Out to our "mansion by the sea"

It was a wonderfully sunny afternoon yesterday and we went out to Brock House to play billiards and enjoy the oceanfront.  I just love the views from this side...my freighters are even closer.

These are the greatest tulips.  I bought them Monday and they are still going strong.  They remind me of the tulips in Carqueiranne which were like little trees.  Tulip growing was a big industry there and it was wonderful to see the tulip fields. Of course,  in the south of France the big growing season was Jan and Feb.  The poppy tablecloth was bought at the famous Thursday market in Carqueiranne.

The city crest of Carqueiranne has tulips and a plow.

Our little "sunroom".  We love sitting by this window in the dining room.  Yesterday it was bathed in sunlight.  Today,  back to rain.

Yesterday we were viewing mountains,  ocean,  and the ferries going into Horsehoe Bay.

I suppose we shouldn't complain about the weather.  Meanwhile in Edmonton...

Edmonton breaks record for consecutive days at or below zero

My new bookclub

I met with my new bookclub today...the UBC Faculty Women's Club Bookclub and really enjoyed meeting the people and discussing the book.  It was a treat to be driven (Sherry lives in Westbrook Mall so we're close) as it was a little confusing to get there and park as a bike lane is being constructed  right in front of the host's building.  Wow,  what a wonderful view Marya has...overlooking Fisherman's Wharf on Granville Island.

We discussed Michael Crummey's "Sweetland".  I have mentioned this book in a previous blog.  I really enjoyed it.  

I found this interview with Crummey on CBC on "how it wrote "Sweetland" and thought it most interesting.  He mentions he has a poster of this painting by David Blackwood in his writing space.  I like Blackwood's work and saw an exhibition of his at the Winchester Galleries in Victoria a number of years ago.

http://www.cbc.ca/books/michael-crummey-how-i-wrote-sweetland-1.4070267

David Blackwood
Fire Down on the Labrador

colour etching and aquatint
signed, titled, dated 1980 and inscribed “Artist’s Proof 5/10 Ed. 50” in the lower margin
31.75 x 19.75 ins ( 80.6 x 50.2 cms ) ( subject ) 

Sold for $48,300.00
Sale date: May 25th 2017 

Provenance:
The Brock Street Gallery, Kingston
Private Collection, Kingston 

Literature:
Sean T. Cadigan, Black Ice: David Blackwood, Prints of Newfoundland, Toronto, 2011, page 75
Leah Sandals, “Black Ice: Q&A with David Blackwood”, National Post, March 7, 2011
William Gough, David Blackwood, Master Printmaker, Vancouver/Toronto, 2001, page 104

David Blackwood's most acclaimed etching “Fire Down on the Labrador” depicts a dramatic scene of fishermen, gathered in a lifeboat, and fleeing a ship that is engulfed in flames. A large whale lurks underwater beneath the action, visible to only the viewer, and not the crew. Blackwood’s exquisitely detailed whale etchings such as this one and “Loss of Flora Nickerson” remind us that the ocean is ruled by these large mammals, and not by humans. Author Michael Crummy comments on this theme of 'man versus nature', writing that “in ‘Fire Down on the Labrador’ the human disasters are happening in the wings, barely registering against the vastness of the North Atlantic and its creatures.”

The narrative in this etching is rooted in a grease fire in the gallery of a schooner, which is the only fear these men would have had. In an interview, Blackwood remarks that “The wind, the ice, the tide - all seemed to be manageable. But you would never go to sleep at night until you'd made sure that there were no glowing embers in the stove.” The artist, a Newfoundland native, was raised in a seafaring family in which his father and grandfather were both ship captains. As such, Blackwood is completely aware of this fear ingrained in every mariner's conscience. He describes how this catastrophe would unfold for the crew in a 2010 interview with Gary Michael Dault: “…And then you’d be facing the worst possible scenario, the thing that was the greatest fear of all – to be caught in the Labrador Sea all alone, and having to abandon… So in my print “Fire Down on the Labrador”, it’s the ultimate disaster that I’m depicting – to be caught in that environment, and having to abandon ship.”

