Many memories for us

In this heat we thought of booking into The Bayshore. We had many wonderful times there when we came in from Victoria.  We're hoping the heat will be much less today...whew...it's been hot! 

Photo by Mike Furlong

The Bayshore in the 60's

Hot, hot, hot,

 Well we stayed in and had a picnic for lunch and dinner. It does remind us of our first times in the south of France in the summer.  Very hot and we didn't even have a fan. Of course, AC wasn't considered important since there was a "breeze off the Mediterranean".  Well, we sweltered but we were young. After that , we always travelled with a small fan we could put batteries in since, of course, the electrical current was different. 

This heat brings back lots of memories but cooler weather would be nice....

Peonies in Yorkshire

Susan posted this lovely photo of her peonies in her Yorkshire garden. Just beautiful!

I always enjoy her blog but this photo started my day off with a laugh!

And it seemed particularly appropriate to post this since the other evening Jim and I were reminiscing about all our wonderful times in France from our first time when it really was "Europe on $5 a day" to our more recent times when it was more like "Europe on $500 a day".

From "The Good Life France" blog

Bonjour,    I hope that you and yours are well.   Now that we are allowed out and don't have to wear a mask absolutely everywhere, bars and restaurants are open, curfew is cancelled, and France is open to more and more countries (with free PCR (Covid) tests to visitors, and currently no quarantine if you're fully vaccinated), life is slowly moving to a new normal. There’s even talk of rail and airport workers strikes – routine for summer here. If you are able to visit, you’ll find that pretty much everything is open and you’ll be welcomed warmly, people are so missing friends, family and visitors. Meanwhile I’ve had to accept that all the baking I’ve done for the last 16 months (plus all the wine I’ve drunk) have taken their toll. It’s time to cut back, or I risk not being able to get my coat done up when winter comes. I’ve even cancelled Bread Man but I couldn’t bear to tell him the truth and see his look of disappointment. I told him I am going on holiday for 10 weeks. He gave me a baguette as a parting gesture. It’s a tough thing to go on a diet in France. I’m busy writing my next book and I spend a lot of time describing food: golden flaky buttery croissants, Madame Bernadette’s deliciously tempting treats, a spit cake (that’s not an ingredient by the way, it a cake cooked over a spit for 5 hours see it here on Instagram) and Bread Man’s enticing pastries – oh the agony of saying non! If I had a pound for every time someone asked me how is it that all French women are slim, I’d have enough money to buy a Michelin-starred meal! I always say the same thing, they aren’t all thin. French women are normal. Except in Paris where they actually are nearly all stick thin. I once sat in a restaurant near the Paris Opera, and on the table next to me a couple dined, he tucked into a tasty steak frites, she ordered a bowl of lettuce which she squirted with a soupcon of tomato ketchup.  I shall instead get my kicks by sharing fabulous recipes with you and writing about the most fun things to do in France (for a big dose of inspiration see the articles below)… Wishing you a very bon weekend. Bisous from my little pigsty where it is sunny in between bouts of sogginess…   Janine Editor

And we thought we had it tough correcting mistakes in writing...

Before the word processor, before White-Out, before Post It Notes, there were straight pins. Or, at least that’s what Jane Austen used to make edits in one of her rare manuscripts. In 2011, Oxford’s Bodleian Library acquired the manuscript of Austen’s abandoned novel, The Watsons. In announcing the acquisition, the Bodleian wrote:

The Watsons is Jane Austen’s first extant draft of a novel in process of development and one of the earliest examples of an English novel to survive in its formative state. Only seven manuscripts of fiction by Austen are known to survive.The Watsons manuscript is extensively revised and corrected throughout, with crossings out and interlinear additions.

Janeausten.ac.uk (the web site where Austen’s manuscripts have been digitized) takes a deeper dive into the curious quality of The Watsonsmanuscript, noting:

The manuscript is written and corrected throughout in brown iron-gall ink. The pages are filled in a neat, even hand with signs of concurrent writing, erasure, and revision, interrupted by occasional passages of heavy interlinear correction…. The manuscript is without chapter divisions, though not without informal division by wider 

Rick Hulbert Photography

 A while ago Rick did a lecture at Brock House via zoom. It seems he hasn't been doing much photography lately but I received this today and was particularly interested since we do go to The Nest at UBC quite a bit for lunch. They have a great outdoor balcony with views of the North Shore Mountains.

In the photos it looks like something out of a Science Fiction movie rather than the place we have lunch.

WIDE ANGLE HEAVEN

After 15 months of refraining from hands-on photography, I have finally started to re-charge my camera batteries along with my own physical battery. Thanks to one of my workshop attendees, Barry Fisher, I jumped at the opportunity to photograph two well publicized buildings . . . the University of British Columbia Student Union “Nest” by Dialogue and B+H Associated Architects, and the Surrey Centre Library by Architect Bing Thom, in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada. Both buildings feature a modern form, challenging those who want to capture the unique contemporary spatial characteristics of each structure. It was also a great opportunity for me to try out a new lens, acquired during our exceedingly rare global pandemic. As I find wide angle photography a personal challenge, I convinced myself that I “needed” a new lens from Venus Optics. The Laowa 9mm f/5.6 full frame rectilinear lens is the widest angle commercially available lens ever produced. Over the last couple of weeks, my morning excursions marked the first chance I had to experiment with my new toy. The following images are the result.

