Tag: boats

What is happening?!

The past few weeks have been pretty strange. That could be a reference to our prolonged and very dry spell. Or it could be a description of what has been taking place politically and economically in my birth country… Maybe it’s both. What is happening?!

Political scene

I’ve been very distracted by events back in dear old Blighty. We haven’t lived there in nearly two decades, and whatever reasons we had at the time for moving away don’t seem to have been too far off the mark all these years later. It’s not that we saw what was to come. Anyway, it’s been upsetting to see – we have family and friends enduring the ongoing political clown show, and it isn’t funny. How many Prime Ministers, Chancellors, Home Secretaries in the last few years? Months? Weeks?! What is happening?!

Scout sees things clearly. Scout for PM?

I’m very aware that there are many places suffering far worse, militarily, politically, and economically, than the UK. To my inexpert eyes, it would appear the rise of “populist” political figures (surely there’s no link between years and years of woefully underfunded education/less teaching of critical thinking and the rise of these figures?! No…) equates to the demise and decline on view.

Back on track – I like this viewpoint

A friend texted me earlier, just after Truss resigned. We’d agreed at the time she was “elected” PM that that was the bottom of the Tory barrel. Now she’s been ditched after a destructive and disastrous few weeks, and the Tories are looking once more, but where do you look if you’ve already scraped the bottom of the barrel? Is there a barrel? Is it the same barrel? Or another one underneath, one that contains some previously undiscovered talents? Isn’t the well, or barrel, dry? How low do you go? Hmmm.

Oh, I could go on, but I won’t, you’ll be pleased to hear. I’ll just get upset! Let’s try and get back on track. The almost ranting old man went for a walk with his dog, and he was calmed by that. The weather was pleasant (aside from the worrying lack of rain) and the views were lovely. The dog was content. There you go, almost normal, or what passes for normal around here. I’ll do better next week…

“Chill, man – it’ll pass…”

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

It was Spring…

…until it wasn’t!

We took a quick trip to Victoria last weekend, and for the first time in a long cold spell, it felt like Spring. The wind was gusting, but we found a sheltered spot outside a coffee shop, and it was very pleasant to be sitting in warm sunshine contemplating the late turn in the season.

Spring!

The next morning was grey, with a hint of rain in the air. That hint was misleading, because by the time we were heading back on the Malahat Highway, the rain had turned to snow, and snow was our intermittent companion all the way home.

Spring?!

Monday promised a touch of Spring. Without knowing it, I captured a stunning image of a hummingbird – I think the image below speaks for itself, and certainly shows how attentive I can be to the local wildlife.

Hummingbird – or smudge on lens?

Did Spring stick around, with a slow yet steady increase in temperatures? No. More snow, rain, hail, sleet, and fifteen seconds of sunshine has been the week since Monday morning. Very happy we won’t have to worry about melting Easter eggs this coming weekend…

Spring arrivals

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Here’s to warmer, hoppier days ahead…

March murk…

February was a pretty dry month on the rainfall front, and we were due a change to more normal precipitation. So it proved as February bowed out and March roared in.

Not so dry

Well , not roaring, although it has been windy, and certainly a touch more vigorous. We’re missing the sun but enjoying the post rain mist and fog. It’s atmospheric, which is a nice way of saying sometimes there isn’t too much to see…

Atmospheric?

Maybe the mess and murkiness matches the global mood – what awful events there are taking place in Eastern Europe. Wasn’t the rise of populism, Brexit, the mango Mussolini years that very few honestly enjoyed, the pandemic (oh you tiny, tiny, minority of Canadian truck drivers causing such chaos, what were you thinking? Were you thinking? Really? Of other people?), wildfires, flooding and other associated climate changes more than enough to be contending with without throwing another war into the mix? Goodness, aren’t the fragile egos of powerful individuals truly pathetic, as well as incredibly dangerous?

A bit brighter?

Anyway, onwards we go, and March madness it is, with fingers crossed good people with humane instincts will prevail…

Late Thursday – March murk? Where?!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Static (where are we going?)

