Victoria - Week 3

Monday we went to Villa Eyrie for lunch. Great view. Pictures below. On Saturday we celebrated Mike's birthday, happy birthday Mike. You can see the cake I made: white cake and chocolate icing which is Mike's favourite. I won't hold it against him that he didn't want chocolate with chocolate icing.

The cake was a bit lopsided. I bought two cake pans at Value Village while here in Victoria. One was an 8 inch pan and the other was a 9 inch pan. At $1.99 per pan, one can't complain. And the two pans were actual aluminum without any non-stick coating. Aluminum is the very best one can use for baking in my opinion, since non-stick doesn't seem to work very well. People must be buying non-stick because it seems to be the only kind stores sell these days. I still have proper aluminum-non-non-stick pans at home. In fact I still have two from my own mother, and three from my mother in law. I will never throw them out and hope when I croak my kids won't either.

Okay okay, I'll shut up about aluminum pans now.

Last evening we went to the Irish Times pub for dinner and Smithwicks beer. I haven't had draft Smithwicks since we were here last year. Not enough places sell it in my humble opinion. It's almost as good in Canada as it is in Ireland.

I also made bread today. Not the yeast kind but with buttermilk and soda as leavening agent. Yum.

Victoria - Week 2 St. Andrew's Cathedral

I've been blessed to be able to attend Mass here in Victoria at St. Andrew's Cathedral. What a beautiful church it is. It is a real traditional church with beautiful Catholic art and stained glass windows. What a joy it is to be here.

Friday morning after Mass we stayed for a time for adoration of Jesus. I spent some time thanking God for the gifts he has given me. There are a lot. My health, my family, my being able to be here in Victoria. My siblings. My beautiful grandchildren. My work. The beauty and the peace of being here in this church. Being away from the snow and cold.

It struck me how important it is to be thankful, especially when I feel like complaining. Which has happened, you know, maybe once or twice in my life.

As I sat in the church in the silence, I felt only peace. Thank you God.

Victoria - Week 2

Maureen and Mike arrived safely Tuesday from Ottawa to visit us. We were a bit worried because of all the snow that day. We all left Ottawa to get away from the snow and what do we get in Victoria? Snow.

We've been touring around the city, safely ensconced in our honking compact Jeep SUV rental.

Yesterday we went to the Fernwood Inn for dinner and today we stayed away from the icy sidewalks and visited the Hillside Mall instead.

I've also been doing computer tech support for Maureen and myself. I was able to extricate Maureen's old email address from her Apple ID and Apple iTunes and update it to her new email address. Only took me about three hours. I have learned that I will never buy an Apple anything. Promise. Today as I was writing this blog I was trying to edit my pictures and lo and behold Microsoft has changed Paint. It doesn't work anymore.

More important, I've discovered I become a monster when I'm trying to trouble shoot stupid products like Apple and Microsoft. Trust me. They are both stupid. Though I guess I discovered this already when putting up with my previous Lenevo computer which I threatened more than once to back my smart car over.

Sorry about all the complaining. Maybe I need to stop using technology. De-monster myself.

Victoria snow pictures below.

Victoria - Week 1

Victoria is in a cold snap. And windy. Yesterday we had snow. And high winds. The first pic Fred took from the Fernwood Inn. I had white chocolate stout there last Friday when we first arrived and we went for nachos. Yum. Especially the white chocolate stout. You can see the Belfry Theatre from the Inn.

Below that is Fred in our cozy kitchen. Then the backyard below that. With snow. I thought we had left the snow behind in Ottawa. I was mistaken.

Jan who lives upstairs has a hot house you can see where she has lights on, trying to keep her lemon tree alive. I hope it survives the cold.

They even have salt trucks here. Who knew?