Hey the rain has gone away for the moment

Flute circle wasn't remarkable, one man we didn't know arrived, Bernie, a very nice man from Parksville, a snowbird like us, and Terry came, so that was 4 of us.  We jammed and had a great time, but I must admit, I had hoped for a better turnout than that.  We'll persevere, as we get some great practice that way, and a spur to get the flutes out and play.

Lary often takes his flutes outside and plays, but I prefer to be inside playing.

Our 3 night camping trip was nice, at Rondalyn at the south end of the airport on Timberlands Road, though not warm overnight, the days were without rain, but with some large wet grey clouds kind of stalled overhead during the day, so that kept the back of our necks chilly.  Still we had no rain, and an enjoyable first outing, I think you forget what is in the camping unit from season to season, so good to get back in to that mode once more.  We try to leave some clothing that is appropriate there to use, so we don't have to drag it back and forth each outing.

When we used our trailer all winter down south we always knew what was at hand, but since we don't take it with us now over the winters, we forget what's inside all those nice cupboards.

Next campout will be at Living Forest literally right down the road from where we store the trailer, so that will be handy.  At the end of this campout we took the trailer through the big rig car wash in Ladysmith, it is made for semis so you can walk up a set of metal stairs inside the wash bay and direct the spray on to the roof, and try to get rid of all the lovely green goop that our "wet coast" generates over the winter time.  Maybe we will investigate a cover for next year.

Trailer sure looks better- though we still need to address those black streaks that inevitably form as the rain and water run off the body of the unit, and down to the ground.  They don't come off unless you use a special spray that dissolves them.

I held Mothers Day tea for my sisters and our niece here, we had a nice time to visit together as we all get busy doing our own thing, and forget to let the other sisters know what's up.  The day itself was warm and picture perfect, so a real treat.  Our niece is leaving for a job in Edmonton, so we caught up on her news.

Big excitement is Gill's wedding at the end of July in Victoria, should be lots of fun but also a bit of a logistical challenge as the catered reception is at the family lake, mostly without power, reception including a meal to be held in an open meadow.  Sue was telling us a few details, they have a school bus that will run back and forth from downtown to the lake to ferry guests back and forth when needed.  That should be nice if it works smoothly.  Gill's future mother in law is a bit of a worrier, so that is a concern for the event.

Wedding service itself will be held downtown, and likely most guests from out of town will be staying downtown in hotels there.

Funny how things look so much better here in the sunshine.  Lary and I had coffee today at the clubhouse in our complex here, great to hear the latest, and have a bit of a visit with our neighbours who we really don't know that well at all.  One of our neighbours is having her unit painted in the living room, dining room and kitchen, so I went home with her to see the job in progress, and meet her female painter.  The painter says it will take her 2 days which is very fast.  Looks good already.

Cathy and I had planted geraniums out at the entrance gate of our complex, I thought it was way too cool in the soil for that, but oh well, we did it anyway as the plants had been purchased by another lady.  I discovered on the internet that they don't like either their leaves or flowers wet either, and today I found out that they don't like to have wet roots, hey there, live and learn.  The watering system isn't turned on as yet, so we have to water them by hand with watering cans til the water starts.  I hope they don't get blasted out of the ground at that time, either.

A contractor is widening the pathway to our unit, and we will have green shrubs beside that widened pathway to make a bit of a privacy screen for our front door.  Hope that is an improvement for our unit, we plan to put the barbeque up at this level, instead of having it down below on the "lower main" floor.  Should be quite handy to have it right outside the kitchen where we cook, less travelling involved to use the 'barby'.  And we hope to have a wee private place to sit outside in warmer weather.  As it is now it feels a bit like sitting out on the roadway when you are outside our front door.

We bought a lovely unit, but it's right on the junction of two busy roads, without thinking about a nice place for us to sit outside.  At least we have our camping outings, and we both walk in the daytime outside if the weather is good.   But this should be an improvement for us.

Rain, rain, go away, don't come back another day!!!

As you can tell we still have lots of showers, not that many heavy downpours, and not really very cold, but chilly and grey, so very grey.  Temps daily around 10, 11 celsius or so.  BRRRRRRR.  And we are off camping next week, too.

Just heard from neighbours down south at our park that they have 80 - 90 degree temps, and are glad for the wind when it arrives to cool them down.  There are perhaps only 10 or so folks left there in the park now.

Due to our hasty move of houses/move out/leave town/play music weekend down there we left some stuff behind that we should have brought home like our microcube amps, and we also left batteries in some things, and left some food products on the shelves that might not enjoy the intense heat of summer down there.  Ah me, I might have to catch a package air and hotel deal and fly down to address those things.

Lary is planning to head off to Ontario to visit his mum soon, and tonight is our first flute circle evening, hope a few folks come share the music with us.
Should be enjoyable.  It will be the first Friday of every month til we leave for down south once more.  We hope to establish a routine and get a regular group meeting together.

We found Utopia Bakery, right in the heart of downtown Chemainus, and had a nice soup and sandwich meal there, used up one of our gift certificates from the Beer and Burgers night; we always enjoy Chemainus as it's small and rural, with the most lovely picturesque murals on the walls of many buildings there.  It's maybe 45 minutes south of Nanaimo and part of the drive there is along pretty scenic country roads, with frequent views of the seashore.

I believe there are almost 30 murals now, scattered around town with yellow footprints on the sidewalks leading you around town to view them.  And the gift shops are wonderful too, we bought another nut rattle from a store there which carries quite a few world music things, another thing that caught my eye was the Tibetan bowls, but I resisted for the moment.

There is a big Belgian horse and carriage if you want to ride around town too, it's a sawmill town that is still pretty active, but of course these days the BC mills are a shadow of what they used to be.

And recently a couple of mills in the interior of the province had very serious fires, they think it was combustion from the sawdust generated while milling pine beetle killed wood.  What a shame, there were some deaths, and of course people badly injured as well.

That's about all my news, though I will report on how the flute circle goes later on.