Tales from the deep blue sea.

I made an interesting new friend recently - Bob the Biker and his two year old grandson. I saw him (Bob) pulling his kayak into Departure Bay Beach and decided to go and talk to him about his kayak and kayaking in general. When I asked if I could ask some questions about his kayak, I was met with a very hostile "What about it?"...I knew then I was on delicate ground and better tread carefully. Anyway, things progressed slowly until he was telling me his life story, along with some useful information about kayaking. He even offered to put his kayak back in the water so I could take it for a paddle.


We shook hands at the end of the half hour or so conversation and he told me that because I was chatty like him, people would look after me! I went away feeling reassured and we agreed that we would likely see each other at the beach in the future with our kayaks. 

I went to my first Vancouver Island Quilt Show recently - in Parksville (just a bit north of Nanaimo) - a couple of the ladies from the guild (new friends) had asked if I would like to go with them...would I?!! Of course! Very impressive array of quilts displayed - more art quilts than traditional ones but all enjoyable to see and provide inspiration. I haven't had time to do much quilting for many weeks - with the nicer weather, it's hard to stay inside. 
  

The May long weekend has come and gone - it's the traditional vegetable garden planting weekend for most Canadians, i.e. supposedly past any possible frosts (but on the island, we have had our gardens planted for many weeks already). We had planned (about a year ago) to go down to Victoria on the holiday Monday to connect with my quilting friend Joan and her husband Horst (and his sister from the US) who would be in town for half a day as their cruise ship made its way back to San Francisco after their Alaskan cruise.


We discovered that Victoria had their major parade on that day (ooops) with 120,000 people expected to watch it, but intrepid Brian figured it would not be a problem ... and it wasn't. It was a mostly rainy day but the parade (all 3 or 4 hours of it) was luckily completed with only the occasional very light rain shower. We had no problem finding parking and easily made it to the appointed meeting place to see the bus arrive and greet Joan and Horst. Had a wonderful morning visiting with them - bit of walking, lots of talking, and coffee. The time went too quickly and before we knew it, they were back on the bus to get back to the cruise ship and the final leg of the trip to San Francisco before heading back home to Australia.

So great to see you!

Just outside Fairmont Empress Hotel.

At Murchie's cafe.

Murchie's baking looked amazing.

Was hard to resist, but resist we did.

Random Victoria shot.

I'm always drawn to food in windows.

After saying goodbye to Joan and Horst, we headed home - via a detour to catch up with very longtime friends Ken and Sylvia who live about a half hour outside Victoria. We hadn't seen them since before Christmas so had lots to talk about. Enjoyed a tour of their interesting garden and then they were kind enough to feed us a wonderful dinner as well. Was nice to get home after a busy day and just relax.

I discovered last week (after deciding to take a closer look after being swooped as I inadvertently weeded just inches from their front door) that our new birdhouse residents are Bewicks Wrens...not sparrows as previously thought. Not sure how much higher wrens are on the pecking order than sparrows but it has been fun watching them as they very busily go about feeding their babies. One of them, knowing I was watching, took 5 minutes to complete a circuitous route (designed to confuse me) to the nest. 

I'm pretty sure I outfoxed Ginnie and she
didn't see me!

We've taken the kayak out twice on Departure Bay now - the first time last week, we paddled in front of our house and over to the Biological Station - what looks like a small area of water from our house, seemed huge from our small boat. 

This is the little island we see from our
house - it's for sale by the way.

Our house is in the middle of this photo;
was exciting to see it from the water.

Whole different experience seeing the
bay from this vantage point - see the
ferry in the distance.

We can see part of this biological station
from the house also.

Not a great shot but this seal left the larger
group and came quite close to us - then just
sat and watched! He finally just slid under
the water and disappeared.

Brian had an afternoon work shift, so we took the kayak out again onto Departure Bay in the morning but this time we headed in the opposite direction - towards the ferry terminal. It seemed so close until we started paddling...was quite a trek over there and slightly challenging with the big swell coming in - fortunately Brian managed the tacking etc. and whatever else you do to cope with that - my job was to keep paddling. I did however take time out for a photo or two. We are really enjoying our kayak.

On the return leg.

This week we discovered another small lake in town, Brannen Lake, and took the kayak out for a paddle - just got back before a bit of light rain set in. There are some lovely homes on the lake - all sharing the natural beauty with the Correctional Institute! Nice neighbours eh?

Brian enjoying the view from the rear.

Looking across to the correctional institute.

One day last week when we were out the front doing a spot of gardening, Brian noticed a deer in the neighbour's yard - nothing special about that EXCEPT it was nuzzling what looked like a newborn fawn and getting it to its feet! Wow. I raced to get the camera and cautiously approached from the sidewalk to get a few photos as they headed away up the driveway. Amazing, amazing, amazing.   

We hadn't seen them all week but this morning, as we sat with our coffee at the window, we saw mother and baby go across the road and down the street - the baby is so tiny - it's amazing they survive in the city.

Again, not the best photo - you can
just (hopefully) see the baby beside the
mother's rear legs.

We have a huge evergreen in the front yard which was growing rapidly so we decided to reduce its height by half - seemed easy when we talked about it but what a huge job. We started on it a few weeks ago and finally decided we should finish the job yesterday. It generated three truckloads of prunings. It seemed such a waste to be throwing out all of those fresh greens - should have done the work at Christmas when we could have made use of them! Anyway, our view is quite a bit improved after our efforts.

Yes, that's my crazy husband sitting
in the middle of the bush! It's quite
a drop down to the road behind, so I
was pretty nervous watching him.

He figured out that by climbing up
and sitting on the ladder, he could
reach more of the inside of the bush.

Cannot believe that June is here already. It promises to be another busy month with a quick trip to Alberta planned next week to see all of our kiddies. Just possibly there may be something new to put on the blog, although having made that trip 3 times already since arriving back in Canada, I'm not hopeful!