Where It All Began

Just returned from spending 5 days in Vancouver where I attended the annual fuchsia show, walked around for miles and miles, had dinner with friends and generally enjoyed being in the city - one of the world's great cities as far as I'm concerned. We stay at a small suite hotel in the West End I'm very fond of, around the corner from Davie Street which is the best people watching street in town. A real neighborhood with a very colorful assortment of characters.

Only a few blocks away, down the hill at water's edge you can take the tiny people ferry across to Granville Island, with its marinas, amazing market and shops. There is a restaurant there, tucked under the Granville Street Bridge, called The Sandbar. The place where it all began...

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Some years ago I was in Vancouver on business attending the annual meeting of the organization I worked for. Checking in to the hotel the day before the (endless) meetings began, I had a few hours of spare time so I went for a walk, heading down to the water's edge. It was a sunny, beautiful October day and at Coal Harbour I stood breathing the sea air, looking at the scenery, including the boats in the marina. I reached for my phone and called Howard who was back in Ottawa. "I'm standing here looking at the sea, the mountains and boats for sale in the marina. I want to move here".

Several days later Howard arrived to join me for a few vacation days after the meetings. We ended up on the rooftop patio of The Sandbar, enjoying the fall sunshine and the stunning views of the city and mountains. And had a little chat.

A few months earlier we had put in an offer on a piece of land in Burritt's Rapids on the Rideau River, about 40 minutes away from our place in Ottawa . Our plan was to build a house there and the other part of the plan was to retire (early) in about 6 years. The deal fell through when the survey showed we couldn't build what we wanted on that particular property, which turned out to be a very good thing. Sitting at our table in The Sandbar that day we asked ourselves, "Why on earth would we want to retire and move 40 minutes down the road? Why don't we move to British Columbia, which we love, and have a REAL adventure?"

And, as always happens, once a decision is made, all kinds of things fall into place, unexpected things, unforeseen things. It all just works out.

The following spring break we brought The Boys out to British Columbia. for a look see. Number One son was finishing high school that year and we said that should he like what he saw and want to go to university in British Columbia we would support that. And it turned out that he did like what he saw and chose the University of Victoria, on the Island. However we were a little late applying and although he was easily accepted, by the third week of July, he was 142nd on the waiting list for residency. This was obviously absurd, so we went online and found a condo, close to the university, which we bought sight unseen for him to live in. There turned out to be a strange coincidence in play here. His father, many years before, had lived in that very building in the time he lived in Victoria.

Having Steve go out to Victoria first reminded me of The Godfather story when the family decides to expand their business to Las Vegas and sends Fredo out as their advance man. I had an idea in my head that if the boys would live there for awhile, even if they didn't end up staying, they would have a connection and maybe would be more inclined to come visit. (I still maintain a fantasy that one day all of us will be in the same time zone).

The following year I enrolled in the Masters program in Leadership and Training at Royal Roads University in Victoria. It was a combination program of on-site residency and distance learning along with an independent research project and thesis. For two summers during the residency I lived in Victoria in Steve's condo by myself and grew to love the city deeply especially the area in Saanich around UVic where I lived. Each evening after class and on the weekends I'd walk for miles along the coastal neighborhoods, getting to know every little beach access area, park and residential street, with gardens, ocean and woods and always the distant mountains. Those days were among the best days of my life.

I became so grounded in that geography that when it came time to sell the condo, even though I was living back in Ottawa, I resisted the idea. I had some strange thought that I needed to hold on to my place in that part of the planet, which to my mind meant having a nest there. Then on one winter visit, I went to see Haro House, a B&B suite on the water in the 'hood, and announced, "OK, call the real estate agent, let go of the condo, I've found my new home. I'm at peace now".

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In those years following The Decision we went out to Victoria and Vancouver Island and occasionally Vancouver, a couple of times a year. On a visit to Tofino on the west coast of the island one year, we found Qualicum Beach, which is about halfway between Victoria and Tofino. When we decided to sell the Victoria student condo, we bought this house in Qualicum Beach, to keep a toe in the British Columbia market. Unexpectedly, the Asian adventure came our way and we sold our house in Ottawa and moved to Manila for 4 years. But we kept the Qualicum Beach house and have had tenants in it all this time.

So now the time is now. After all those years since that decision at the Sandbar in Vancouver that bright October day, that day when it all began, our time to live here has finally come.

So far, so good.

