Janly's Canadian Retreat

  About 30 years ago i heard about these amazing gardens on the west coast of Canada. I put them on my bucket list . As you may have read I finally got to visit there with Lauren and Kieran last week. During that visit Lauren did the math and easily persuaded me to buy a 12 month pass , knowing that I had  time to visit at least twice more before leaving here in june . Yesterday I went for my second visit and during those 7  days,  plants had grown and color was more evident  and abundant besides. Special notice was the hyacinth that were  in full bud; the daffodil family were abundantly yellow everywhere and now more plants were hinting at their spring show. This visit was with my "relatives" from Winnipeg who came to visit . I also took them to see Sitting Lady Waterfalls that is just a short hike form the house . Neighbors who live here said that they have never seen so much water here . Last week there was a weather front that brought 48 hours of non st...

Well it was very special having Lauren and Kieran here for the days his spring break . AS the photos show, the walks to the edge of the continent as here are such a pleasure and seeing Kieren searching the rock s for crabs was a delight .   My added adventure on the day after Lolly left, i had decided to use the rental car another day before returning it. I had been wanting to visit a small coastal town named Duncan, known for the  totem poles  there. So up the road i trailed for about an hour on a mountain road not unlike rt 64 I in VA.but more mountain.  I reached a special  viewpoint that is called Malahat Summit, known of its fabulous views across peaks, valleys and water ways. As a good place to stop I decided on  here as the photos show how special it is . But the  story of my adventure stops there because as i was walking back to the car, I saw that i had a flat tyre . Okay-let's change the wheel! No spare wheel ! (Low end rental cars have such ...

 With Lauren and Kieran  here with me for the week, every thing was very different. We had a rental car that radically changed choices, timing , places and comfort. During the week we went to downtown Victoria to the inner harbor, a lovely park with a petting zoo for kids, Fish chips , The very famous Butchant gardens, trampolining , beach walks , brunch with Wendy, Miniature World at the Empress Hotel, The BC museum and  the Elite Game store. For Kieran the highlight of the entire visit , and perhaps his whole year was the Elite 4  store. This was the outcome of Covid and during his 2 visits to the store Kieran was  consumed by the value and significance of Pokémon cards. He has been collecting cards for some time and has organised with great precision in a binder with precise reasoning that only he might understand.  This store trades/sells the cards along side light engineering equipment. There are many stories like this I  think but during covid ki...

 On Sunday Mar 17 at the late hour of 11 pm PST my daughter Lauren and grandson Kieren arrived at Victoria International airport.BC. The airport is in Sidney BC and to get there I was determined to make the most of having wheels so I stopped at a place where i could take a beach walk at Island View . I have learned that all walking trails are well used and well maintained with parking, gravel paths, clear and informative signage and even bathrooms (washrooms in CA). The weather was brisk and cold but not really raining so I was all set. This stretch of beach which is pretty long overlooks Sidney Island and for the entire length it is a bit pebbly and  strewn with the debris of logs and tree limbs everywhere. They are left intentionally to break the waves and protect the beach.  As the rain forced me back the rental car, I drove on to Sidney, the small town just minutes from the airport . I Parked the car right outside a restaurant and grabbed my phone because the most spe...

 Its been more than a week since i was on here, Which does not mean i forgot you but i might suggest that there was not much new to say . Until Today.  But first a brief report on the last week would mainly be about picking up a rental car to use for the next week or so. Friend Wendy dropped me of last sunday on the way to her art class and i was transported to being a driver instead of a walker snd rider. I.m  not sure if i had written about a bus day when I used the transit system to gat to my destination but than spent 4 hours walking progressively from one bus stop to the next , for a total of 4 miles. !! At each stop  where the bus route also changed, i would check on arrival times and each time the wait time was a minumin of 40  minutes. It's easy to figure that waiting is boring at best and walking is exercise at least. On that day I did walk at least 5 miles and it was not like a pleasant country stroll.  Then I had the car and that meant the wheels...

  ITS all right!! it was so mild I think most would people have slept through it. The earthquake, the second in about 15 days, woke me at 5.00 am this morning. It felt like a steam roller on a lumpy road for about 4 seconds and then to was gone!!!However, it's this prompt that brings me to here with something to share . So the tremor was tiny but it was interesting ,and  upon reading Earthquake Canada  on here I was invited to report my experience of feeling the earth rumble as part of data collection . I never imagined  I would be feeling a 4-1 earthquake, especially here, but as i learned  "here "  is an extension of the San Andreas Fault that runs through California. My other earthquake experience was decades ago in Crete where the buildings  actually shook!! I have been here about 2 months now and the experience of subjecting oneself to a retreat is something we all really need to do, especially if you have lived around lots of other people most of...