Quick trip to Victoria

Lesley & I went to Victoria to say good-bye to "Uncle" Bill last weekend.  He wasn't related, but he's always been Uncle Bill to us.  He was Dad's best friend since they were school boys together.  The memorial tea was a nice send off.  Lots of people and good stories.

We had a nice flight out there.

Approaching Victoria.  Lots of boats in a nice little harbour.

Welcome to Victoria

A nice view of the straits of Juan de Fuca from our 10th floor hotel room

3 cruise ships in port

 

Great looking house, also from our balcony

We found the outdoor market and wandered around for awhile.

Not sure how people make money selling flowers in a city where so many people are gardeners and can grow their own

Rainbow kale

A walk around the parliament buildings

R.I.P. Mr. Layton (and Uncle Bill)

The harbour from the grounds of the parliament building

And of course, the Empress Hotel

 

Flowers everywhere!

Such a pretty city

In honour of Mom, we went to Ogden Point...

...and walked along the pier.  That was her favourite thing to do in Victoria.

Interesting sea creatures

So, Saturday was a great day in Victoria.  Sunday, not such a great day in Vancouver airport.  Stand-by travel at its worst!  Oh well, we made friends with the other "cons" (contingency passengers) and we did finally get on a flight home, so all's well that ends well, I suppose.

♪♫♪ Happy Birthday to us ♫♪♫

Busy weekend! 

 Lesley's birthday was on Saturday, mine was on Sunday and Cari-Ann's was on Tuesday. 

My sweetheart spoiled me with an iPhone - I love it!! 

So many fun apps to play with;  like this one to do selective colouring.  So much easier to use than Adobe Photoshop.

And this one to make old-timey photos

Cari-Ann graciously invited me to share her birthday party; so we loaded up Taz and headed to Canmore on Sunday.

The obligatory shot of the Three Sisters

I left my Canon camera at home 'cos I wanted to play with the camera on my new phone.  Um, I guess I should've paid more attention to the instructions, 'cos I got nothin'!  I thought I was hitting the shutter button, but apparently I was hitting the "exit this function" button instead.  Oops...

So, there are no pictures of the long dog walk along the river, the gorgeous mountain setting, the dogs swimming, the unbelievably delicious barbecued salmon dinner, the outstanding 10-layer birthday cake with sparklers that set off the smoke alarm, or the good friends.  Sigh.   

It was a wonderful day, though!

☺☺☺☺☺☺

I have no idea what these flowers are, but they have a million buds on them that are now opening up.  They smell fabulous, whatever they are.

A hand-made card from Susan.  Beautiful!

 

A most excellent birthday! 

Many thanks to Dan, Cari-Ann, Joel, Bill & Vi and Bill & Susan!

(and of course, Taz & Muñeca)

Later:  Just got another card from Lorne, Leonora & Justin.  I love this!



Basement window enlarged - check.

It's one of those things that's been on the "to-do" list for years.  It's been talked about, brochures have been gathered, phone calls have been made, then something else always came along and bumped it down the list again.  It finally made it to the top this week. 

The window in Trudy's bedroom was your basic 1960's bungalow basement window.  Skinny, ugly and too small to be a useful escape route in case of an emergency.

From the outside

From the inside

Step 1.  Dig a trench

Step 2.  Cut the concrete. 

This was the noisy portion of the program.   Taz went over to Gracie's house to hang out in her backyard for a few hours, and I went shopping to get away from the roar.

Step 3  Install new window and grate

Not that Trudy can see anything out of the new window, but it lets in a LOT more light. 

It hasn't been fully explained to us why the grate is so much higher than every other one in the neighbourhood, and we haven't decided yet whether or not to make a stink about it. 

Trudy is happy with her new window, so maybe that's good enough.



Progress report on the fence project

There's a very simple reason for the lack of progress reports on our fence.  

There's been no progress!!

We've been plagued with problems on this project.   Between Dan's injury, bad weather and contractors (yes, plural!)  that say they'll do the job then don't show up, there was no progress for weeks.   Dan finally dug the post holes himself, even though he's officially on "light duties" at work due to cracked ribs.

 

Not sure if he's smiling or grimacing in this picture.  Probably the latter - there wasn't a lot of smiling going on.

 

 

Okay, good enough.  Just find another piece of plywood for the other side and call it done!

 

Measure twice.  Cut. Swear.  Measure again.  Cut again.  Repeat as necessary.

(Photograph at your own risk.)

 

And finally - it starts to look like a fence!

 

Woohoo! 

This is it from the alley side.  Please note the retaining wall.  The source of much frustation.  Everybody else's back yard is level with back alley, but for some reason, ours is about a foot higher...

 

 

I like the way it jogs around the compost bins.  I didn't want to get rid of the compost bins, but I didn't want them in the back yard either.

Are you wondering why there's a window in it?   Eventually, it's going to have a little door on it so that we can access the composter without having to go out into the alley.  Clever eh?

 

 

...but meanwhile, we can use it for puppet shows!

 

Benny & Buckshot had a set up just like this didn't they?

There's still lots of work to do, but it's coming.

 

p.s.  I've tried about a hundred times to get the spacing right on this post, and blogger just isn't cooperating.  If it's not right this time, too bad - it's staying messed up!

Tres Amigas

Cheryl, Debbie y yo.

Cheryl & I have been friends since 7th grade and we met Debbie in high school.  I am delighted to be a part of such an enduring friendship!

It's been a long time since we were all together, because Cheryl lives in Colorado, and Debbie has spent the last 2 years in the boonies of Peru.   Last night though, the stars & planets were aligned properly, and we managed to get together for dinner.  One of Cheryl's daughters (Brianne) joined the old ladies, but  has been sworn to secrecy and threatened with dire consequences if she repeats any of the stories of her mother's mis-spent youth that she heard.

Mr. Mikes restaurant in Okotoks is decorated in a kind of a woodsy, outdoorsy theme.  The picture that hung over our table set the tone for the evening... 

Seriously?  Three men dressed in only underwear and twigs in a canoe?!

We hadn't quite recovered from the initial hysteria when our busboy showed up and advised us that they didn't have any cutlery at the moment.  Whaaaat?  That set off another round of giggles.  Unfortunately, the surliest waitress in the world came by right then and was obviously not in the mood for dealing with a bunch of middle-aged whack jobs.  When we had a minor accident with a glass of water, her disdain became even more pronounced.  Sheesh girl, go out and buy yourself a sense of humour would ya?

In spite of Miss Pissy Pants, we had a great time!

At some point in the evening, we were attempting to take photos under the crazy canoe picture when another restaurant patron stopped by to comment that we seemed to be having just the best time evah.  Um, I think that means we were being too rowdy.   P'raps, but in a good way!  Anyway, she volunteered to take the pictures for us.  Then she proceeded to commandeer someone else from another table to help out with the lighting (a low hanging pendulum needed to be held out of the way) 

Caution:  Before you look at the following photos you should know that the very helpful lady was also very inebriated.  There's nothing wrong with your eyes.  Debbie says to warn people that drinking and photography don't mix!

Obviously, the young pretty one is Brianne.

And yes, we were sitting on the table.

Debbie brought us friendship bracelets from Peru, which we wear proudly to celebrate what Cheryl calls our thousand years of friendship.

Thanks, ladies. I had a blast!

We're working on an international version for next time.