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Yesterday was a good dayTM.
It began with Robinson and me setting forth to wildest Fairfield for a fairly long walk from Cattle Point up to the Ross Bay Cemetery (which we had to skirt because dogs are prohibited), thence in a little loop up to Moss Rocks and then back down to Beach Drive on Moss St.
This was the view south from Moss Rocks
Moss St is probably one of those streets you can see below, heading down towards the ocean. Fairfield, for those not acquainted with Victoria, is one of our most desirable neighbourhoods: close to the ocean, attractive, expensive but not snobby. It is much frequented by artists, writers and those lucky academics who bought in twenty or thirty years ago when houses in Fairfield were still affordable. The big old houses you see there are much divided up into apartments, so there are even some fortunate students and such living in the neighbourhood. It has become much too expensive for most people now. I passed one of those big houses selling one piece as a strata - $600k plus. Mind you, it was quite big for a condo: 3 bedrooms, I think. If I ever bought a lottery ticket and won, I'd buy a house in Fairfield (assuming I didn't win enough to quit my job and settle in England!)
On my return home, I had some coffee sitting on my more modest deck but appreciating my pleasant garden surroundings, then began house-cleaning. I vacuumed and washed my floors (leaving the house redolent of Method Wood for Good with almond oil), dusted and changed my sheets, while other laundry rumbled in the basement.
It was while I was in the final stages of vacuuming my bedroom that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lidocafe phoned and invited me to go the see a couple of the historic places open to the public this weekend. Remember I mentioned going to a couple on Canada Day? Well, today is "BC Day" and it's our 150th birthday this year, so some of the same places plus one or two more are open this weekend as well. We went to the Sikh Temple, which is actually only a few blocks from my house but to which I'd never been, and the Synagogue. Both places were very beautiful, with that lovely air that only places that have been full of worship for years have. We chatted to an elderly Sikh gentleman and were given a welcome offering of butter and wheat flour and sugar that tasted of cookie dough. The synagogue had a little mini lecture given by a vivacious and quite wonderful seventy-something woman who was exactly the way I would like to be when I'm seventy-something. She quite obviously adored the place and her faith and everything to do with it, and conveyed a great deal. I also learned some history that I hadn't known before, like that during the gold rush Victoria went from 400 people to about 16 thousand in the space of 6 months!
We went for coffee after and talked about books and movies, as we do, then it was homeward.
To give Robinson a run in the garden and encounter the one slight blot in the day, which is the exponential increase in the likelihood that when you have a very clean floor and bathroom, a dog will roll in something or have an upset tummy. Robinson had a severe case of the Beardie Dire-rears, which can be quite impressive in a gross way, and needed an immediate shower, and the bathroom floor of course had to be wiped off again. I decided to follow him in the shower, while my barbecue chicken cooked.
This was in the oven - my real oven, not my toaster oven - as I don't own a barbecue. I have a rather nifty chicken-baking device on which the chicken sits upright and roasts rather like on a rotisserie. I made homemade barbecue sauce to-die-for; I could have eaten it with a spoon! I used lime-infused olive oil, black-currant dijon mustard from Paris, tomato ketchup, maple syrup, a dash of worcestershire sauce, and chili powder. I ate the chicken with some late new potatoes and asparagus, and drank Two in the Bush Sauvignon Blanc wine, which is my current favourite. I was planning to watch a movie afterwards but was actually too tired, so watched an episode of Veronica Mars followed by an hour or so of book.
Today is BC Day proper, and there are festivities all over the city, but I'm actually planning a fairly quiet day of gardening and slothing. Fireworks tonight - poor Robinson. It's the Symphony Splash (a big outdoor concert, like Victoria's answer to the Proms, though in the inner harbour. Yes, IN the harbour - they set up a big floating stage and everyone sits on the Legislature lawns and on the causeway around the harbour. They always finish with the 1812, complete with canons and the aforementioned fireworks. I'd vaguely quite like to go, but don't like crowds and don't like to leave Robs alone with his terror of noise.
ETA: The Symphony Splash was yesterday; that was the noise Robs and I heard last night. Tonight it's a big concert with Sarah McLachlan, Colin James and Feist, among others. Just now, the Snow Birds flew overhead (poor Robs - his nerves are now completely shot!). I got pics. Will post later.