First Week in the New Home

We've been in our new home up island in Qualicum Beach for over a week now and what a week it's been. It really was quite an experience that Monday afternoon when we pulled into the driveway, turned the unfamiliar key in the lock of the front door and walked in. Home. It was empty, voices echoing off the walls, floor and ceilings and was only semi-familiar.

I should explain at this point that neither of us have seen this house, together or separately, more than 3 or 4 times, ever.  We bought this house about 5 years ago, well before we moved to the Philippines. It's been rented out all these years to several different tenants, but now, as we step in as live-in owners, we have only vague memories of what it really is like.  We've never previously lived here nor for that matter lived in this town. All is totally new.

The house is empty so it looked small. The paint colors were deep hues, a gorgeous paint job but for me, dark. Not only did it look small, it IS small when compared with that 3500 square foot condo with high ceilings we lived in back in Manila. That was La La Land - this is...well I'm not sure yet. Life?

We did as we said we would. We're camping. Camping in our own house. We bought a blow up air mattress, not the kind of air mattress I remember from cottage days in Minden. This is way fancy. You plug it in and it inflates way way up into this enormous queen size bed. To deflate it to fold back up you just turn the dial the other way. Still, I find it hard to figure out the right inflation. Sometimes it feels like a waterbed from days of yore. Sometimes it feels like a big overblown blimp, generally solid, but at times prone to wobble somewhat back and forth. Once you settle in to one spot, it's OK, and sleep in this fresh air bliss comes quickly but heaven help you if you want to get up in the middle of the night. The bed squeaks, wobbling massively and you feel like at any moment you'll slide off the edge while trying to get vertical.

A couple of days later we found a huge bargain on a teak patio set. That was a great day. "Yay, I have a chair, what a treat!" This (mid July) is typically late in the summer season here for selling summer stuff so sales are good, but more than that, this has been a very shitty spring and summer so far in coastal British Columbia. We're connected to the Philippines we just left by the Pacific weather patterns. This is a La Nina year, the second, and we're cold and rainy here and back there where the hot air (so to speak) is, they had really early typhoons in May. All screwed up, and the MAJOR topic of conversation in town - not the La Nina part, just the shitty weather part of it. I have observed in my travels here that weather is always the major topic of conversation, no matter what it is. However this summer it's pretty serious for the people who own businesses as the tourists are still not coming. In our little town, all of the shops are independently owned, so by eavesdropping you can really get a sense of what this weather really means for their businesses and livelihoods. We are doing our best to help out, being in New Home Power Shopping mode. In addition to the blow-up mattress and the table and chairs, we also now have a humungous TV (although we're starting to notice that with 200+ channels there's still nothing on). A couple of towels, corkscrew, a couple of mugs...

The car we ordered ended up getting stuck somewhere when a barge turned the wrong way and took out a rail bridge across the Fraser River. The dealer has given us a loaner until he can get it to us. Hopefully it wasn't on the bridge at the time.

However, the so-called lousy weather definitely ended up working to our advantage. The morning after we arrived I called a painter I knew of to get an estimate on repainting the house. It was a gray, rainy day and as I was talking to his wife, explaining who I was and leaving a message, she said, suddenly, "Wait a minute, I think I hear his car." He picked up the phone and the rest is history.

John the Painter had been in the middle of an outside job painting a motel but it started pouring so he quit and sent his crew home. The weather forecast was for more of the same for a week. He walks in to the kitchen and I'm on the line, offering a week's worth of an inside paint job. How good is that for both of us! I had been expecting to to be many weeks before our house could be painted. It all worked out so suddenly, I wasn't prepared and I hadn't chosen the colors. That also turned out to be easy. Gray and rainy doesn't work for me, I need the sunshine. Paint the inside yellow. All of it.

So, for the past week there have been between 3-5 painting guys in our house on any one day, from 8:30 to 4:00. We were so busy power shopping we were out most of the days, but still, it was a little challenging to have people around, to say nothing of the mess. At one point, a few days in to the project,  I thought, "Thank Ganesh (more to come) we're not doing any further major renovations, as was originally contemplated. I'd go insane!"

Then one day it was quiet again. The painters had packed up and finished. Sort of. We left on a five day trip to Vancouver and the carpenter was to come back when we were gone to finish the trim in the guest house/playroom/bunkie/studio which I had torn out and replaced. I still don't know what to call this space which is a separate building in the back garden that is finished with its own bathroom, fireplace and kitchen counter area. Whatever it is called it is a great space for me to play in with my various projects, as well as for people to come and stay in.

