I look out my window towards Vancouver to see a thin sliver of possible sunshine, but not much above the horizon is a solid mass of darkly-hovering cloud. The 5-day forecast is for drizzle, showers, chance of showers, cloudy, cloudy. When this happens in the last few weeks of summer on the Coast, there’s always a worry that we’re done, that the fall rains are going to start and then morph into the winter rains, and the spring ones after that. In fact, we generally have drought here through August and September, especially in the Gulf Islands, but this summer has felt rather spotty and I think we’re all looking for anomalies in the wake of Global Warming.
But I’m going to keep hoping that we have at least one more blast of summer heat before we’re done — and meanwhile, here are some pictures to celebrate the glorious weekend we just had. One of those weekends when we felt so blessed to be able to share with guests the pleasures of seaside life. Leisurely breakfasts with fluffy biscuits, for example. Here, Paul, biscuitmaker extraordinaire, is passing his secrets on to our four-year old guest, Darby, instructing her on the importance of touch in biscuit making.
In this next photo, you can see that she takes these responsibilities very seriously–I think here she’s been charged with maintaining a gentle pressure ’til Paul gets back with the baking sheet — who knew that was an important step?
Much as we enjoyed our breakfast, it sadly signalled the end of our visit, and we all walked down to the ferry where Darby made like a movie star in mom’s (Velma’s) glasses — I love this shot!
and then it was time for Brian, Velma, and Darby to hop on board the Island Queen and leave our little island for the bigger one — hope they found more sunshine there!
In the absence of sunshine, I’m going to pack up some knitting for the ferry (the Icarus shawl is brilliant for that, lightweight, circular needles, miles of mindless stockinette) and head over to Vancouver for a few days. Velma told me about the wonders of the fragrance section in the new Holt’s store which I haven’t yet checked out. Might be fun to see the new fall fashion in the shops as well, even if I’m not packing my summer stuff away yet. Maybe a movie or two . . . I’ll report back soon.
I love the picture of the ferry. It brings back memories of thoes foggy winter mornings when I would sleep over and we’d have to be up before 6:00am to catch the bus before school. I couldn’t believe that was what by best friend had to do every single morning, but I also knew that it made her a stronger and much more interesting person than anyone in “north” nanaimo! Thanks for the memories!
You’re right – it does look like the French peniche!