It began with Robinson and me setting forth to wildest Fairfield for a fairly long walk from Cattle Point up to the Ross Bay Cemetery (which we had to skirt because dogs are prohibited), thence in a little loop up to Moss Rocks and then back down to Beach Drive on Moss St.
This was the view south from Moss Rocks
Moss St is probably one of those streets you can see below, heading down towards the ocean. Fairfield, for those not acquainted with Victoria, is one of our most desirable neighbourhoods: close to the ocean, attractive, expensive but not snobby. It is much frequented by artists, writers and those lucky academics who bought in twenty or thirty years ago when houses in Fairfield were still affordable. The big old houses you see there are much divided up into apartments, so there are even some fortunate students and such living in the neighbourhood. It has become much too expensive for most people now. I passed one of those big houses selling one piece as a strata - $600k plus. Mind you, it was quite big for a condo: 3 bedrooms, I think. If I ever bought a lottery ticket and won, I'd buy a house in Fairfield (assuming I didn't win enough to quit my job and settle in England!)
On my return home, I had some coffee sitting on my more modest deck but appreciating my pleasant garden surroundings, then began house-cleaning. I vacuumed and washed my floors (leaving the house redolent of Method Wood for Good with almond oil), dusted and changed my sheets, while other laundry rumbled in the basement.
It was while I was in the final stages of vacuuming my bedroom that
lidocafe phoned and invited me to go the see a couple of the historic places open to the public this weekend. Remember I mentioned going to a couple on Canada Day? Well, today is "BC Day" and it's our 150th birthday this year, so some of the same places plus one or two more are open this weekend as well. We went to the Sikh Temple, which is actually only a few blocks from my house but to which I'd never been, and the Synagogue. Both places were very beautiful, with that lovely air that only places that have been full of worship for years have. We chatted to an elderly Sikh gentleman and were given a welcome offering of butter and wheat flour and sugar that tasted of cookie dough. The synagogue had a little mini lecture given by a vivacious and quite wonderful seventy-something woman who was exactly the way I would like to be when I'm seventy-something. She quite obviously adored the place and her faith and everything to do with it, and conveyed a great deal. I also learned some history that I hadn't known before, like that during the gold rush Victoria went from 400 people to about 16 thousand in the space of 6 months!We went for coffee after and talked about books and movies, as we do, then it was homeward.
To give Robinson a run in the garden and encounter the one slight blot in the day, which is the exponential increase in the likelihood that when you have a very clean floor and bathroom, a dog will roll in something or have an upset tummy. Robinson had a severe case of the Beardie Dire-rears, which can be quite impressive in a gross way, and needed an immediate shower, and the bathroom floor of course had to be wiped off again. I decided to follow him in the shower, while my barbecue chicken cooked.
This was in the oven - my real oven, not my toaster oven - as I don't own a barbecue. I have a rather nifty chicken-baking device on which the chicken sits upright and roasts rather like on a rotisserie. I made homemade barbecue sauce to-die-for; I could have eaten it with a spoon! I used lime-infused olive oil, black-currant dijon mustard from Paris, tomato ketchup, maple syrup, a dash of worcestershire sauce, and chili powder. I ate the chicken with some late new potatoes and asparagus, and drank Two in the Bush Sauvignon Blanc wine, which is my current favourite. I was planning to watch a movie afterwards but was actually too tired, so watched an episode of Veronica Mars followed by an hour or so of book.
Today is BC Day proper, and there are festivities all over the city, but I'm actually planning a fairly quiet day of gardening and slothing. Fireworks tonight - poor Robinson. It's the Symphony Splash (a big outdoor concert, like Victoria's answer to the Proms, though in the inner harbour. Yes, IN the harbour - they set up a big floating stage and everyone sits on the Legislature lawns and on the causeway around the harbour. They always finish with the 1812, complete with canons and the aforementioned fireworks. I'd vaguely quite like to go, but don't like crowds and don't like to leave Robs alone with his terror of noise.
ETA: The Symphony Splash was yesterday; that was the noise Robs and I heard last night. Tonight it's a big concert with Sarah McLachlan, Colin James and Feist, among others. Just now, the Snow Birds flew overhead (poor Robs - his nerves are now completely shot!). I got pics. Will post later.
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