A substantial feat

Last weekend we finally got our kayak hung in the garage. In our previous life it had its own home on a rack in the garden, but here we don't have that kind of space. It's been languishing on the lower patio on the wrong side of the house to ever be used.The plan has always been to hang it from the garage ceiling but it has taken this long to get it done. The kayak is 17 feet long and the garage is 19, so we didn't have much  room for error.The first and biggest hurdle was to find a mechanism that would support the weight and operate easily. We Googled weights and pulley systems and our first attempt was with bits and pieces from Capital Iron and Canadian Tire. Definitely a non-starter. A single pulley seemed to double the weight and a double pulley took up too much of the 23 inches we had available above the garage door runners. Back to Google where Jim came up with a Harken system specifically geared to our problem and even showing a Subaru Outback in the photo!
Unfortunately our roof trusses run the wrong way. Of course. So it took us one whole afternoon to install 2x4's across the trusses.  A second afternoon was spent installing the cross pieces in the right locations. And finally we took another 4 hours to attach the actually pulley system. The construction time was taken up in finding studs, measuring, figuring, drilling, and winding in lag bolts all 9 feet in the air. Installing the system was relatively straightforward until it came to balancing the kayak and the limited length length of the garage and the shortened drop that that allows.

So, it's hanging but it isn't perfect. We can't let the kayak down onto the car, even though it looks like we could in the photo, because the car with the kayak won't clear the garage opening. And because the garage is short the drop rope is short so the kayak only comes down to about shoulder height making for a not-as-easy-as-we-would-like-it operation. In fact it may be quite difficult to get it rehung as someone, Jim, has to hold one end up high while I figure out a way to get the buckle clipped. But at least it has a home and now it may get some water time.

Today was the day

Below our upstairs balcony we have a rich hedge of cotoneaster shrubs and today was the day that the birds decided the berries had reached perfection. While getting dressed I noticed a great flurry of winged activity  which was a mixed flock of about 50 robins varied thrushes and the elusive cedar wax wings. The feast may go on for a few days as the shrubs are heavily laden. I tried to catch the activity on video, but of course as soon as I stepped onto the balcony the birds headed for the trees and the sound of the morning commute pretty much drowns out the chirping racket. Oh well. I was excited.

if you look really hard there is a cedar wax wing in this photo

Happy first day of spring

I know, I know, it's a little wierd but then so am I.
In my sunny little world, discoloured by my rose-tinted glasses, today is the first day of spring not the first day of winter as stated in the newspaper. The sun sets one minute later tomorrow than it will today and I will be marking the progress of el sol's march northward. Yippee!
In about 10 days time when we pack away our Christmas decorations we will have gained about 10 minutes of daylight, not much, but enough to remind the early cherry trees to get into bloom. And after that there is no holding back...

So last night we broke out some champagne, lit the Christmas lights and a lot of candles in honour of the last day of darkness, and toasted the solstice.

I have a cold!

That is only a momentous announcement because I haven’t had one for several years, not because I think I am hard done by. I’m dosing myself with saline nose spray and salt water gargle which work as well as anything else. I briefly resorted to chemicals yesterday until I read the fine print about people with thyroid issues (they called it thyroid disease which sounds far worse than it feels) speaking to their doctor about the medication. That’s a problem.

It was recently reported in our local rag, and maybe in yours, that people in BC are the least likely to have an annual physical check-up. What wasn’t reported, this time, was how many of us don’t have a ‘family’ doctor which makes getting an annual physical pretty difficult. Our beloved and long time GP has recently given up his general practice so Jim and I are now part of that have-not group. We have a great system of walk-in clinics so it’s not hard to get things looked after but don’t ask them to spend more than 10 minutes, ‘cuz there’s a line up.  I needed two prescriptions filled (one of them the thyroid hormone without which I am even crazier than usual!) so I took myself off to the nearest walk-in, waited about 45 minutes and spent less than a nano second with the doctor who took my word for it that I have been using the same prescriptions for decades. Not exactly “health care”, but it got the job done for the time being.  I can only imagine the reaction if I had called to ask if I should take Sudafed for a cold! Meanwhile we both need physicals for our travel insurance and we aren’t sure how to go about it. The Victoria Medical Society lists one doctor taking new patients (“don’t call me unless your doctor has recently retired or you are new to the city”) but she is way across town.

Two other health related items of interest, to me at least:

I volunteered to take part in a huge Canadian cancer research study http://www.bcgenerationsproject.ca/ and had my assessment last week with an enthusiastic nurse from Ontario. When I told him my age he paused, and then said he was having trouble getting used to what 62 looks like in BC compared to Ontario. We decided it is all about our 12 month outdoor lifestyle versus the restrictions inherent in parts of the country that have ice and snow to contend with.

