Relaxing in Victoria

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It's 9.25 on the 7th of July. There's been a very welcome change of pace here in Victoria, as I'm sure you've noticed from my last blog. We've had a chance to kick back and relax here after the craziness of Toronto and The Rockies. It does mean however, there isn't so much to write about so these blogs will be a little shorter for a while.
So Saturday. Donna and Bob had booked us in for the museum at noon, so we spent the morning having breakfast and showering and the like. By noon we were ready and Donna gave us a lift in to the city, dropping us outside the museum which was set back a little from the inner harbour, next to the government buildings. The museum itself was made up of two floors - the first dedicated to natural history, the second to human history - with two exhibits each. The first we went into was a temporary exhibit on the gold rush, then into one on the flora and fauna of coastal British Columbia. It was nicely set out, with scenes of forests and beaches - as well as their famous wooly mammoth.
Upstairs there was another two exhibits, the first on the First Nations, with artefacts and totem poles, clothing and canoes, and the second on the development of BC. This exhibit included a model street of a 1800s town, with a hotel and a cinema playing a Charlie Chaplin movie. It took us maybe 2 and a half hours to go round the whole museum, so it was about 3 by the time we left. From there, we wondered around the harbour for a while, and popped into a few shops down the main high street. Once we were done, we got in contact with Bob who came and picked us up.
It was a relaxed evening, still warm but not as hot as the previous few days. Donna made a fantastic dinner of steak, salad and baked potato, then we settled down to watch the movie American Sniper before bed.
I managed to rouse myself at 4.50 the next morning to get up and watch the Silverstone GP, which was a good one. It was nice to be up at a good time, and by the time everyone else was getting up (11am for some) I had trained, cooked breakfast, written my journal and read a good portion of my book. We didn't have any plans for that day except to go out for a meal in the evening so Rosie and I headed out for a walk at about 3, taking a packed lunch with us. We set a timer for an hour and a half and just begun following the trails that ran all through the area. They took us through parks, woods, past lakes, rivers and fields. Once the timer went off we found a rock to sit on and had our lunch. We sat and rested our legs for 20 minutes or so, marvelling at the orange sky caused by the forest fires that are raging further north on the island and on the mainland. One of these is now 'officially out of control' which isn't exactly the most comforting status.
We headed back the way we came, and by the time we were back we were well and truly exercised. It turned out that Bob had been called into work (he's the manager of a warehouse that supplies all of the big local supermarkets) as the computer system had crashed, so Donna cooked from home and we called a rain check on the meal out. We watched Keeping Mum (great film) while eating, then slowly begun our bedtime routine - hitting the hay at about 11 or so.
I got up at about 8.30 the following morning. Rosie and I went for a run at about 11 and then we all made ourselves some lunch before catching the bus into the city. From there we walked up to the bottom of Beacon Hill park, where we sat in the dappled sunlight through the trees and ate the food we'd brought. Kate needed to buy a from things from the high street but didn't want us trailing around after her, so Rosie, Matt and I wandered for an hour or so around the park, funding (amazingly) a cricket green amongst the football pitches and baseball diamonds. We headed back to meet Kate and popped into a few shops ourselves then, to avoid the temptation to spend money we don't have, headed back on the bus at about 6.30.
Donna had cooked pasta with a Bolognese sauce for dinner, so we sat out on the deck to eat, the sky still veiled by a layer of smoke from the forest fires.
That evening the others watched Nightcrawler, while I spent most of the evening sitting out and beginning to write my training plans for when I get back home (sounds deathly boring I know but I enjoy it). As usual, once the film ended it was pretty much time for bed, which is a little earlier here as we get up (or I get up) at about 7 or 8 in the morning.
And so that's a few days here in Victoria. We've got into a nice routine of having plenty of time to see the sights and explore the city, but still time enough for relaxing, reading, writing and training.
Just a note, someone posted a few more of the photos of the No Clothes, No Cups party onto the Beaverfoot chat, so I've uploaded them onto this blog!

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Comments

[Dr John HW]

West Coast
Interesting to read of your progress westwards and its sudden stop by the Pacific. Even from West Sussex, one gets a real sense of the huge distances you have travelled from the snowy beginnings in Quebec. Loved the description of the pugs running in, out and then back in again! That dizziness you had sounds less fun and one suspects a labyrinthine virus or similar. I'm very pleased that it has cleared up. Enjoying the Ben Howard album although the tracks haven't yet taken on full definition: will need to listen to it a few more times for that to happen. However - so far - the track 'Black Flies' really stands out and builds up brilliantly. Will give you my further thoughts and evaluation on both that and the GA album in due course. Over here, we have just had the pleasure of the first fully Conservative budget for 18 years. Despite all the media cheerleader puffery about George Osborne being the most brilliant Chancellor and the greatest political strategist of all time, a reading of the small print quickly reveals that poor people have been absolutely hammered by the withdrawal of tax credits. Only trouble is that we have not got any effective opposition at present. Hope that the rest of your time on the island goes well and look forward about hearing about Seattle and then that amazing train journey down towards San Francisco. Dad