Parking lots...I never thought they could be so interesting!

Photos by John Denniston.

This one on Broadway.

This one on Main Street.

Out to Brock House yesterday

We went to pick up our membership cards and parking decal. We were thrilled to learn that we can also park in part of the parking for Jericho Beach as well as the parking right at Brock House.  This beach will probably be our go to beach for swimming since the tides are better there as it drops off more quickly than Spanish Banks.

The parking is also a 15 minute walk to Jericho Sailing Club where we like to go to lunch so now we won't have to pay for parking. And the walk is on the oceanfront with wonderful views of the mountains,  the city, and of course my beloved freighters.

There are so many facilities and activies at Brock House and all in a fabulous Tudor mansion on the Vancouver waterfront.
http://brockhousesociety.com

Jim going in the front entrance.

This photo is taken from the back yard of Brock House.  The Royal Vancouver Yacht Club is beside it on the right.

The back of Brock House.  We went to a wedding here and the food was fabulous. They also have a great restaurant that serves dinner and Brock House members get a 30% discount. There is a cafeteria for Brock House members during the day where meals and snacks can be purchased.

We did see some rabbits.

Views of our walk from Jericho Beach to the Jericho Sailing Club.

Another packed filled day....

Carol is leaving for Rome Wednesday so we didn't have much opportunity to get together.  We met at Sweet Somethings (new little cafe/bakery on Dunbar) for lunch Sunday.  It was great to catch up and hear all about her travel preparations.

I loved the colours and simplicity of the furniture.

Carol isn't entirely sure she's going to love her Roman adventure.  Since she hasn't travelled for a long time it was a lot of preparation.  I brought her an inflatable neck pillow and earplanes (those earplugs that help with ear troubles when flying).  She's got pretty much everything else coverd including a chainmail purse!  Read more on her blog post:
http://mountdunbar.blogspot.ca/2018/04/rome-diary-chainmail-purse.html

Carol had chicken pot pie and I had the tourtiere....yum!

Then Richard and Grace came for dinner in the evening.  It was great to see them and we had a super time together.  Jim picked up Indian food from a place a couple of blocks away.  We always enjoy our   meals there.  We had butter chicken,  lamb curry,  rice pilaf, and Naan bread....even some leftovers for today's lunch.

FB post from 5 years ago...

We returned to Palm Springs to take possession of our townhouse.  It was quite a busy time!

TUESDAY, APRIL 09, 2013

It's a wonderful world....despite the windy welcome

Monday,  we arrived in Palm Springs 20 minutes early because of incredible winds.  Great to arrive early and not so great to have this wind on the ground.  Couldn't jump into the pool...too windy and too much debris.  And very disappointing that our land phone didn't work after being assured by Verizon that it would.

After much frustration and not being able to get it hooked up we cancelled it.  Now we will have a land phone connected to our Time-Warner Cable & Internet and can have a 6 month vacation stop so all better in the end.  But,  my iPHone started doing weird things like going immediately to voice mail (Richard,  your solution worked a bit but still a problem so probably have to visit the Apple Store in El Paseo...we love going to the Elephant Bar for lunch so no real problem!)

Erna and Marvin let us use their Internet and their cell phones so made things so much easier...merci beaucoup!  You are such great neighbours!

Today, we got cable and internet and Thursday will get the phone.  The manager of Canyon Sands is great and let us use her phone to do a number of important things.  We are well taken care of but coming on all the stress and hassle of getting our house up for sale and moving to another apartment...well...it was all a bit much.