Very static for now. As in, not really going anywhere, and seeing very little change. Fuzzy last week, static this week. Could be the brainwaves in my head. Or is that radio waves? Is there a strange buzzing, or is that just my imagination? Or the dishwasher? Huh? Goodness, very little of this is making sense, so perhaps I’m simply slightly frozen… (Warning: Like an annoying series on Netflix, this post may irritate and explain nothing by the end, leaving a sense of frustration and/or anticipation there’ll be another one along later to reveal what wasn’t revealed, then another, and another until the pandemic is over and I remember books are often a better bet than television…)

Slightly frozen

We continue to mope along through the latest (necessary) restrictions, dreaming of better days ahead. There is progress being made on many fronts – work, the pandemic, the pandemic at work, and so on. All is well, even if it feels like we’re not quite getting anywhere.

Where will this lead?!

If our horizons are somewhat limited for now, at least the horizon we see most days is soothing:

Not so bad

All in all, not so bad being static, if you let go and let it wash over you. I’ve been watching too many episodes of “Archive 81” the past week, an enjoyably nonsensical haunted house/spooky video diary/time travel/did we miss a genre/90s nostalgia entertainment offered on Netflix. Clearly, it has had an oversized influence on me and this post. Or has it? Who controls the narrative? And those voices? That buzzing? Oh, it is the dishwasher, at the end of cycle. Best go and empty it – I hear a voice saying it’s my turn…

Spooky clouds and mist (no, PlaidCamper, don’t be silly – it’s clouds and mist, that’s all!) But, but, the voices, the buzzing…(That’s enough! No more Netflix! Empty the dishwasher!)

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

A little fuzzy

Not warm and fuzzy, perhaps more like the day after your birthday, and you find yourself a little closer to early middle age than you might like…so let’s say grey and fuzzy…

Slightly fuzzy beyond

Scout and I were wandering once more, taking advantage of a small window in the rainy weather a few days ago, and we were quite enjoying the soothing effects of mist and light rainy suspension on a brow that might have needed it. Scout will overdo every now and then.

Yum! Robust, like a PlaidCamper the following day

It was all a bit of a blur, most likely the adjustment to new contact lenses, you know how it is, or the atmospheric tricks of light sometimes at play between bouts of heavy weather. That’ll be it.

Atmospheric

I’m back on working from home, or if I’m out with Scout, working from phone. Please hold the line, your call is important, and you’ll be connected to the first available OldPlaidCamper once he’s ordered his thoughts and can string together a coherent sentence that doesn’t run on unnecessarily. Did you just hang up?! Well, really.

Hmm…I could work from here!

It’s been good to be able to wander aimlessly mid-week and at random times (after seeing to all the important WFH stuff, of course) with no mission, in a pleasantly fuzzy blur, and enjoying not seeing the forest for the trees on purpose. No doubt I’ll sharpen up once we are called back, but in the meantime we’ll maintain our socially distanced meanderings and check in with our neighbours, ensure all is well.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re fine! Barking? Us? No, check the other platforms…”

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Can’t see the masts for the aerials for the forest for the trees. A run on caption? Oh dear…

Happy New Year!

Another short post this week, as we’ve been busy in the best possible way.

Sun and rain

We’ve enjoyed some quiet time, with sun, rain and a sprinkling of snow. Best of all, Junior was able to join us for a few days, and it made up for only seeing her a few hours the past couple of years.

Faint rainbow, no unicorn…

We drank coffee, beer, more coffee and more beer, as well as wandering the local trails and drinking in the almost sunny sights.

A magical ice tree

It’s been a challenging couple of years for most of us on many fronts, and I’ll end this brief post by expressing the fervent hope that the coming year will be better and brighter than the past twelve months.

Boats in the snow

Thanks for reading, take care out there, and Happy New Year to you!

Happy New Year!

Seasonal norms?

We’ve had below seasonal temperatures for weeks and weeks, and above seasonal rainfall throughout the same period. Maybe when fall/winter is done and dusted, it’ll all average out and all be recorded as seasonal norms. In the meantime…

Chilly

…it’s chilly! We went to Florencia Bay on Saturday, enjoying a favourite beach late afternoon on a falling tide. There were a few cars in the parking lot, and down on the beach there were a few hardy surfers braving the water. Cold, cold water. No thanks! The air temperature was a few degrees above freezing, just warm enough to sit on a log – with jackets – and enjoy a rare sighting of the sun.

Not so chilly

Scout was delighted to be able to dig and dig, purposeful in the moment, fully attentive to the task, and then happy enough to abandon the excavations if there was an off chance of a crumb or two from one of us enjoying our coffee and cookies. Off chance of a crumb? No chance, but we always bring a milk bone or two. Scout also likes them.

