Gloom and Bloom

"Gloomiest March on record", "coldest April on record", "coldest spring for 75 years"; these are phrases you don’t want to see in the newspaper describing the time of year when we look for sunshine and warming temperatures.  In fact a front page headline on the weekend began with "May, May, go away". Yes, it is way better than floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and other freaks of nature. Absolutely better. But I may have mentioned at some point that I can be just a titch whiney and this spring has given me lots of practise. I’ve had plenty of company as it seems the whole city is grumbling, people are cranky, patio restaurants are suffering, gardens are mouldering, real estate isn’t moving, and we are way overdue for a change in the jet stream.

But it’s Victoria, so how bad can it be. This weekend there was the annual Swiftsure yacht race, the inaugural Tour de Victoria, the World Partnership Walk, the Uplands Pro-Am Golf tournament, and a bazillion other activities to enjoy. And it wasn’t even a holiday weekend.

We’ve had friends staying with us and Saturday we went to Finnerty Gardens at UVic. It’s about 6 weeks later than we would normally go, (see the first paragraph whine) but we were reminded yet again of what a spectacular garden it is and how many truly beautiful places there are in this little corner of the globe.

Does anyone know what this tree is? The all-lined-up structure is quite endearing.

a coral coloured azalea

Alan's hands and the big rhodo clusters. Some shrubs sag under the weight

Believe it or not this monster is a peony. That's my hand in the phot, for scale.

Another beautifully structured tree, this one a green Japanese Maple. 

These bamboo are about 25 feet tall and gorgeous.  We spent some time on Saturday  on a search and destroy mission in our bamboo patch because this is the season that it runs rampant

a healthy Arbutus in bloom while many are dying from a canker disease

Baby steps

Needing a distraction from obsessing about house issues, and having an hour to kill I decided to try my hand at the easel and paints. It’s been over a year since my last painting effort and you’d think any injury might have cleared up by now. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. I’ve discovered that I can manage about 30 minutes without apparently doing any damage, even though it hurts. There is something about holding your arm in front of the body and carrying its weight that puts pressure on the back and neck. In fact the front part of my deltoid muscle doesn’t fire very effectively anymore; I guess it gave up in disgust as I asked it to hold the position for hours and years at a time. Having said that I’m not unpleased with the result of my 3x30 minute sessions and with maybe two more I’ll have a painting. The subject won't appeal to everyone but it's been rattling around in my head for awhile.

African buffalo at Nottens Bush Camp

Thirty minutes limits might be a good way to keep the work fresh as I won‘t be worrying about perfection or any one painting will drag out for months. 

I feel good about the renewed smell of oil paint.

I’ve also committed myself to a more comprehensive yoga routine, shoulder stands and all, to see if I can build my strength back. That also hurts but no worse than not doing it and I keep the head and shoulder stands short.

On another good note, after the gloomiest March on record and the coldest April on record, we are finally putting 4 or 5 days of sunshine together. We hope.