Saturday, November 14, 2009

Time to Go


Today is our final day in Victoria so it is filled with cleaning and packing but I have a moment to say that we had a great week here despite the construction and all its problems.

We chose the new paint colour for our rooms which was a plus but we also discovered that while removing the outside stucco, the workers had cut the power to our dishwasher. That meant removing the lovely new siding which had been installed. On the plus side, our new windows are fantastic. Not only do they keep the apartment warm, they also cut down the noise from Fort Street. However, we must get new window coverings since our old blinds no longer fit.

Yesterday, during one of the sunny breaks, we walked down to Oak Bay shopping area to have lunch at the Pennyfarthing, one of the first pubs we enjoyed in Victoria. I had a hankering for their steamed Salt Spring Island mussels. Glen enjoyed a couple of pints of Smithwick's while I had an award winning beer from the Vancouver Island Brewery called Spyhopper Honey Brown Ale. "Spyhopping is the playful activity in which the orca will vertically pop out of the water in order to check out their surroundings or to examine prey."

Pennyfarthing has great pizzas so I ordered their Aspargus and Olive pizza with feta cheese and Glen had a pub staple of Beefsteak and Guiness pot pie. Both were delicious. To end this great meal, Glen indulged in a dark chocolate brownie with ice cream and I had the Pennyfarthing Irish Coffee.

Tonight, as has become tradition, we'll have supper at the airport White Spot restaurant. Originally the airport had a cafeteria-style restaurant but after renovations, the White Spot opened a lovely place in which to eat and drink. The service is always good and food tasty. Their in-house beer, Nat Bailey lager or Nat Bailey pale ale is brewed by the Granville Island Brewing exclusively for the White Spot restaurants.

Leaving is always bittersweet as we love being 'on the island' but of course, home is still Calgary. More and more we discuss the time when Victoria will become home but that is still several years away.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Lunching with Friends

Victoria offers an opportunity which we lack in Calgary and that is socializing with friends over lunch.

Yesterday, we spent the afternoon with Diane and Tony Taylor at their home in Gordon Head. They are in the process of renovating their older house and it's fun seeing what changes have happened since our last visit. This time their cat, Coco, decided she loved us and so we were her best friends all afternoon. She is a beautiful Abyssinian with lots of energy.

Diane and Tony are off to India in February and to get in the mood, Diane served us an incredible Indian lunch of lamb, cauliflower, rice and vermicelli pudding. I realize I lack the Indian names for these dishes but suffice to say they were a burst of different curry flavours (except the dessert, of course).

Today we enjoyed lunch with our neighbours Cynthia, Ray, and Caroline Goff. They have babysat our condo during the building renos and have made sure the workmen have had access to our place to do what must be done. We really appreciate the time and effort they have made on our account so wanted to thank them with a lunch out. Chrisites is everyone's favourite so we walked over. A group of veterans from WWII and Korea were also enjoying lunch after the Remembrance Day ceremonies and one man had his medals proudly displayed.

Glen felt this was his last chance for fish and chips so ordered the halibut. Ray is also a fan of fish and they both sprinkled malt vinegar on their chips in true British pub spirit. Cynthia had a lovely alfredo pasta and Caroline enjoyed the teriyaki chicken burger. I had the reuben sandwich and could not resist ordering fries instead of a salad. I'll live to regret that decision and will probably have to spend an extra half hour on the treadmill next week.

Glen remarked he can see a retirement in Victoria spent chatting the hours away with good friends and it sounds like a great plan.

Sunday, November 8, 2009

Sunday on the Island


Rain is predicted for most of the week so when we rose this morning and saw the sun, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather.

First we went to the driving range. It was good to work out the kinks by hitting a huge bucket of balls. I was pretty rusty but soon warmed up. The temps were chilly but after smacking 80 balls, I had generated some heat.

Our next stop was the hardware store because our dishwasher died while we were away. There are several theories as to why but it meant we had to buy a dish rack to do dishes by hand (perish the thought). We also got paint chips as the contractors are painting the outer walls this week. They will paint using colours of your choice, if we provide the paint. Turns out none of the chips we brought home matched the colour of our walls so we might have to change colours.

After lunch we headed to the beach. It is a 40 minute walk to Willows Beach but well worth the effort. In the winter, dogs are allowed to run freely along the sand and most of the people doing the beach walk were dog-owners. We stopped by our butcher and bought a leg of lamb for supper. Problem is I must cook it in the oven since we have no balcony on which to barbeque.

Busy Day


We began our trip to Victoria yesterday by having the alarm go off at 2:50 am. A rude awakening. Meg and Mike were off to Vegas and offered to take us to the airport. Meg's passport was due to expire at the end of November so she could not print out her boarding pass--she actually had to speak with someone and anyone who has ever flown to the States from Calgary, knows you have to allow plenty of time to clear customs. Hence the early morning rising.

We arrived at 5:00am for a 6:30 flight to Vancouver. All went well and we easily made our connection to Victoria. We landed in the pouring rain and our cab driver said it had been raining hard for 2 hours. I hauled out our raincoats but by the time we got to the apartment the rain had eased.

The apartment was a mess. We had left it arranged in such a way that those remediating our building could reach the windows, etc with ease. What we had forgotten was how much dust drywalling creates. After getting our groceries, we spent most of the day washing everything down. There are no window coverings up so we had to tack a bedsheet over our bedroom window. It felt like we were young, poor students again.

We decided to have a second breakfast when we realized that except for some crackers and a soda, we had not eaten anything in 9 hours. Our neighbour popped in and we got caught up on all the construction news so in the end, second breakfast became lunch.

As is tradition, we went to Christies for supper. We shared Spanikopita and then I had their Souvlaki chicken wrap with a garden salad and Glen had their special which was a roast beef dinner. We washed it down with Cypress Honey Lager. We went to bed at 8:00pm and slept soundly.