Victoria

“The neighbors are drunk and lighting fireworks. It must be Victoria Day!”

Unattributed

This last weekend was a long weekend here in BC (think ‘bank holiday’ should you hail from the UK). This particular one commemorates the birthday of the monarch for whom this city was named – Queen Victoria.

Now – as I mentioned in previous recent posts – having already resigned ourselves to the reality that we would not be traveling anywhere very far in this second year of the COVID, we have also now also had to accept the idea that we won’t be doing major renovations to our home either – given the current outrageous cost of building materials.

This is – to put it mildly – a bit of a bummer and left us feeling somewhat out of sorts and directionless.

Just at the right time, however, we saw advertised at one of Victoria’s loveliest downtown boutique hotels an enticing  ‘Spend-the-night – Dine-in-room’ deal. We have not stayed at The Magnolia before but we have treated ourselves to its excellent restaurant – The Courtney Room. The restaurant is – of course – currently closed, but the deal (which ran only until the end of May) enables one to indulge oneself in their culinary offerings at a window table in a splendid bedroom, to spend the ensuing night in comfort therein and to do all of this in complete COVID safety.

What is not to love about that?

We visited on the Friday evening and dined splendidly on in-house breads & crackers with roasted eggplant dip and smoked paprika oil – dry-aged Two Rivers burger with aged cheddar and a splendidly fresh salad (for The Girl) – local catch of the day Bouillabaisse (for me) – followed by a Blood Orange Tart (with pumpkin seed frangipane, blood orange marmalade and Wild Mountain honey) and a Meyer Lemon Mousse (with caramelized white chocolate crumb and toasted bourbon meringue). All of which was washed down with a very passable bottle of Savigny-les-Beunes.

We watched the sun go down over the inner harbour and for a brief period all seemed right with the world.

The following morning the sun was doing its very best early-summer impression and we got to wander around downtown and to lunch outside one of our favourite predominantly vegetarian restaurant and juice bars – Re.Bar.

Because it would clearly have been a great shame for our splendidly indulgent weekend to peter out on the Saturday we also treated ourselves to some pampering at the lovely Brentwood Bay Spa on the Monday; a relaxing massage for me and a reflexology treatment for The Girl’s most lovely and dainty feet.

All in all a wonderful long weekend, during which it was possible – perhaps for the first time – to imagine what it will be like to emerge on the other side of this grim era.

Time to dream a little…