But,  a beautiful calm day today and we got lots of stuff we needed including a deluxe king size bed.  It must only be in the United States that you can order a bed in the afternoon and have it set up and delivered by 6pm?  Wow!  And we bought these fabulous Egyptian cotton 1,000 thread count sheets for a fraction of what we'd pay in Canada.  That's something I really appreciate in having our own place...to have stuff that is important to us like great beds and bedding.  Staying in first class hotels no problem,  but we so often travel in short term renal accommodation and things aren't quite as we would like them.  But then,  the south of France and Palms Springs make up for a lot regardless.

Now...we have it all!

Out to C-Lovers today with my old neighbourhood buddies, Linda and Carol.

As always,  we had a super time together and it was great to get a C-Lovers experience. An outlet came out their way recently.  We had our usual "Ultimate Feast for Two" and mushy peas.  I think Linda and Cec will get that next time.  It was so good to see everyone before Linda and Cec leave on a trip to Sante Fe and other places Monday.

So, guys, next time at our place and we'll take you to the University Golf Club...looking forward already!

It was a good day to hit the liquor store on the way home as they were tasting a Spanish beer called Alhambra and we got some cool gifts like an Alhambra glass and some key chain, bottle opener and light doodads.  We love stuff like that and brought back wonderful memories of the Alhambra.

One of our old houses for sale in Victoria

Thanks, Mary, for sending me the link!

This was the second house we bought in Victoria.  It was really too big for us with a small family of three but we wanted to be in this neighbourhood and we picked out three streets we liked the best and contacted the owners of houses that appealed to us. Not much came up for sale in that area at that time.

Jim took the top floor for his office.  There were a lot of stairs and it did need extensive renos which we didn't do as it seemed like it was going to be a bottomless pit.  There were also big Oak trees in the back and a million leaves to rake in the Fall plus a big property to mow.  It was also on the shady side of the street but I did enjoy lying in the sun in the front Bay window.

When a smaller house directly across the street came up for sale about three years later, we walked over and bought it in 10 minutes.  I think the realtor thought he had died and gone to heaven.  There were no leaves to rake and we loved being on the sunny side.  There was even a sunroom in the back and we built a deck on the back and spent many years basking in the sun inside and out with our various visitor cats, Tigger and later Oscar, joining us. Tigger lived across the street and came running when he heard the bar-b-q lid open.

We continued to enjoy looking at our house from across the street but we weren't too thrilled when one of the owners took down the shutters that were on all the windows except the bay window and then were almost horrified when the current owners painted it yellow.  It was white with yellow shutters when we had it.

The idea was to have a more suitable house for our family and get rid of our mortgage since we had actually paid 22% for a short time at the peak of those high mortgage rates.  Of course,  as soon as we did this, the  housing market plummeted and so now we had two houses and two mortgages!  We kept both houses for four years and rented out the big one. There were some advantages.  We could have changed our mind and sold the smaller house. We never wanted to do that.  One of the families who rented had two boys,  one a year older and one a year younger and Richard became fast friends with them both.

$2,275,000 

2856 Dewdney Ave

Introducing this exquisite & quintessential Oak bay Colonial residence! A very rare opportunity to own this one of a kind home situated on the Uplands border. Feel the warmth of this family home from the moment you enter; a bright beautiful living room adorned w/gleaming HW flrs, Gas FP & a large Bay window all help to showcase the pride of ownership that this home deserves. Enjoy your luxurious and fully renovated kitchen accented w/Granite Counters, a Gas WOLF range and a barn door that overlooks your flat rear patio & yard that is perfect for the kids and family gatherings. The main floor also boasts a family room/home office w/wood paneling & built-ins. The second floor offers a wonderful Master suite w/renovated ensuite, 2 more beds & a recently renovated 3rd Bath w/wainscoting, heated flrs & Granite Vanity. The Top floor is a bonus family room w/Vaulted ceiling & Ocean Views, perfect for the teenagers! Downstairs is a workshop but easily converts into 800sq/ft of living space.

http://www.luxurybchomes.com/properties/2856-dewdney-ave-389542

Last day of classes at UBC

It's really very quiet here but we did hear something going on this morning.  The "frat house" had these youngsters going through the hedge at around 8am today.  I guess it's a tradition.  They went through then headed elsewhere.  There has been a bit of exuberance  from time to time today but no big deal. It was a day for my eye injection and I had a new guy that I really liked in terms of his method.  I didn't even realize he had done it!  I'm getting him again.

