Victoria - Week 6 where to get the best Carbs

I love carbs. I cannot tell a lie. And Victoria has yielded some of her best carbs to me. Some I have baked myself. Some I have purchased. And the bought ones may be better than the homemade.

This is the cinnamon bun from Discovery Coffee. When I chose it I asked the clerk if their cinnamon buns were good. He said yes. I looked at it skeptically, and wasn't sure. I went out on a limb and bought one, which Fred and I shared. Oh. My. Goodness. The best cinnamon bun I have ever eaten. Dense, chewy, gooey, buttery, cinnamony, and probably more calories than I would ever want to know about. Their coffee is also very good. In fact Victoria has a crap load of independent coffee shops. Way more than Ottawa. Why is that anyway?

We went back to Discovery this week, but the cinnamon buns hadn't been delivered yet. Note to self. Go an hour later next time.

Next we have Portofino's seeded hearth bread. Oh. My. Goodness - part 2. This bread looks ordinary. But it is not. It's chewy. Seedy. Spongy. Delicious. Makes great peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Or toast and peanut butter. Or just eat this bread naked. It all works.

And last but definitely not least, we have the monster scones sold at the Market on Yates. Once again, they feed two people (the picture does not do it justice). Every day they have a different one, blueberry and white chocolate, cranberry and white chocolate, etc. Also savoury ones. Really really good scones. Moist and blueberryiey. Even the white chocolate works and I'm not a big fan of it. Because clearly dark chocolate is better. But in these babies, the white chocolate works. The Market also has an all round fantastic bakery section and an amazing butcher shop.

All the grocery stores in Victoria sell Portofino breads, and there are many different kinds, including gluten free. But I think the seeded hearth bread is the best.

Who says woman can't live by bread alone?

Victoria - Week 6 High tea

Today we went for high tea at the White Heather Tea Room in Victoria.

It was excellent. Much better than the one Johanna and I had in London England at Harrod's. Well worth the visit. The service was also excellent.

I wish we had taken Maureen and Mike to high tea when they were here, but it just never happened. I am sad about that.

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?

I will not say one word on this

The Roman Catholic Church is in a mess. I am a Roman Catholic. I love my church. But I am really sad, angry and disgusted because there has been no resolution to the mess we are in.

Of course I am talking about the sex scandal in the Church, about Theodore McCarrick, and about the very credible letters written by Carlo Maria Viganò regarding the scandal.

The good news, if there can be any good news in this unprecedented failure of our church, is that there are some very good vocal lay people out there who are speaking about this diabolical, demonic train wreck. Namely Dr. Taylor Marshall and Timothy Gordon, Patrick Coffin, and the Church Militant, Michael Voris. From this vocal laity, I have learned a lot about the Vatican and clergy that I would never have known otherwise. Education is always a good thing, and believe me, I am being educated.

But nearly no clergy is speaking out. There was one courageous member of the clergy who spoke out, Fr. Mark Goring. But he has recently been shut down. All of his videos on the scandal have been removed. This made me very sad indeed. God bless you Fr. Goring for your bravery.

Bishop Robert Barron also spoke out. But since August 2018 Bishop Barron has been silent.

And what did Pope Francis say?

"I will not say one word on this". 

With all due respect to Pope Francis, this was a horrible response to a very very serious situation.

The most thanks go to Archbishop Viganò. This man is an absolute treasure and probably a saint. God protect him.

At the moment it is the laity who are keeping the story alive. I can only imagine that the Vatican isn't too happy with this fact. There is of course a solution to this. The Vatican can tell us the truth of what has been going on. They can appoint a lay team to investigate and report back to the faithful.

To all those clergy who are covering up the truth, you can't hide from God. The truth will come out eventually. It always does. In the meantime, if Pope Francis will not say a single word, the laity will go to the laity to learn. The clergy can speak up at any time. And stop Jesus from being scourged. Over and over again.

As Dr. Taylor Marshall and others have said: Pray the rosary, pray for the Pope, pray for the bishops, pray for the cardinals, live your vocation, be a holy priest or holy religious, be a holy dad or mom, be a holy kid.