Canada is a big place (in case you hadn't noticed) and we'd only been in one part of it (British Columbia) and so far seen only a tiny bit of one city (Vancouver - population approx 2.5 million) the time had come to branch out, embrace the pioneering ethos, and visit friends on Vancouver Island. It's an easy trip: walk through the early stages of a snow storm to the bus stop; then take the Skytrain (metro) to where we can get the next bus for a one hour journey to the ferry port. We'd looked forward to this stage as a chance to see outside Vancouver but the snow closed in and we were coccooned in whiteness.
I can't recall how many times we've been told that snow is rare in Vancouver. I'm beginning to get a bit nervous. In every cafe, shop, gallery, museum, theatre or bus stop someone tells us that the weather is exceptional this year. It's never this cold. Is it our fault? Have we brought it with us, signalling some catastrophic climatic tipping point? They do admit it can be wet in winter (as I write this, it's pouring with rain; I can't see the mountains though the bay is starting to struggle towards visibility). Enough paranoia, it's not our fault any more than New Zealand being deluged with tropical storms as soon as we arrived or blizzards being forecast for our return to the UK. Probably.
The ferry crossing to Victoria passes between beautiful islands and rugged forested bays and coves. It takes about 1.5 hours and Jane and Mark collect and take us to their house. They moved to Canada from Edinburgh about fifteen years ago and have never been back. Their fabulous house has views that are equally magnificent: across the bay are the Olympic Mountains of Washington State. Geese and Bald Eagles drift across the the sky, orca's splash in the bay, there are cougars in the woods. And lots of other stuff I know nothing about.
We last visited them about twelve years ago and so there's not much to report other than we talked, ate, talked, drank, talked, and played with Zoey (sorry for putting 'y' when it should be a diaeresis but you're too kind a dog to take offence). We had a lot of catching up to do. The next day we ate breakfasts that would have felled lumberjacks, went for a walk and talked some more - all against a backdrop of sea, mountains, trees, green fields and spring flowers. All the usual things which make life worth living. Mark gave us a copy of his latest book, inscribed with a message looking forward to seeing us again in another 12 years .... would you mind if it's a bit sooner?
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| Zoey - A new friend. A bit grey like the rest of us but still a puppy at heart. |
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| Would you like a walk on the beach in February? |
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| Mark, the author of the must-read, soon-to-be bestseller .... |
Buy this book!
Jane, Mark, Zoey thanks again for everything, with love from us both.
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