 Blossoms and we saw the sea today!

I guess they were going to another frat house....they seemed to be on a mission!

How cool!

So,  it seems Jim and I met on "Facing the Mountain".  Now,  that seems perfect since we both have loved our Vancouver mountains (and it has stopped raining at the moment so I can see them for the first time since we arrived home),  our Olympic Mountains in Victoria (on the rare days we could see them but they were a treat when they appeared), our wonderful San Jacintos in Palm Springs, the Alpes in Annecy,  and the Alpes-Maritimes in the south of France.  

From the Vancouver Sun today.

VANCOUVER — New road signs have been unveiled on the University of British Columbia's Point Grey campus honouring the linguistic heritage of the Musqueam First Nation and its location within unceded, traditional Indigenous territory.

The signs are posted on nine major streets on the west-side Vancouver campus and supplement English names with those in the traditional language of the Musqueam people.

Each sign includes the name created by language experts from the Musqueam community and are written in a phonetic alphabet developed to represent the sounds.

The university website says the Musqueam language uses a place-based directional system which refers to the land and flow of water, such as upriver or downriver, rather than directions such as north, south, east and west.

University Boulevard, the main east-west access to the campus, has been renamed Place for Traditional Instruction, West Mall has been translated as Facing the Mountain and Lower Mall, closest to the ocean, is called West Wind.

The university says in an online post that names chosen by Musqueam give insight into their perception of place and movement across the land, and also demonstrate how language and culture is tied to the Musqueam territory.

Smokey and Oscar

It was really funny today reading Linda's blog and seeing Smokey, the cat.  It could have been a photo of our Oscar,  the cat who adopted us for a number of years when we lived in Victoria.  You see  Oscar below making himself very comfortable on our front window ledge.  My long time blog readers will be very familiar with Oscar.  He was the most amazingly affectionate cat to everyone.  

He was great with people but other cat owners weren't so pleased. As you can see he is a big cat and injured a couple of neighbourhood cats (Siamese) called Tom and Jerry who thought they could get the best of him.  He also liked to torment the female cats on the block.  He kept one poor thing under a car until the owner intervened.  We think Oscar got a bad rap with Tom and Jerry as they used to slink up to him when he was sitting on our front porch.  We never saw him going after them.  He just sat there and looked at them and they went scurrying away.

We learned from the owners that he is quite a famous breed called the Chartreux .  This breed also had some famous owners like Charles de Gaulle.  Read more about the breed below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartreux

This is Smokey and he has quite an interesting history and life too!  From Linda's blog.

Smokey was a feral cat.  She was an abandoned kitten behind the warehouse on 88th and Scott Road.  Maria, who loves animals, fed the feral cats.  She took Smokey the kitten and gave him a home in the warehouse on Hwy. 10.  Smokey has her own office.  It's bigger than everyone else's.  She wanders the top floor looking for people to give her much needed attention.  This has been her home for 14 years.  Lexie and I went over for some Smokey love on Monday because the warehouse was closed Easter Sunday and we knew she would still be upset.  She was so glad to see us.  She was sitting on one of the office desks where there is a lot of sunlight and a good view of the traffic.  Maria keeps music on 24/7 in her office.  One lucky cat!

Home to our Vancouver paradise....

Great to be home and enjoying the blossoms on the trees.  Rainy and cool but makes a change and I enjoyed hearing the rain this morning.  Palm Springs would die for this rain.  Everything nicely in order here and partly unpacked.  The newspaper arrived this morning so having coffee and enjoying our local news.

Leaving paradise...

