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).

Happy Birthday Handel!
It's been a pleasant week so far. Tuesday was my friend KP's birthday, so we not only went out for dinner in a Vietnamese restaurant, and had cake and coffee with some of her friends afterwards, but went with another friend to Butchart's Gardens in the afternoon. You'd think that in February there wouldn't be much to see, but it was beautiful in a spare kind of way. You could really see the bones of the landscaping in the sunken garden, for example, and we noticed the rocks and the shapes of the trees more than you do when the place is rampant with bloom. Both K and I bought yearly passes; she because she often likes to take visitors to her guest house there, I because I fully intend to spend long hours taking more photos. I spent a happy time taking shots of many things, including a series of hellebores that were blooming in the perennial border.

Then, yesterday evening, I had dinner with MW, who has hitherto been more my mother's friend than mine, although she's actually younger than I. It was enjoyable, though, and M was more relaxed and down-to-earth than she often seemed with my mum. We had Japanese food, which I am greedily fond of, in a hobbit-like way (though it's hard to imagine Tolkien's hobbits eating sushi). But my greed for it matches theirs for mushrooms. I ate more that I've eaten for months, which was a Good Thing (having lost about 20 pounds due to stress in the past 6 months), especially as I suffered no ill effects. And enjoyed M's company, so hope we may meet again and get better acquainted.

This afternoon I took the beardie-hounds out for a walk to Mt. Doug, which was beautiful in the early spring light. The forest there is quite open, more like a pine-wood than a forest, rather like the landscape where Jackson shot the "Breaking of the Fellowship" scenes in LOTR. The late afternoon sun shafts in bars across the path and was striking all the new growth in a very pleasing way. There were so many shades of green. The bright almost lime-green of the new leaves on the ribes, the lovely pure green of the new ferns, the mosses, the holly, and of course the cedars. The floor was littered with branches and twigs after all the wind storms we've been having, rather as if some big party of drunken dryads had been racketting through - I wouldn't have wanted to have been walking in there during the storm! The dogs love a walk in the woods - they seem so relaxed and happy just snuffling along the path, never far ahead or behind, not precisely _with_ me, but always within reach.

And then I return to find that the Japanese girl has won the gold medal in the figure skating against all expectations by Americans and Russians, and am inordinately pleased.

I usually meet my friends B & J and their dog Henry for walkies on Saturday afternoon, but J was not well, so I had a free afternoon. Lucky for me, because it was a beautiful sunny day, and I had my chance to go out and take photos of autumn leaves before Sunday's grey drizzle. You can see a couple of the results below. It was such a lovely walk. For once, my hip wasn't hurting, and my cold is almost better. The dogs and I just ambled slowly through the backwoods at Mt. Doug park, enjoying the "season of mists" and looking at the "worlds of wanwood" lying leafmeal, and taking lots of backlit shots of maple leaves. The dogs enjoyed having me out for such a long time; sheer busy-ness - as well as more recent flu and the ongoing arthritis - has tended to preclude our accustomed long weekend walks. I forget sometimes how badly I need to spend time out in nature without deadlines or worries. Note to self: do this more often, when pain-free days permit.