We drove around Stanley Park yesterday

 It's been quite a while and it wasn't busy at all. I imagine the weekends are crazy. Now that there is really only one lane most of the time I think it could be rather frustrating if there was a lot of traffic. It was nice to see places we've been familiar with since we were kids. At Brockton Point, Jim got a photo of an eagle being attacked rather viciously by crows and seagulls. I think I won't try to upload that photo since he took it with a very old iPhone.  He leaned over the seawall to get it. I was on the higher level.

We walked along some of the streets in lower Denman since we were in the area. Ah...the old Buchan Hotel which used to have a fabulous restaurant we really loved especially dining outside in the tent.

I see they still have a restaurant and it seems to be open so that's great.  It also seems to be Italian food but this wasn't the one we went to. 

Now, isn't this a great setting for an Italian meal!

Very cool looking Vespa

We were at the University Golf Club making a dinner of their "Happy Hour Appies" and saw this Vespa in the parking lot. There is just something about their vehicles that is very attractive. This looks like a new one and just love the colours!

An oldie

 https://janicesextonart.blogspot.com/2018/

Wonderful to see Richard and Grace yesterday

We had a lot of fun and lots of good food at Biercraft UBC. I guess we hadn't been there for 14 months and were yearning for mussels. Richard and Grace rode their bikes..about an hour and 1/4 ride across town. Richard has always had a bike and has cycled a lot but Grace just recently bought an electric bike so it's easy for her to go on bike rides now.  They are having fun planning bike trips to the Gulf Islands, Desolation Sound and who knows where. They are really into this cycling thing now.

Ah...Father's Day....always a time for many memories. Richard gave Jim a book he knew he would be interested in "The Woman in the Dunes" by Kobo Abe and a lovely note.

Thanks to you both for making it a very special day. You are wonderful people. 

A lot ot the photos I thought I took didn't turn out...ah well, too distracted I guess.

Happy Father's Day!

 We'll be seeing Richard and Grace later today but thought I would do a "blast from the past".

Since it's going to get hot we might all be wishing we were in Alaska :)

SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 2016

Greetings from Richard

Well,  can't find those videos..

Happy Father's Day from Alaska!   Love,  Richard.

We got our second dose Thursday at UBC

So far no side effects other than our arms are a bit sore to the touch. It was nice just to be able to walk. Well, when we were students at UBC a pandemic certainly wasn't on our minds.  Lots of protests against "the bomb" and some women's lib and bra burnings.

Not my photos. They don't want you taking photos  for obvious reasons.

Canna Lily by Georgia O'Keefe

 We just might have seen this in the Georgia O'Keefe Museum in Santa Fe. Guess I won't be able to afford it:)

Heather James Gallery has this up for sale. They never say the price, of course.

https://www.heatherjames.com/art-detail/georgia-okeeffe-canna-lily/?utm_campaign=dafeda39c6&utm_source=janice.b.sexton@gmail.com&utm_medium=email

The  website of the museum has a lot of neat stuff:

https://www.okeeffemuseum.org

Had a wonderful fish and chips at The Galley at Jericho Sailing Club

 I seem to have problems uploading photos from my phone. The food was great and the sunshine broke through just in time. We parked at Brock House so had a good walk there and back.

Well, I mainly had fish without batter since my stomach has been a bit tricky lately.

Not my photos...from the Jericho Sailing Club.  I guess I can post these since we had lunch:)

Penny Candy from Eddie's

 Someone on FB didn't know what a liquorice pipe was so someone posted this. The ones we got at Eddie's for two cents weren't quite as fancy. I think the "bananas" and "strawberries" were 2 for one cent and "jawbreakers" were five for one cent. I may have that wrong...it was a long time ago.

Tiny Dino Glow in the Dark shoes

 Now, why didn't they have cool shoes like this when we were kids?

These shoes and lots of cool stuff for kids is available at Monkey Business Kids Boutique...a business I would like to give a plug to as it is owned by friends of Nicki and Stan.

https://www.monkeybusinesskidsboutique.ca

It's alway great to watch a "laugher" of a game

 The Blue Jays beat the Boston Red Socks 18-4 yesterday!

So much fun to watch especially all the home runs going across the "green monster".

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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For other uses, see Green Monster (disambiguation).

The Green Monster as seen from the grandstand section on September 5, 2006. The ladder is visible to the right of the Red Sox Foundation logo.

The Green Monster is a popular nickname for the 37-foot-2-inch-high (11.33 m) left field wall at Fenway Park, home to the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball. The wall is 310 feet (94 m) from home plate and is a popular target for right-handed hitters.^[1]

Stealing from Carol's blog today

Carol had lots of interesting comments and photos on this blog post but I love this car. It's just so cool. 

We have picked up goodies at Figaros's on 10th in the past. I'm glad to see it is open

-Photo by John Denniston

 A row of Nissan Figaros, a Japanese right-hand-drive vehicle, is a common sight outside this particular house in Dunbar. They're used in the owner's restaurant business, according to one chat we had with him. The shape and colours of the cars turn them into a kind of street-side ornament. 

