Time Flies

Over a month since my last post and lots to report.

• On April 23rd Roy retired from GO Transit. He had a retirement party attended by friends and co-workers over the years and was totally overwhelmed by the accolades, gifts and best wishes. I'm now married to a pensioner. That will take some getting used to.

• On April 27th the Regional District of Nanaimo approved the following resolution: the construction of a house on Lot 5 Charlton Drive. WooHoo! After 11 years of dreaming we can now start to build our home....well, we can start once we get our design finished, a budget approved and hundreds of major and minor construction related decisions made. Let the games begin.

• On April 28th Roy turned 56.

• On April 30th Roy's oldest daughter Kelly married Brandon Nickel with close family and friends in attendance.

• On May 6th I flew to Calgary and met Roy midway through his journey to bring our first car to BC. We drove through the mountains together and talked endlessly, catching up on our 12 weeks apart. Pictures in a separate post.

• On May 11th, with Development Permit in hand we visited the Post Office in Qualicum and applied for a mail box. We now have a mailing address and are no longer "Persons of no fixed address". Pic below: a proud moment - picking up mail.

• May 12-21, we applied for car insurance, drivers licenses, license plates, the Care Card (BC's equivalent to OHIP), fishing and hunting licenses and numerous other tasks all related to having an address which makes us residents. We also purchased a cell phone, a non event to most, a first for us, finally coming out of the dark ages. Roy has figured it out and pulls it out and pretends to talk at every opportunity.
  

• On May 25th we purchased a 5th Wheel and over the next couple of days we completed the transfers, insured and temporarily licensed it for its trip down island to an empty lot just down from ours. Our neighbor, the owner of the lot has been extremely kind in letting us park there and hook up to his water and power for the time it will take us to build. The "trailer" is about 21' long and has everything a couple could need, except space. I hope the weather here improves and that we will be able to use the BBQ (once recovered from storage), eat outdoors and enjoy the time like an extended camping trip. Pic of trailer below. As a sidebar to this: in 3 months we have gone from a home in Pickering to a basement apartment in the "Shwa" and now a trailer in Qualicum. Our kids should be proud.
  

I think that pretty well brings us up to date and looking at it, even I'm impressed.
Tomorrow Roy comes out of retirement and starts a temporary job in Union Bay. It will help fill the time until we can get everything together and start construction. So retirement lasted a month and I'm still married to a pensioner...

Evening Walk

Every evening after supper I go for a walk or ride around the neighborhood. There are suburban streets and then there are the paths, streams, walkways and nature trails, views of the mountains and forests. I wish you could see what I see. My photographic skills do not do justice to the beauty that is everywhere around me.

I also love the plants and flowers out here. Cherry, magnolia and dogwood trees are all in bloom.
Rhododendrons, azaleas and heathers and flowering bulbs make splashes of colour everywhere like some artist gone wild.



Then there are the weird, unfamiliar plants and trees. There's the Gunnera which right now looks like a pile of garden debris. It's just starting to poke up out of the ground. When it is fully mature it's leaves are the size of umbrellas and you could literally take shelter under it. I will re-vist this one later in the year. Beside it is the monkey tree - not sure where the name came from but I can tell you it not a tree to "monkey" with. It has vicious, spikey foliage.

The best part of my walks is the close encounters which of course I can never catch on camera. The other day I rounded a blind corner and came face to face with a deer. We both put on the brakes and stood and looked at each other and then the deer turned and a couple of bounds took it back down the path away from me. What a sight. I just stood and stared. Deer are everywhere here and you have to be on the alert constantly, never knowing where they'll turn up.

The light is fading now, sun slipping behind the mountains and I'm home. I'm closing with a picture of my Mom's front garden, her pride and joy. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

A Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood

I go out for a walk most evenings after dinner and for once remembered to take my camera. These are the sights I see on a stroll through the neighborhood. Views of the Comox Valley, the mountains, interesting plants, trees, and gardens...and yes that is a palm tree. Zone 9 WooHoo! Often I will see eagles soaring above and deer munching on someone's flowers but try and catch them on camera :-) Enjoy!

Storm Watching

I woke yesterday to the sound of lashing rain and howling wind. The weather channel warned of gusts up to 105 km. All up and down the island there were trees coming down and power outages, some lasting more than 24hrs. At slightly higher elevations, they got snow.
So, what did we do? - Got in the car and drove over to Point Homes to do some storm watching. The picture in no way does the live experience justice. I got out on the windward side of the car and could hardly get the door open to get back in. I thought I was going to be airborn. It was positively wild outside for the whole day and then as evening came on it seemed to have blown over and I got out for a walk around the neighborhood. Lots of debris, branches everywhere, fences and arbors blown over. Nature: it takes your breath away!

Cumberland

Today at 1:00 Ian and my Aunt Georgie arrived carrying arm-loads of food - a complete dinner, dessert and wine. The dinner just needed to be popped in the oven, so with Auntie visiting with Mom and nothing to be prepared Ian and I went for a drive to Cumberland to visit the heritage sites of China Town and Japanese Town - villages that once housed the Asian coal miners back in the 1920's. Nothing remains of what was once a thriving village of 3000. Some commemorative plaques and coal slag hills. A sad legacy.
The old village sites are linked to some wonderfully diverse trails - Let the pictures speak for themselves.
Back at home we enjoyed a fantastic dinner, lively conversation and lots of laughs.
I am so grateful to friends and family for their support.

Road trip down Island

Today we went for a drive down to Qualicum and stopped to visit our lot along the way. It was the first sunny day in over a week and an outing was a must. Although the sun is shining, the air is crisp and there is fresh snow on the mountains. Nile Creek is still running quite high from all the rain, but not the torrent it was in January. So after 11 years of waiting and visiting, we will soon start to build our home here. Pictures above are looking up and down the creek. Pictures below are of our lot from the street and the car is parked in about the middle of the lot.

And the answer is...

Drumroll.....
The answers to the "smart enough to live in BC" quiz are below:
While I was trying to answer the first 10 - I received two more "bonus" questions.
My tormentor has checked my answers and I had all but one correct so I get to be a "token" Westerner. I cannot be a true westerner he tells me, until I "hike the West Coast Trail, paddle a boat up a river and catch a fish with my bare hands".
I am in the process of compiling an Easterner list of questions to fire back at Gord. Surely I can create an equally quirky and twisted view of Ontario. Any and all suggestions will be welcomed.

1. What is the "Ogopogo creature" and where does it live? Serpentine lake creature (Nessy cousin) inhabiting lake Okanagan in BC interior

2. What is a Sasqatch? 9' tall ape-like creature with flowing hair AKA Bigfoot

3. What is a marmot and where do they live? Endangered ground-hog like mammals living in colonies in alpine meadows above 1000' meters on Vancouver Island.

4. What poisonous snake lives in the interior? Rattlesnake

5. Where would you find cactus in B.C.? Opuntia (of the prickly pear family) - on Denman and Hornby and in Osoyoos

6. What is a "chilcotin turkey"? Salmon sold door-to-door by the local First Nations peoples

7. Where is Spuzum? Spuzzum (two Zd's) is "beyond Hope" 31 mi to the north.

8. Where is the biggest amateur Rodeo held in BC? Quesnel

9. What is the longest river which starts in BC? Fraser River

10. What is the largest natural lake in BC? Babine or Atlin Lakes - disputed - a tie?

11. What is the largest man-made lake in BC/ Williston Lake
12 Which BC river runs into the Arctic watershed and not the pacific? Peace River