Isn’t it strange how after months away, when coming back to a familiar place we fall right back into familiar routines?
For us, that means ordering groceries (and wine), going back to prepping and cooking our own meals, taking daily walks, and way too many sedentary activities like reading, writing, and editing photos.
At least the latter produces tangible results.
We were no sooner home than we repacked a small suitcase and headed to spend a few days with son#2 and our grandsons while our daughter-in-law was away at a yoga retreat in Italy – where she was also a guest teacher! We’re all super proud of her accomplishments as she has worked so hard to attain her certifications in yoga, sound therapy, cupping therapy, and more.
Theirs is a busy household. Things hum along apace. As if in synchronicity, their balcony hums too!
We returned to find Vancouver in the throes of FIFA fever.
On a ski run on Grouse Mountain, the largest Canadian flag ever produced was unveiled in time to welcome World Cup visitors. It measures 160 x 80 metres (roughly two football fields) and weighs 1360kg/3000 lbs. It is easily visible when flying into Vancouver’s airport, and from many vantage points in the city. Ted took this photo from just outside Bloedel Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park.
From another angle we also got a glimpse of the Vancouver Science Centre (bottom of the photo) whose geodesic dome has been transformed into a giant Adidas soccer ball!
We tried to get a picture of the entire “ball” when we rode past on the Skytrain, but it was pouring rain, so the photo below is a file photo from CBCNews.
Queen Elizabeth Park created their own soccer ball.
We missed cherry blossom season (again), but arrived to find the dogwoods (BC’s provincial flower) in glorious profusion.
The foxtail lilies are also in full season, each flower spike attracting dozens of bees.
Last fall, before we headed off to Eastern Europe, Italy, and Egypt, and well before our January 5th Round-the-World departure, Ted and I agreed that when we’re “home” in BC we need to do more to support theatre and music in Vancouver.
To that end, I’ve ordered a series of tickets from (and made a charitable donation to) Vancouver’s Arts Club Theatre Company, and am getting ready to do the same with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. When we lived in Ontario, prior to retiring and becoming semi-nomadic, we were longtime supporters of the Sheridan College Musical Theatre program and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra; since we’ve committed to making Vancouver our Canadian home base, it makes sense to do something similar here.
We’re going to make more of an effort to get out to small independent live music events too… and venture out to the night markets, as we’ve been promising ourselves we would do.
We may not be going “to market, to market, to buy a fat pig”, as in the old rhyme, but we are “home again, home again”, doing a strictly metaphorical happy “jiggedy jig”.
Rose and Ted’s Excellent Adventure 