From Wiki:

The Nissan Figaro is a front-engine, front-wheel drive, two-door, 2+2, fixed-profile convertible manufactured by Nissan for model year 1991, and marketed in Japan at Nissan Cherry Stores.

A total of 20,073 Figaros were produced by Nissan in the convertible's single year of series production^[1] — all with right hand drive.^[2]

As a fixed-profile convertible, the upper side elements of the Figaro's bodywork remain fixed, while its fabric soft top retracts in conjunction with a solid panel with a defroster-equipped glass rear window — as seen in other notable fixed-profile convertibles, including the Vespa 400 (1957), Citroën 2CV (1948–1990), the Nash Rambler Convertible "Landau" Coupe (1950), and the 1957 Fiat 500 — as well its 2007 Fiat 500 successor.

With its design variously attributed to Naoki Sakai^[3] and/or Shoji Takahashi,^[4] the design vaguely recalls the Gutbrod Superior, a mediocre German fixed-profile convertible marketed from 1950-1954.^[5][6]

Because of its origins at Pike Factory, Nissan's special project group, the Figaro (along with the Nissan Pao, Be-1and S-Cargo) are known as Nissan's "Pike cars," and represented a design strategy that adapted "design and marketing strategies from other industries like personal electronics."^[4]

In 2011, noted design critic Phil Patton, writing for the New York Times, called the Pike cars "the height of postmodernism"^[4] and "unabashedly retro.

We went to Las Margaritas yesterday for lunch

 It seems like forever since we were there. We learned our favourite server is eight months pregnant with her second child which will be a boy. She has a little girl around a year and a half old. 

It was great to get out!

Peri Peri Chicken from Save-on

 We enjoy these little chickens but it's the first time I've seen this type...taste pretty good!

Made peanut butter cookies

Yum....

Finally some good news...

 We got notice the pool has reopened and we were the first to book at 11am today! You sign a waiver and can book for an hour online three days in advance so we have Wed and Thurs bookings too. It was so wonderful to have a swim and then followed by lunch with Donna at her place.

Stealing from the blog of Susan K.

 I'm glad to see Susan going back to these wonderful flowers and the idea of getting some simple strokes on paper to get the creative juices going just might work for me. I seem to have got totally out of doing any artwork...sigh.

I'm looking forward to the next session of Fabulous Flat Brush Flowers next week so I painted a bouquet of posies in my journal.  I'm happy to say that after some warm-up strokes I found I had enough muscle memory to pick up where I left off a month ago.

Violet, the instructor of the courses, starts each class with a page of  warm-up exercises, and I may have finally learned how important this is.  It isn't something that comes naturally to me, but I find when I don't know what to paint that making some simple strokes also gets the creative juices flowing!

Richard and Grace came for dinner last night

 It was so nice to see them...wow, it's been a long time since we've been able to sit down at a table together. The roast duck and mixed vegetable chow mein were excellent. And they brought a fabulous rose wine from Provence.  So many memories for us!

Thinking of our parents who always liked having an empty table shot.

Governor General's Literary Awards for books published in 2020

 

The Governor General's Literary Awards are among Canada's oldest and most prestigious prizes. The awards, worth $25,000 each, annually recognize the best published books in Canada.

The prizes are given to seven English-language and seven French-language books in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people's literature — text, young people's literature — illustration, drama and translation. 

The seven English-language winners are:

• Fiction: Five Little Indians by Michelle Good
• Nonfiction: This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart by Madhur Anand
• Poetry: Norma Jeane Baker of Troy by Anne Carson
• Young people's literature — text: The King of Jam Sandwiches by Eric Walters
• Young people's literature — illustrated books: The Barnabus Project by The Fan Brothers
• Translation: If You Hear Me by Pascale Quiviger, translated by Lazer Lederhendler
• Drama: Kamloopa: An Indigenous Matriarch Story by Kim Senklip Harvey

Flying just might become pleasurable for those who can afford it

I, of course, never flew on the Concorde but I did tour one and saw one on a tarmac. This looks like it's going to be a much more luxurious experience. The interior of the Concorde seemed pretty crowned.

"There were few sights more graceful than the Concorde, swooping in to land, its hinged nose drooping like a glistening beak. The sleek white fuselage hasn’t been seen airborne since its retirement nearly two decades ago.

But that may soon change. United Airlines just announced a new leap into supersonic civilian flight, placing orders for 15 new jets designed to fly at Mach 1.7 that could halve the flight from New York to London to just 3.5 hours. The Overture planes, from a company called Boom Supersonic in Denver, haven’t been built yet, let alone proved themselves safe; they’ll face stringent regulatory checks before they can enter service. But United said the jet will be ready to carry passengers by 2029 -- and promised its new bird will use 100% sustainable fuel."

What to say...what to do

It is so difficult to know what to do or say but I really like the idea that Rogers Centre may remain permanently lit orange. 

I'm also glad to hear that on Sunday church bells will be tolling  215 times to honour the lives of these children.