2k9 uk-style

celebrating the countdown with my sister in london, england.
i got this new glass (really a measuring cup - everything else is dirty!) from my mum for christmas.

pudding

tgiving dinner @ kellie's

should

Today is not so brilliant weatherwise and tomorrow I am leaving. I feel I should go downtown to the art gallery or something edifying like that but I just don't feel like it. I head out with my book in search of coffee and a place to read. And yes, I am still reading Yellow Dog -- it is one step forward, two steps back with me and this book but I like and so I persevere. I linger and loiter here and there. I walk along the beach one last time for this summer. A perfect last day.

I meet up with Paul and Suz at their place for a fabulous dinner and conversation. Perfect ending to the day and to the holiday. Bye everybody. And then back to 3rd Ave to pack and sleep.

neighbourhood day

It is a glorious summer day. Bright blue sky and bright yellow sun. I feel kind of crap because of my cold but I head off to meet a literacy colleague at Calhoun's on Broadway. It is a fantastic walk and I get there a bit early. I go an poke around the Parthenon and try to go to the funky little second-hand store we visited last summer but it is closed on Mondays. Poop. Probably just as well. I bought quite a bit last year.

I have a great chat with my colleague and then walk back to 4th Ave to do some shopping for dinner. All goes well but I am feeling quite achy and done in so I return to 3rd and Cypress and flop down on the couch and promptly fall into deep sleep. My cousin Kath and Rosie are staying in Sidney with my aunt and have kindly given me the use of their condo. It is such a beautiful and cozy spot. She has a shady balcony that feels like a tree house and her place is decorated in reds and yellows and mementos. It feels like home.

Dinner plans change and we are to meet in a restaurant instead. As I am getting ready to leave I realize how crappy I am feeling and decide to stay in and sleep more. I am sad to miss the festivities but I cannot keep up any longer.

matins

The brothers were taken to Qualicum Beach by their Dad to spend a week with Nana and Papa. My cousin and I took the early ferry from Tsawassen to Sidney to return the car to my aunt and to have lunch with her and my other BC cousin. It was quite a rainy and cool day so we could not sit out on the ferry deck. I found a sheltered spot and stood out for a while but my cousin was wearing sandals and stayed in and read the paper.

We met my aunt and other cousin at the Beacon Landing and had lovely lunch and chat. My aunt treated which was very nice of her. After lunch, we went and got Rosie and then they drove us back to the ferry and we returned to Vancouver -- this time we both stayed inside for the whole trip.

I did not take any pics but you can see my aunt, my cousin and Rosie here.

vespers vancouver-style

haircuts and chocolates

saturday night's alright for ice cream

The boys got haircuts in the morning and then one brother, his mother and I went to the car wash to clean the camping debris from my aunt's car. The other brother and his Dad came to join us for dinner at the Noodle Box followed by ice cream.

They have 218 flavours. Among us we tried curry, balsamic vinegar, fennel, grapefruit and campari, lemon fudge, fig and lemon rind... before settling upon coffee crisp, oreo cookie, espresso chocolate chip, chocolate ice and a fruit that starts with l.

Car wash brother and I share a birthday in September. We exchanged gifts -- mostly chocolate but I also got a lovely mechanical pencil with orange leads. Then we went home to eat chocolate and admire the haircuts.

gift from auntie joan

tapped and dancing

We started the day on 4th Avenue. We shopped for our picnic, one of us picked a book to buy with the money from Auntie Joan, and we bought chocolates for our birthdays and for me to bring home to friends and family. We went home to get our picnic ready and then headed down to the beach. Everybody was in a bit of a goofy mood and there was some tension. My cold was making me feel extremely droopy and short-tempered which probably created most of the tension. We ate and played ball and then 2 of us went for a swim and then got buried in the sand. I did not have the camera so you will just have to imagine it + how much sand came home with us on our shorts, shoes, towels and hair. After showers and the cleaning of the bathroom, we tried to play Monopoly but we were feeling too goofy to concentrate properly. It was a Simpson's Monopoly board and all we could think about was watching the Simpson's. I wonder if the trip to Science World tapped our brains and we needed a long brainless break before they could work again. We decided to play battling tops instead which proved to be exactly our speed that afternoon. Equanimity was restored and the usual good-hearted hilarity resumed.

science

In the morning it looked as though it was going to be another rainy day
so we planned a trip to Science World.












It turned out to be gloriously sunny and the rain gear I lugged about all day proved to be surplus to requirements. But we had a great day. We got day passes for the False Creek ferries and used them to go up and down the Creek.We spent hours at SW. We watched an IMAX movie about dinosaurs, tried all the experiments, ate grilled cheese sandwiches, watched a movie about how an asteroid is going to smash into the Earth and kill us all and then tried to cheer ourselves up with ice cream and more skill-testing activities. We spent the whole day learning and did not even notice it. Beauty!

arts and smarts

The boys and I went to the fabulous Kitsilano branch of the Royal Bank -- these people understand the meaning of customer service -- so I could replace my bank card. I lost my card somewhere between the Duke Point ferry cafeteria and the Newcastle Island ferry dock. We spent the rest of the morning on 4th Avenue peeking in stores and snacking. I got a new wallety thing for my new card.

The brothers were very nice to me and to each other. Big brother bought little brother a grab bag of candy. When I offered to buy them things, both brothers expressed concern about me spending too much money. They also expressed concern that we were only doing things that they liked and not any thing that I liked. They suggested that I might enjoy the bead store. We went to the bead store and made each other necklaces.

It was a kind of rainy day so we went to a movie in the afternoon. We chose Get Smart which is based on an old tv show written by Mel Brooks. The 2008 version sort of reminded me of the movie at the end of Pee Wee's Big Adventure where James Brolin plays Pee Wee and Morgan Fairchild plays Dottie. We laughed a lot. We all liked Alan Arkin and the line about the swordfish.














Memory Lane: My first friend in Ottawa was a girl called Pia. One day she and her sister Kim and brother Kai came over to our place and they played a game of Get Smart where everyone was a character from the show. I had never seen the show and was quite confused. I did not even know what Agent 99 meant. I wondered if I would ever catch up to my new friends in Canada who seemed to know about so many things I had never heard of. (Of which I had never heard?!? - see, people who say that you cannot end an English sentence with a preposition are just plain loopy - ed.) Later, when I did see the show -- probably with another friend, Karen -- much of the confusion lifted and I started to feel like I was getting a handle on the cultural touchstones of my new community. I have always had a pretty warm memory of Get Smart and the role it played in acculturating me.

carbonated

these photos by suzanne ahearne on my camera.

leaving newcastle

vespers

long live the king

comfort and abundance

There is a beautiful building on Newcastle Island where you can have a party,













relax on a gorgeous wrap-around porch,
















or enjoy a snack and a game of cards (that is us in there at the table).

star power

Mum, I'm ready for my closeup.





















It's the pictures that got small...

oak trees

You know how some spots just speak to you. This row of oaks by the bay spoke to me. I spent quite a bit of time here listening and looking.