The ship apparently has arrived in the port of Vancouver so our shipment is soon come. Or so I choose to believe.

Orcas

One morning I was puttering around in the kitchen at Haro House when George, our landlord, came down with camera in hand. "Whales coming by", he said.

Now how fast do you think I can pick up camera and binoculars and step outside? Yes, that fast.

The whales passed by without surfacing in front of the house so we all piled into the family van and headed down to the marina where George keeps his boat. In touch by radio and cell phone with his whale watching friend who was out there in his zodiac, we soon caught up to them around some small islands off Oak Bay. There were 3 of them, transient Orcas munching on seal sausages and we watched them up close for a good 20 minutes before they continued their way down the coast and we headed home as we had a date that morning to look at some sailboats for sale up in Sydney.

I had problems with my brand new camera. Stuck lense. Guess it's time to RTFM. So I just watched and Howard took these memory pictures.

Thrilling.

Living in a Zoo

Outside the suite at Haro House - Reflections of the panoramic view on the windows

It was so right and so appropriate that we spent the first week at Haro House. After all the stress and chaos of the move from Manila, it was a fine way to rest and recover before heading up island to our new home. Staying in the waterfront suite with its panoramic view windows looking out on the Strait is like living in a zoo. As always, literally within minutes of arrival the show starts.

Staying right on the Haro Strait is also like living on a highway - a water highway. Ships and boats going from Seattle, Victoria or even further afield up to Vancouver pass in front. We see container ships, military vessels, pleasure boats, fishing boats, cruise ships, whale watching boats, sea planes, helicopters and kayaks. The container ship with all our stuff on it will pass by on its way to the port of Vancouver sometime next week.

The Eagle Has Landed

The voyage to our new home from Manila via Hong Kong on July 4th was...well what can I say...long.

During the last half hour in the plane, I peered out the window down at the beautiful British Columbia coast line below as we traveled south towards Vancouver. In the distance, across the Strait was the north tip of Vancouver Island. Home. It took 17 minutes to travel from there to Vancouver. It was a clear clear day, not a cloud in the sky. As we approached the airport I could see the majestic (no other word for it) Mt Baker in Washington State rising high among the mountain ranges, covered in gleaming snow.

The place where we stay in Victoria is on Mt Baker View Road with a view of, yes, the mountain itself. I've stayed here at various times of the year and it's not often I get to see it due to weather, cloud cover, haze or whatever. Even when it is clear up and down the Strait, you often will still see clouds totally surrounding the mountain. But on Monday after flying over to Victoria (15 minute flight from Vancouver), picking up my rental and heading off to my favorite home away from home by the water, as I turned down the driveway there was the mountain in all its glory. Breathtaking. As tired as I was, the sight was energizing. Home at last.

I pulled out my camera to take a picture - it was, of course, pretty futile to capture the view with my trusty little point and shoot that has served me so well these past 4 years. At 4x zoom it was in no way up to the task.

Mt. Baker viewed from Haro House

The following day I trotted off to Future Shop in search of a new camera. I'd been thinking about this for some time as the kind of pictures I like to take really could do with a bigger zoom lense. I'd done my homework and picked up a new Canon SX30 with its impressive 35x zoom, the biggest currently on a point and shoot. I must say that while I was in the store I got majorly distracted by all the electronics on offer, TV's and printers and fancy fans and high tech vacuum cleaners - we will no doubt be having a blast doing some power shopping in the next few weeks as everything we had in the Philippines was 220 volt and went off to new owners. When I got home I charged up the battery and took the new camera for a spin. My first shot was a duplicate of the zoom on the old camera. Then I started to adjust the zoom and what I saw Blew My Mind.

Mt. Baker at sunset - close up

It seemed to me that there was more snow on the mountain than I had observed in past summers. Turns out I was right. Mt. Baker is one of the snowiest places in the world but apparently there is more snow this year than there has been since 1999 when the Mt Baker ski area set a world record for snowfall at 95 feet or about 30 meters. The upper parking lot, usually open in July, is now covered with 50 feet of snow. Last week this huge glacier-covered volcano claimed another victim when a female climber from Oregon fell to her death down a crevice.

I bought my smaller Canon A570 when we set out on the last adventure, to Asia. I've had it with me constantly and it has served me very well. Because of its smaller size I'll probably continue to keep it  in my purse as usual for grabbing "those moments". The new one, while not as large as a DSLR will likely be the camera to take for a walk with the intention of picture taking. Looking forward to lots of fun with my new toy.

New camera. New blog. New life.