The dog days of summer

We've had a lovely summer here in Victoria.  Lots of sunshine and very little rain (actually about two hours in the past two months). Here are some dogs enjoying a late evening stroll down at Dallas Road. But now it's September and today the kids went back to school.  I guess the dog days of summer are over now.








I haven't been posting much so I thought I'd just show a few images from the season.  Here's a reflection photo from the dock at Saturna Island showing the beautiful blue ocean.

We're pretty stoked that last Thursday the Federal Court of Appeal struck down the permits for the Trans Mountain pipeline last that was proposed for the port of Burnaby, near Vancouver.  It's possible that this may be the end of that project, which would increase tanker traffic on our coast seven-fold.  This would mean huge environment issues if a spill of diluted bitumen took place. This kind of spill cannot be remediated. Can you imagine what a spill like that would mean to our beautiful coast?






Earlier this summer the new Johnson Street bridge was completed. It took a long time and a lot of money. And many people thought it unnecessary, but in the end it has cleaned up the harbour big time. And eventually the cost will fade from people's minds. On the left is a photo of the old bridge going up to allow a large boat into the upper harbour. On the right, a photo of the old bridge with the new bridge completed to the left of it.  It's quite a different look

The new bridge has a wide pedestrian walkway and cycle path and people are always walking from old town across to the other side of the harbour.   The building you see here is the Janion building, the new part, where until the 15th of August we owned a tiny suite.  For the past two years we've rented it out, through AirB&B in the summer and to students for the other 8 months of the year.

But after a couple of years of doing this because of changes in regulations made it uneconomic to continue this so we sold it. Another reason was that the parking lot beside the Janion is going to be the site of a large 7 storey condo building that will eliminate much of the view and the light. We'll miss meeting people from all over the world, but we won't miss cleaning bathrooms and changing bed linens several times a week.


Here's what the main part of the studio suite looked like this summer.

This fall we are not doing any traveling, mostly because we need a break. Last year after Harry finished his chemo we started taking trips. In May we went to Mexico City, in June a road trip to Nelson, in September we went to London, Spain and Portugal. Then in February we spent a month in Zihuatanejo and in April we were in the South of France. So now we're here in Victoria attending to our own home and planning some social times with friends.  

Today Harry finished replacing some boards on the back deck and I've signed up for a weekly painting class.  Life is good.