As may be observed the bed is backed – and overhung – by a screen of five medium sized fir trees and surrounded by a cluster of evergreen shrubs. This whole acts as a handy barrier between our property and the road and gives the garden an agreeable degree of privacy. There is – however – a fair bit of ‘green’ going on.
What to plant there? The firs raise the acid level of the soil beneath them which limits the choice somewhat. We considered azaleas or rhododendrons (both of which we already have in fair number) or something with bright coloured flowers. The problem with the latter is that the contrast obtained thereby would last but a limited period each year.
We chose instead to offset the greenery with some burgundy/red which would provide a nearly year round contrast – and went looking for suitable low-habit Japanese maples (or acers should you prefer). Here is what we found:
The larger one is a Gloucester Red Select and the smaller one is a Red Dragon. Why did we not purchase two bushes the of similar size? Have you seen the price of these things? They will end up of similar stature and this way we get to see them grow and fill out over time whilst ensuring that they take on the shape that we want.
They both cascade nicely and will give us a pretty mound of burgundy – fading to crimson red in the autumn (fall) – to offset all of that greenery.
Now we just have to wait and enjoy the show from our kitchen window!
Tags: British Columbia, COVID-19, Gardens, Photo, projects
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