intertext

Robinson and I just got back from the Beaver Lake circuit. It's 10k, and it took us 2 hours, plus some rest time. This may not seem madly speedy to you, but it's better than the last time I did it, although not the 1 1/2 hours it used to take me BHR (Before Hip Replacement) (and Before Need for Hip Replacement, I should say...). Anyway. I was quite pleased to have improved over last time, and it was a beautiful soft mild afternoon and we enjoyed it.

In the last 3k, we took a small detour down the Owl Path, so called (by me) because you can see owls there quite often. One day a friend and I had been doing this walk and we got caught in a downpour about half way round. She hates cold and wet as much as a cat does; I don't mind as long as it's not prolonged. Anyway, we were on the Owl Path and saw three of them sitting in a row on a branch. I stopped, enraptured, but Dee was desperate to get in from the wet and cold and just said "yeah, right, great, owls. Let's go." We didn't see any for sure today, but I did hear some hooting and I saw something large flying up above the trees that wasn't a crow and looked too fat for a hawk. It might have been an owl (and yes, even at 5:00 in the afternoon - we have one that lives locally that is seen more in the daytime than at night).

Even if there were no owls, there was a baby brown bunny (maybe just as well the owls were not about). And there was much tweeting and twittering and trilling of chickadees and hummingbirds and red-wing blackbird and bushtits and goodness knows what else.

There was also that indescribable astringent green smell of the new leaves.

We are both quite tired now, and I think I am going to have a hot bath before my wine and supper (I have a new white wine to try and a lovely piece of Arctic Char for my supper).

One learns to be flexible; many of my plans for this weekend have been thwarted or disrupted in one way or another. I thought I was meeting someone I'm beginning to know quite well from work last night for dinner and she thought we were meeting next Saturday, which resulted in one of those episodes that you hope won't happen of waiting at a restaurant for quite a long time until you realize that the other person isn't going to show up. I guessed what had happened, and she was very apologetic, and we're going to meet on Tuesday night instead. Then my friend kp, who was supposed to be coming for Easter dinner tonight, phoned to say she had a "pg" (paying guest - she runs a holiday rental place) arriving at an inopportune time and could we make it Monday instead. All this was somewhat compensated for by my cousin Marty phoning and our having a lovely long talk about family and photography and life, which was great (and which I would have missed if my dinner date had been as planned).

However, I had a nice lazy morning this morning with my papers and a luxurious breakfast of Italian bakery hot cross bun (the best in the world - soft, fragrant, spicy, just wonderful) and some berries and creme fraiche. Then I cleaned my house before lunch.

I had hoped to go on a hike in search of wildflowers to photograph this weekend but after Friday it's been grey and today actually raining. The d's and I went up to Playfair park this afternoon, where I did see wildflowers - there's a restored Gary Oak meadow there, and there were early cammas, shooting stars, erythroniums, satin flowers, and even a couple of chocolate lilies blooming. That park shows you how it is possible for a small multiple-use park to function, without all the hysteria about dogs trampling the flowers or biting children. Dogs are allowed there off leash, yet there is this quite large protected area where the wild-flowers grow, and on one long side of the park there is a spectacular cultivated herbacious border. Opposite that, there is a beautiful rhododendron planting, and in the center there is a children's playground. All coexist quite happily, as far as I can tell, in a really quite small area.

So now the boys are snoozing in their baskets as I write this. I'm thinking of scanning some of my old film photos, or maybe some more of my China slides and uploading them into Flickr. Then I have baked chicken breast and asparagus for dinner and an episode of Angel to watch this evening. I started reading Cormac McArthy's The Road last night and am desperate to get back to it - it's compulsive reading. This weekend has been so long and delightful!

I slept until quite late (for me), that is, until the dogs started shuffling their feet and coughing to remind me that other bladders than mine required emptying... Then I had the Sunday paper in bed with a La Collina cinnamon bagel and some juice, then I took the dogs for a walk at Beaver Lake. I still can't go very far, but there was a hawk circling and the air smelt nice and woodsy and the boys enjoyed it, so a good time was had by all. Then I did a load of laundry and washed the bird feeders in bleach and filled in my drug claims so that I'll get some money back from the insurance company. Then I met kp downtown for lunch/brunch and had a nice eggs bennie (which reminds me: who was benedict, and what is a maven as in pop-culture maven? these questions came up at lunch and enquiring minds want to know). Afterwards we went to M.E.C and kp bought a couple of tops but I didn't, but I then went to Eddie Bauer and spent far too much money on three - no four - tops and a pair of very stylish cords which need turning up at the bottom but are otherwise a perfect fit despite being size 8 (!!!!). Then I came home and let the dogs run around in the garden while I dead-headed the cosmos, and now I'm here doing this. So there.