This morning I watched a YouTube clip about the benefits of walking that was posted on Facebook by Saanich Rec http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo&feature=share. The last words were “Can you limit your sitting and sleeping time to just 23 ½ hours each day?”  Wow; what a powerful way to point out how little time is needed to invest in health, and since we don't have a doctor....

Silver Threads

Contrary to some predictions at the time Jim and I have just celebrated our 25^th wedding anniversary. The silver that marked the event is present in our hair! Our decision to be together was not a universally celebrated event. In fact I don’t know anyone who was happy about it at the time. Even Jim and I wished it were otherwise but the decision seemed out of our control; forces of the universe and all that. And here we are 25 years later on the other side of the continent and the scandal of the century has been replaced by thousands of other interesting stories. We are still happy in our little bubble and have had a wonderful two and a half decades. It seemed a momentous milestone and we wrestled with how to mark the occasion initially thinking a super special trip would be the answer. Eventually we realized that the relationship we have with our friends and family members all over the world is our most prized possession and that we would go back to PEI to celebrate, to the scene of the crime as it were.

Alan making a point?

Nancy, Karon, Jim

Melynda, Mark, Pat, Paul, Sue

still not sure?

Pat and Ed, (Jim’s sister and b-i-l) agreed to let us host a party at their house and that’s what we did. We had a great time and it was the perfect celebration. Except for Jim’s parents everyone from the wedding was present; there were only seven of us on the day so it wasn’t that hard. Our very dear friends Jim & Karon Croll came from Fredericton and the family showed up in droves. Our stalwart compadres, who muster any time we appear and who can’t imagine how important they are to us, were there again and again and again.

the Saint John/Halifax Griffiths

Mark and Paul are both older now than Jim was when we married, that shocked them, and while they were reluctant attendees of the wedding dinner we seem to have worked out a happy relationship. Paul made it possible for Mark and Melynda to come to the party and he gave Jim and me executive class tickets which I am enjoying right now while I write this blog post.

Of our 25 years, actually 27, together, 22 have been on the west coast. Thankfully my sister figured that out while we were thinking only about ancient history, and she got our Victoria ‘family’ together for a celebration too. So the occasion has been signed, sealed, and delivered, and we are looking forward to the next 25 with great pleasure but also with the wealth of love and support that we enjoy from our very special circle.

If you ain’t got people, people, you ain’t got nuthin.

Jim enjoying his 'pod' on the way home.

Escape from Reality

As you know we worked pretty much all day every day this summer, moving out of one house, into a new one and doing a major renovation on the second. We are now at the highly unmotivating stage of picky details. There is a lot of trim caulking to do, the kayak has to find a home on the ceiling of the garage, our Mexican sink hasn’t got a proper tile base yet, the chandelier isn’t hung, we need a shorter car, we haven’t organized furniture for the TV room, and on and on. But we are liking the place and it seems to fit us quite well. All through the hard work we promised ourselves a reward escape, assuming it might be to the Okanagan since we love to go there. Jim came across a most amazing place on the Sunshine Coast and since we’ve never been over there that became the destination. We’ve just come back and I have to say it was spectacular. We stayed in a tenthouse suite

at Rockwater Secret Cove, written up in all kinds of exotic travel mags, and wicked expensive except we were within a window of deals. One day we drove around the Sechelt Peninsula, had lunch at Molly’s Reach of Beachcomber fame,

and checked out the sights. Did you know that Beachcombers was the longest running Canadian series 19 years!), and had a huge and loyal following of fans even overtaking Saturday Night Hockey at one point? Another day we took a 5hour boat trip up Jervis Inlet to 

Princess Louisa Inlet and Chatterbox Falls, a 70 mile round trip. The boat was fast! The weather was crazy. It poured rain the night we arrived and then got warm, up to 26C one day. The day on the boat it was hot near the coast but as we went up the inlets the temperature went down about 10 degrees and we were travelling so fast we created quite a wind chill. I've posted an album on Facebook.

On the way home we stayed over in Vancouver for an IKEA fix and dinner with good friends Bob & Kimberly. It was 28C in Vancouver and half of the population was at IKEA. No, I do not exaggerate.

Yesterday morning with wind and rain in the forecast we hopped out of bed and caught the 9:00am ferry. Today it is freezing out and the wind is howling. Yikes! Summer has come to a screeching and abrupt halt. 