We got everything we needed to do today quite quickly.  Tomorow,  a few last things that can only be done at the last minute .  We had a great swim this afternoon and still using up stuff...pizza tonight and cold cuts tomorrow.  Our neighbour, Ken,  picks us up at 2pm to take us to the the airport,  flight at 4:15pm and then home in the early evening.

It's been a wonderful season here but we will love being home too and exploring our new "hood".

Our preparations...geting outside furniture in and putting out tubs of water.

Our reward...

Skyping with pets

Carol is going to be in Rome for a month and I know she will miss her cat, Mr. Darcy. This idea of skyping with her cat came to me and it seemed a bit weird but then I googled it and it seems a lot of people are skyping with their pets!  Well,  I should have guessed that would be the case.  Is there anything new under the sun?

I picked up this article:

Top Reasons to have a skype video call with your cat

We were not at all surprised to hear that a recent poll, conducted by Hallmark, showed that one out of three cat owners use Skype to contact their beloved felines. Based on the number of cat photos our users share with us, we figured human-cat Skype calls were some of the most common types of video calls out there.This didn’t surprise Skype’s Pet Ambassador, Paris Permenter, either. “I think Skype is an easy way to check in with cats because they’re so predictable,” she says. “You know where they’re going to be – if they’ve got a favorite napping spot or a sunny window sill, you can point the camera there and check in on them throughout the day – it’s easy to catch them there. You don’t have to call them to the camera, you just know where they’re going to be.” She’s experienced this with one of her four cats, Inca. “She always lies in one window, and I know she’s going to be there, taking a sunbath.” Oh, for the life of a cat.

https://blogs.skype.com/stories/2014/06/20/top-reasons-to-have-a-skype-video-call-with-your-cat/

And what about cat to cat skype calls...why not?

Goodness...what weather!

The Bluejays won tonight in Toronto so I guess it wasn't snowing.  It seems the New York Yankees opening game was cancelled today due to snow....unreal!

Yankee Stadium in a blanket of snow.  This did happen in 1982 as well.

I looked up Vancouver weather and it seems there will be rain and the temps around 50F for the next 10 days or so.  It could be worse and we have had a wonderful winter in Palm Springs even though March was cooler than usual.  I can take 70's anytime.

Easter brunch at C'est Bon

Chris and Susan treated us to brunch today and what amazing food...wow!  Susan got a great photo of Jim and I.

The photos I took weren't so great.  I will blame it on the light...:)

Jim,  Susan, and I  began with cold cucumber soup with crab....excellent.  Chris had the shrimp cocktail and it looked fabulou too.  And Champagne,  of course.

 Then we all had crepes of some sort...mine was spinach and lobster.  Too busy talking to take photos.

 For dessert I had the macadamia nut pie with gelato.  I can never resist anything with nuts.  Jim had two scoops of gelato.  He can never resist ice cream.

And to top it off,  when they let us off,  we saw the Easter Bunny!

Thanks Susan and Chris for a super afternoont  It was great fun and the food was fabulous.  And it was great to be chauffeured...thanks,  Susan.

Happy Easter to all!

As we snowbirds start thinking of what will await us in our home nests,  those of of us in the West Coast of Canada have less to worry about.  Thank you, Carol, for posting what will await us Wednesday when we return  I've posted some of Carol's photos here of what's blooming at home.  Go to her blog post "Spring is somewhere" for more.

http://mountdunbar.blogspot.ca/2018/04/spring-is-somewhere.html

Our spring in Vancouver has been cool and wet, but at least it's spring.  It seems the message hasn't gotten through to parts of the rest of Canada, though. My sister Betty, who lives outside Montreal, says she's still deep in winter on this Easter weekend, and she has had enough. My Alberta relatives are in the midst of a particularly frigid blast, with daytime temperatures hovering below zero, and night-time temperatures plunging to minus 20.

Vancouver pays big-time in housing costs for its earlier springs  -- so I'm not gloating -- but here are a few weekend photos that might bring hope to those still trudging through snowbanks on April 1: