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Last year on Christmas Day The Girl and I took a constitutional upon Island View Beach which was blessed with pleasant sunshine and a mild temperature. This year the weather was less obliging but a visit to the same locale proved efficacious in blowing away the cobwebs that always seem to set in at around the halfway point.
As with the weather the images that I snapped are less dramatic than were those of last year, but I offer them none the less:
Yes indeed! It is the night before Christmas and thus the time that I ‘traditionally’ roam the house with a camera – looking for Christmassy images to capture… so that I might post a seasonal pot pouri of ‘ph’estive photographs.
How am I doing?
As ever at this juncture…
…to friends, acquaintances and gentle readers…
from the Kickass Canada Girl and the Imperceptible Immigrant.
Have a wonderful Christmas and a splendid Hogmany!
Tags: Celebration, Christmas, Photo
The first thing that came into most people’s minds (of those to whom I divulged our impending move to Canada some five years ago) was the thought of the Canadian winter – as though that somehow defined the country. Further, it was reasonably clear that their preconceptions ran primarily to winter sports. Maybe in the back of their minds they conjured up this sort of image:
Now – of course – Canadians don’t exactly always go out of their way to discourage this sort of stereotype and it does have to be said that in parts of the land there is a fair bit of winter to be had.
But not so here on the Wet… pardon me… West coast. Our winters tend to look more like this:
Nice weather for the ducks – though the cormorants don’t look so impressed. These photos were taken today in Sidney by the Sea on the umpteenth (seemingly) day of apocalyptic gloom and ceaseless and torrential rain.
With us right through Christmas apparently!
Still – a good excuse to stay indoors and snuggle up…
Tags: British Columbia, Photo, Weather, winter
Whenever we head up island to Duncan or Nanaimo – to visit friends and/or family – I take with me a camera of some variety with a mind to capturing all manner of fascinating images. As our modus operandi is normally to catch the Mill Bay ferry (thus avoiding the drive over the Malahat) we head first for a favourite spot of mine – Brentwood Bay. The result is that I usually end up with some nice photos of Brentwood Bay itself… and then nothing further!
Here are some of this last weekend’s pictures of Brentwood Bay – (double click for the full effect!)…
Tags: Brentwood Bay, Friends, Photo, Vancouver Island
Sunrises at this time of the year here on the west coast of Canada can be particularly vivid, though the weather seems to veer wildly between days on which one cannot see the closest of the Gulf Islands (a mere couple of miles away) and those on which one can see forever… or at least as far as Mount Baker (a little over seventy miles distant).
It never was much fun getting up in the dark to go to work and it still isn’t, though as I have only to do so twice a week I really shouldn’t grumble. In any case I only have these early starts for another five weeks or so and my January timetable looks a whole lot more friendly. Anyway, dragging ourselves out of bed to be faced by this sort of sunrise really does take the edge off the shock.
It is hard to remain stony faced in the light of such splendour.
Tags: Autumn, British Columbia, November, Photo
I thought I would post some images (before it was too late) of the relatively few remaining plants in our garden that have not been savaged by deer…
They are contrary ba**ards, these creatures. One year they are picky customers – turning their noses up at all manner of succulence. The next – they will (and do!) eat anything. If it’s green and has leaves – it’s lunch!
This makes planning a deer-proof garden almost impossible. If one is unable – as are we – to circle one’s little plot with a rugged deer-proof fence of some variety then one has little choice but to search out plants that deer don’t care to eat. That would be a good sight easier if they didn’t change their minds from season to season.
Purveyors of plants like to advertise particular combinations of perennials as being deer-proof. I think the deer just see this as a challenge.
“Doesn’t matter if I don’t much care for this – I am going to choke it down anyway just to make a point! Hah!”
Once one has reached the point of imagining deer internal monologues it is probably time to stop, though…
Tags: British Columbia, Deer, Gardens, Photo, Summer
…back at the ranch!
Well – I have posted a good number of missives since we returned to Canada in June – most of which concerned our recent trip to Europe. As a result I have been somewhat guilty of late of neglecting to keep the gentle reader up to date with the summer’s going on here at the southern end of Vancouver Island.
Time to catch up!
Weather-wise this has been a mixed summer thus far. There have been good days and there have been overcast, chilly days. There has not been much rain, however, so the garden has needed help.
I really liked this ‘end of the rainbow’…
Nothing has deterred us from lunching at ‘The Farmer’s Daughter’ – where they do a splendid plate of charcuterie and a decent variety of wine flights:
…or indeed from walking in Centennial Park:
We have also been regular attendees – as ever – at the Brentwood Bay ‘Music in the Park’ on Wednesday evenings and – though the temperatures have occasionally been on the nippy side and the winds blustered more than strictly necessary – we have enjoyed ourselves.
Note the detail from above. No sense in wasting good spinning time!
It’s a West Coast thing…
It has taken a good seven weeks since we returned from Europe to reach my last missive on the subject of our jaunt to the UK and to the Greek islands. In part this is because our experience over there was so varied and so rich (and I found I had taken so many photographs that I wanted to share) that it has taken this long to get all of my thoughts and all of the images organised for presentation. I hope that this extended rumination on our adventures has not too badly outstayed its welcome.
Anyway…
When in Athens…
…one must visit the Acropolis and see the Parthenon (along with much of the other antiquity on offer in the city). We hired a young archeologist to act as a guide and set forth under the blazing sun. Photographs were very much in order. Here are the barbarian hordes, storming the Propylaea.
The Acropolis hill hosts a number of major structures in addition to the Parthenon itself. This is the Erechtheion with its famous porch of Caryatids.
It is no surprise that the monument is under continual – and, nowadays, sympathetic – restoration. There are strict limits on how much non-original material is permitted in the rebuilding and the use of different shades of stone enables the casual visitor to understand what is reproduction and what is not.
The site also encompasses the Odeon of Herodes Atticus…
…which is still used for opera and concert performances – and the Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus, which is not.
The new (a mere ten years old this year) Acropolis museum lies outside the historical site itself, but has been constructed parallel to the Parthenon and with an interior core that is identical in size to the temple. Extensive use of reflective glass allows the Acropolis hill to be reflected on the outside of the museum, with sweeping panoramic views of the hill from the inside.
The museum site is itself of archeological interest and the building effectively sits on stilts above the ground, whilst glass floors and subtle lighting enable the visitor to view the excavations below.
The museum houses many of the precious artifacts recovered from the Acropolis site itself.
One of the most affecting displays is the recreation at the top of the building of the frieze that once surrounded the top of the Parthenon. This extraordinary work comprises a mixture of original carvings and new stonework reproductions. These are clearly delineated so that one can gauge how much (or little) of the original frieze remains, how much has been destroyed – and how much removed to collections in other parts of the world. The majority of the latter – of course – include that extensive number that were removed to London and make up the bulk of the so-called Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.
It as truly startling to see just how much material was plundered from the site and carried away in this manner.
“An Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of Paradise.”
Robert South
Athens, Athens… what can I say of Athens?
At the end of our Greek island cruise we had a couple of days in Athens, a city that neither of us had previously visited but both were eager so to do. I will, naturally, dwell upon such cradles of antiquity as the Acropolis and the Parthenon in another missive, but those aside our few brief days were just a whirlwind of wonderful impressions. That being the case I felt that I might simply try to pass on to the gentle reader a similar excess of imagery. In the words of Elias Canetti:
“Explain nothing. Put it there. Say it. Leave.”
One of the main reasons for our choice of cruise line for our recent adventure in the Cyclades was that we wanted to visit Ephesus. As a result of recent political tensions between Turkey and certain other nations many of the larger cruise companies have of late eschewed the customary stopover at nearby Kuşadası – thus ruling themselves out as far as we were concerned.
On Ephesus the ever resourceful Wikipedia offers us this:
“Ephesus was an ancient Greek city on the coast of Ionia, three kilometres southwest of present-day Selçuk in İzmir Province, Turkey. It was built in the 10th century BC on the site of the former Arzawan capital by Attic and Ionian Greek colonists. During the Classical Greek era it was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian League. The city flourished after it came under the control of the Roman Republic in 129 BC.
The city was famed for the nearby Temple of Artemis (completed around 550 BC), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Among many other monumental buildings are the Library of Celsus, and a theatre capable of holding 25,000 spectators.
Ephesos was one of the seven churches of Asia that are cited in the Book of Revelation. The Gospel of John may have been written here. The city was the site of several 5th-century Christian Councils (see Council of Ephesus).
The city was destroyed by the Goths in 263, and although rebuilt, the city’s importance as a commercial centre declined as the harbour was slowly silted up by the Küçükmenderes River. It was partially destroyed by an earthquake in AD 614.”
But enough of the chit-chat… what you want is the pictures! Here they be!
Our excursion included the ongoing archeological dig on the site of the astonishing ‘Terrace Houses’ – luxury ‘apartments’ cut into the hillside (so as to keep them cool!). These featured central heating, plumbing and all mod cons.
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