I recently finished reading a small book of essays: Chasing the Shore, by David Weale. I was reluctant to read it because David and I used to disagree on virtually everything and I've spent a lot of years thinking that I didn't like him much, not that my opinion counts for anything. Jim had read the book and said I should, which he hardly ever says, so I did. The outcome is that I have completely revised my opinion of the author. The essays are short and homely but so well crafted they would make you weep for the beauty of the words. 

We are more than a little better...

Half a dozen times a year someone drives along our street and dumps out the debris from their just-finished McDonald’s ‘meal’.  It must be the same combination of food items because the litter lands in almost exactly the same place each time.  We do our self righteous little tut-tut and pick up the pieces and I assure myself that the offender will eventually either grow up or move away.

Rewind the video by 40 or 50 years and I would have been happily tossing my junk out of the car window too. Everyone did and I find it amazing that we did. I think I started to tut-tut in the mid seventies when I was commuting back and forth from PEI to Orono, Maine for graduate studies and the shoulders of what used to be called The Airline Route (high, narrow, twisty rte. 9) was glittery with broken bottles. In 1973 the PEI Women’s Institute http://www.womensinstitute.pe.ca initiated a province wide roadside cleanup and that might have been when I began to pay attention to junk; of course I would like to think I was more forward thinking but I’m quite sure I wasn’t. The roadside cleanup is exactly that. Garbage bags are readily available and groups, families, schools, individuals get out in the ditches and pick up junk. They leave the garbage bags on the roadside and it all gets picked up.  No wonder PEI has a reputation for looking tidy and clean. There are at least two reasons that PEI is an innovator in environmental issues: lack of resources and small size. Charlottetown has a smokeless incinerator for garbage from the whole province (no landfills in PEI!!!) and that incinerator heats the hospital and a bunch of other buildings in the east end of the city. The university http://home.upei.ca/  has a wood chip burner that supplies heat to a good bit of the western end of the city. Back in about 1965 the ARK project used a wind turbine for power, and so on and so on.

But I digress. What I actually want to comment on is that in the process of our renovation and move I’ve become aware of the amazing and fabulous opportunities there are in Victoria for getting rid of stuff. There are 26 official recycling options listed in the CRD (Capital Regional District) and there lots of unofficial options. Post garage sales we’ve taken leftovers to the Salvation Army or Value Village; St Vincent De Paul picks up bigger stuff; I’ve made friends on Used Victoria and Craig’s’ List where if you list things free they fly out the door, there is a landscape company that takes dirt, broken concrete, sod; every day of the week we can dump yard waste to be recycled to compost; there’s a “Free Store” where we’ve dropped off a tub, old tools, light fixtures, and someone picks things over and uses them; Habitat for Humanity has their Restore to which we have donated and from which we have purchased. It’s seemingly endless. But my hands down favourite is Ellice Recycle http://www.ellicerecycle.com/. With the aid of the Tweedie truck we made a lot of trips to Ellice’s ‘diversion centre’ where they pride themselves on diverting as much as possible from the landfill. It isn't free and we spent about $500.00 in dumping fees, but what a pleasure to have almost one-stop shopping for your real debris: like cardboard which we can put out with our curbside recycling pickup but we had mountains of it and it was in the way. And what’s really nice about Ellice is that it’s clean, and the staff is happy and helpful, and the buildings have the most beautiful murals on the exterior walls.

Yes, we are more than a little better than we used to be.

Agricultural Fairs

We missed the Saanich Fair this year with just too much going on so we decided to go to the Cowichan Exhibition.

A little background info is that we are from PEI where community agricultural fairs are de rigueur and where “Old Home Week” is the PEI king of fairs http://www.oldhomeweekpei.com/. Growing up the only thing I was interested in was the midway, but my parents always went to the harness racing events of which the Gold Cup race is THE ONE and used to include a bevy of beauties that represented the horses in the Gold Cup and Saucer Parade which is another BIG DEAL. BTW, PEI doesn’t have the first Monday in August as its provincial day; it has Gold Cup Friday instead. Eventually my stomach grew out of the midway rides and I started to enjoy the animal competitions and the food and crafts exhibits in the Women’s Institute Building. 

Other notable fairs that we’ve attended are the State Fair in Columbia, South Carolina and the Calgary Stampede http://calgarystampede.com/ which lives up to its billing as truly amazing. If you are Canadian and haven’t been to The Stampede you should be ashamed of yourself! I’m a little bit ashamed that we have not yet been to the PNE http://www.pne.ca/ in Vancouver. Maybe next year.

