An Escape!

Managing a marina means we 'live where we work' so sometimes the only way to 'get away from it all' is to actually do that. Tomorrow is my birthday so today Michael and I got in the van and drove to Port Renfrew ... for lunch.

It's about a 2-hour drive, through Colwood/Langford area, and Sooke. We stopped at Jordon River to watch the surfers (and were lucky enough to see some!) then carried on through the classic rainforest west coast looping-and-winding-highway to Port Renfrew. It was pissy most of the day so we hardly got out of the car (hence, no original photos, either) but it was lovely to just escape for a time. Michael, as always, did most of the driving so I got to knit lots -- finished the scarf I had on the needles, and started another one. That makes almost 100 of the 150 CommunityKnitters.com has promised to the Extreme Outreach Ministry for their Christmas hampers!

PHOTO OF THE DAY: This is as close as I'll ever get to a great blue heron ... especially one having its lunch!

ONE OF THOSE DAYS

Yep, it's been one. Pouring rain and miserable outside, and me and some cold/flu bug equally miserable, inside. Now, that wouldn't be so bad if I could just curl up and knit -- preferably with some good drugs and a warm afghan -- but no! Today I had a 10:00 a.m. coffee date that I really wanted to make, and then I promised my daughter I'd go with her to see about transferring her son (my almost-nine-year-old grandson, River) to a new school.

Did those two things ... and this is where it all started to go sideways. First of all, my daughter asked if I could keep the boys (the other one being my youngest grandson, 1-1/2 year old Gibson) for 'just a couple more hours' while she ran some errands -- and then my son called to remind me that I said I would take him to return some stuff to a rental place.

If I ever win the big one, I'll be buying reliable vehicles for all of my children, mark my words.

It's now almost 5 p.m., I'm home -- wet, cold and tired -- and not a single stitch has been knitted all day. Aarrgggghhhhh........

PHOTO OF THE DAY: A rainbow on the edge of Baynes Sound, taken looking across toward the Chrome Island lighthouse on the south end of Denman Island.

Out of Hand Craft Show

Today my daughter Mischa and I went to the Out of Hand Christmas Craft Show at the Victoria Convention Centre. It was fun, but tiring, and I didn't buy much. After I dropped her off at home I went down to the waterfront again for my daily meditative knitting, but it got dark before I got much done.

ON THE NEEDLES:
Currently working on scarves for the Extreme Outreach ministry (they need 300 total scarves and touques for Christmas presents, and so far a few of us have created just over 200, so we'll probably reach the goal!) .... and I finished the little yoga bag too, but it's too dark to take a decent pic.

PHOTO OF THE DAY: This is a picture of a beautiful little secluded beach on Ballenas Island in the Strait of Georgia. We used to anchor here as often as possible when we lived up that way...

Gotta start (again) somewhere

Once again I'm going to attempt to blog regularly about our waterborne life here in Beautiful British Columbia, and to detail my knitting projects and interests.

Today I drove down to Clover Point (as I often do) to knit, and watched a tugboat re-arranging and pulling a huge log boom along the Dallas Road waterfront. I wonder why we don't see these around Victoria very often? (I'm going to answer myself here: I suppose it's because of the slowdowns through-out the logging industry...) In any case, I always feel such a part of west coast history watching a tugboat pulling a log boom -- I'm glad it still happens, albeit infrequently.


And, as I was watching that, someone came out from the shore paddling a wake-board or something. I was too far away to get a good shot, but I'd love to know what on earth that person was doing there!


ON THE NEEDLES: I'm working on a little yoga-themed handbag that may end up being a Christmas gift for someone.

PHOTO OF THE DAY: I'm going to start posting a West Coast picture with each blog entry. Most of them are my photos (and if not, I'll identify the photographer) and they're just a hodge-podge of scenes from my life! Today's photo is the Deep Bay Marina as seen at sunset from the spit.