The Cowichan Exhibition http://www.cowex.ca/ (how perfect is that domain name!) isn’t quite up there in the big event category but it has the necessary elements to make it fun and worth a trip over the Malahat (local mountain road too often the scene of ugly accidents and stupid drivers). The real attraction for us was that our friends Kim & Miriam, former teachers and now farmers, had entries in the fair competitions! Theirs is another long story that I won’t get into right now but Miriam writes a lovely blog http://muckybootsfarm.blogspot.com/ about their activities (and does hard labour in the garden) and Kim raises enormous chickens.  We arrived in time to see the end of the tractor pull, had the obligatory ice cream, looked at exhibits, laughed at the piglets, and avoided the midway.

Kim’s rooster, Hector, won the rooster category championship and her birds picked up 4 other prizes, and Miriam got ribbons for preserves even though she says she has no idea what she’s doing.

I swear Hector is 5 feet tall

gooseberry and lavender jelly - sounds divine

Mir says there is a category for everyone and anyone of any skill level, but there are standards. One year in an entry field of one, a woman got 2^nd prize for her pie. When asked how that could happen one of the judges said it just wasn’t a first prize quality pie! So there.

Next time you have an opportunity to go to an agricultural fair of any size, do it. Chances are you’ll love it.

these are serious cake decorators!

Summer coming to a close...

You may remember that I was pretty whiney about the weather back in the spring, and it continued to be cool well into July this year. For us it was ideal because we were just doing hard work and if we had had a 30C week it would have been miserable. Most everyone else would tell you we didn’t really have summer in 2011 but finally Victoria hit its usual endless sunshine and perfect temperature stride. Never mind that our winter climate is the only decent one in the country despite the gloom and damp, our summer climate is sublime.

Our favourite picnic site is a rock in Esquimalt overlooking the harbour.  I had to hover and impose my evil eye to move some people away from the only table.

What we consider normal is a long succession of days with clear blue skies, cool starry nights, low humidity, 20-30C degrees, and no bugs. This year has been the same, just a little later getting underway. So we’ve had our evening meal indoors twice since we moved in here (which means consuming lots of wine as we sit on the patio for several hours). Friday we went to our friend Gaye’s house, on Finlayson Arm, (no camera!) and spent a fabulous hour paddling down the inlet followed by corn on the cob, salmon, fresh veggies, and prawns from just off her dock. Does it get any better?

But it’s getting colder at night suddenly; Sunday it was 29C in the daytime but down to 10 overnight, and today it is decidedly cooler and gray. We seem to be heading toward autumn, but this year we don’t have yard clean-up to do or house maintenance. Imagine that!

Next week we are rewarding ourselves with a few days on the Sunshine Coast at what appears to be a very interesting resort http://rockwatersecretcoveresort.com/site/location.html. And after that, who knows…

Outdoor Living

We have friends who, when invited to our house for dinner, arrive with blankets and fleeces on the assumption we may be eating outdoors. It may be because we are from the Maritimes originally but whatever the reason we both feel almost an obligation to be outside the house whenever it is fit to be. One of the big stumbling blocks for us in looking for a townhouse was that we don't have traditional row houses in our housing repertoire. Our townhouses are all reasonably new developments with very limited private outdoor space in favour of common grounds that are looked after by the strata. So we had to get our heads wrapped around living on a balcony which just wasn't resonating favourably. We were very taken with one property that had only a 6x12 deck and thankfully someone put an offer on it before we got around to it or we would already be looking for a new house. In this complex we've moved into all the units have an entry courtyard of some description and a good sized balcony or even two. We have looked at about 10 of the units over the last few years knowing it is an attractive development but we were pretty fussy about what we wanted, a south facing end unit. We bought this one before the listing ink was dry because of the outdoor space, it is that important to us, and then spent a nominal fortune changing the house to suit us. 

the spruce tree and too small table space

nice enough but a bit tired

As with most things the strengths are also the weaknesses in this place: it is at the very end of the row adjacent to a busy street so we don't feel like we are in a development but we get traffic noise; it faces south and west so the light is wonderful but it gets hot so we had to install a wicked expensive motorized awning for the west windows. The courtyard patio here is one of the biggest we've seen and we were going to develop it next year but suddenly it's been done. The spruce tree was always dropping needles and the roots were heaving the bricks so it came down a week ago and then we heard of a young guy who was between jobs and would do the digging labour for a reasonable amount of money, we were able to find almost-matching bricks, and there we are.

you could not imagine how much dirt came out of this modest excavation

the space emerging

Lots of people would have preferred the old look of the courtyard but, for us, the ability to entertain in a not-too-crowded space trumped the messy spruce tree, overgrown shrubs, half-dead roses, and rampant mint.

coming out our front door

coming in from the street

And on the other side of the house we don't have the expanse of sky that we used to have but it's not bad...

the Energizer bunny looking a bit bedraggled as he comes in the back door

Nearing the end

...and you are probably as tired of this project as we are. No one is as tired of it as our new neighbours must be. They seem to be still friendly but it has been a steady barrage of vehicles and racket all summer long. Daily I still fight the battle of where to put too much stuff despite how much we got rid of and daily Jim does hard labour at whatever the flavour of the day is. I have a full carload of things retrieved from Barb's garage and no idea where it's all going to go, so am writing this to avoid dealing with it. But not much to say really so will have to face the music.

The fully functional master bathroom with the shower and tub combo that caused so much measuring angst; and a window that opens instead of glass blocks

And the skookum new kitchen which by the weekend, hopefully, will have bar stools too.

In Praise of Visitors

The Muse Bistro for lunch on a sunny but not very warm Sunday.

A hiatus in our constant effort to get ourselves relocated. Paul arrived on Saturday evening, which forced us to go downtown to pick him up, and also forced us to go out for lunch yesterday and generally take it easy. It's been a gift in two ways: we pushed a little harder to finish a few things so we all could be reasonably comfortable, and we get to relax a bit. Nice. Plus we like Paul.

Sitting virtually in the vineyard with eagles for entertainment.

But, this morning we are waiting for workmen again, who haven't yet appeared at 9:10am which is VERY DISAPPOINTING!

What a difference a week makes

Last Wednesday, 8 days ago, our "stuff" was delivered to our new digs. It's only across the street from where we used to live but it took a week to make the trip since we just weren't ready to set anything up. While we knew this was a pretty major reno, it's only now that we are realizing what miracles have been wrought in only 4 weeks: demolition, new floors, complete paint job, new kitchen (not finished), new laundry room, new master bath/closet configuration, and masses of electrical changes.

today the patchy walls have been painted and we look more finished

no art!

Yes we've been working hard at it but we've also been blessed with good people to work with. It's been a fairly social experience as we know most of the guys (yes, all guys) so we tend to have coffee and lunch together and chat a bit. There have been glitches with the plumbing that are being sorted out and we are waiting for the kitchen counters to be installed next week, so we don't have a functional sink on the main floor. There is a toilet and the laundry, and the outdoor hose, but other wise no running water.

last Wednesday

today

Downstairs we have a kitchenette (the microwave is upstairs) and a full bathroom, so we are getting along with only the inconvenience of the intervening stairs. Refrigerators we have in abundance: the spiffy new counter depth KitchenAid, the beverage sink, the one in the kitchenette, and a new freezer. Just no water. Details!
Bob, the painter is here today finishing up our various patches and suddenly everything looks more finished. THANK GOODNESS for Bob. At one point we thought we would do the painting ourselves. NUTS! First of all the ceilings are 9ft and secondly his edging/cutting is a work of art.
We are essentially unpacked and I even know where most things are. Everything needs to be refined and tweaked but it's not bad. We found a product called Easy Track that actually is easy for doing closets so instead of a week of fussing and fidgeting we put our closet together in an afternoon and the office in an hour.

our closet last Wednesday

our closet today

office closet

The techno rep from the plumbing supply company came by today to sort out the tub filler, so now the tub/shower people can install the walls and tub trim, which means the glass people can measure and eventually we will have a nice set up in our bathroom.

non functional sinks

non functional tub/shower

For a couple of reasons I ordered Hansgrohe plumbing things which are fabulous but are sort of like a Subaru (we own two), in that not everyone wants to be bothered figuring out how they work. Never mind that the quality is quite a cut above the options.
Paul is arriving on Saturday in between Alaska, Seattle, and San Antonio, and it is going to be great to see him as well as to be forced to stop obsessing about "things to be done".
I have created one dime sized bald patch which might be from fatigue or from one of the many times I hit my head on something. I am seriously hoping if it is an alopecia attack that it isn't just getting underway but is over and minor.
The weather has remained cool and dry which has been perfect for what we are doing. Some mornings are downright chilly but our last rainfall was July 16 and the evenings have been nice enough to eat outdoors even though we aren't getting around to food till about 8:00pm.

evening retreat

So, that's our world at the moment. Summer? What summer...?
And we are almost ready to retrieve some of our masses of art from Barb's garage. Almost.