Saturday was our sunny day, and Sunday was meant to be a snowy day, or snowy overnight into Monday morning at any rate. There were some disappointed students when the promised snow didn’t materialize. More rain though! We braved the elements and enjoyed the dry hour or two early afternoon along the coastal trails before the next band of cold rain appeared.

I’m predicting more rain!

We consoled ourselves about no show snow with a bottle of Spinnakers Flanders Style Red Ale – it was a little too close to a sour to be a sure fire winner, but we did finish it to be certain our conclusions were sound.

Spinnakers slightly sour seasonal offering – now it’s open, we might as well finish it…

We might not be enjoying seasonal norms, but we’re enjoying where we are, and making the most of the season, whatever it looks like! Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Cool beauty?

Dawn patrol

I do love this time of year, if only because dawn is so much later in the day. I can pretend a false virtuousness at being up and out, working hard before sun up. Dawn patrol? Yeah, right. Anyway, when you’re heading out in the dark, you don’t quite know what is out there. We’ve had another week of mostly rain, to the point that on Thursday we had a minor dawn patrol adventure on the Hitacu-Ucluelet road…

Way past dawn, and a lovely sunny morning

There is a section signposted “road subject to flooding” and each time it rains I always look at the ditch, oftentimes close to overflowing, and think, yup, but not today. Yesterday? Yup, it was that day. There were a few stretches of standing water, deep, but you could still see the centreline under the water and tell yourself an old Jeep can handle it. So it proved, and I ignored the inner teenage voice saying “cool” as the water sprayed over the car. I bet it looked like a Jeep TV commercial. Is what a teenager would say. I’m far too mature to be thinking that, and anyway, why would they film it in the dark?

Early(ish)

There was a nerve jangling stretch where the water was not standing but flowing across the road. Not a torrent, but not a puddle either. It’s a Jeep, we can do it, is what I heard. Ever ready to take advice from my inner teenaged self, we crossed that section, and no floating away. Cool.

Late(ish)

That was before full dawn, when it was quite dark and I couldn’t really see how bad the water was. A few hours later, under orders to return home before the road closed, and after a great deal more rain, it wasn’t quite as cool. The teenager decided to keep quiet, and we enjoyed a somewhat nerve shredding drive, arriving with dry feet – phew – and a notion to pay closer attention to overnight rainfall amounts before setting out on pre-dawn patrol.

The photographs this week were taken last week, some on a rare sunny morning not too long after sun up, and some later the same day. Ah, sunshine, we remember you. Sunshine, you say? Hoping to see a little of that today before the next wave of wet weather arrives tomorrow. At least it’s the weekend, we’re not working, and perhaps taking a later and different dawn patrol:

You can’t see the full label, but this is the latest batch of Dawn Patrol coffee porter – yum, but probably best enjoyed nearer to sundown than sun up? “It’s dawn somewhere, OldPlaidCamper!” Good point.

Thank for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Short, sharp, shocked

After almost a week of high winds and heavy rain, for contrast I thought I’d post bright photos of a recent weekend of sunshine, try to get away from the current floods and gloom.

I have to say we’re thinking of our PNW friends and neighbours struggling with washed out roads, broken supply chains, no utilities and flooded homes. A summer of drought followed by an autumn of floods, what a recipe for disaster.

Sharp

Our own little corner of the PNW hasn’t been hit as hard as other places, and as somewhere relatively remote, where the weather can knock out the power or wash out roads from time to time, the supply chain issues and travel difficulties are more or less part and parcel of normal fall/winter life. The scale of what’s unfolding on the mainland though? Goodness, it’s a loud warning that climate change is happening now – might be humans are leaving it very late to listen?

Still

The photos this week were taken at the end of October. We had a weekend of chilly starts and bright sunshine. Scout had forgotten what relative cold felt like – we all had – and it was funny to watch her tail wagging overtime as she high stepped along frosty paths and frozen docks. The sky was blue, the air was sharp, and the water was still – quite a contrast with what has followed since. When we went to Wick Beach, it was great to be able to sit in a sheltered spot, shirtsleeve comfortable and imagine it was almost summer!

Almost summer!

We wish all the best and a safe and speedy recovery to everyone impacted by the recent weather. All this, and it isn’t even December yet? Might be time to hold on to your hats and find those wellington boots…

So very calm

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

PS I borrowed the post title from a favourite album – anyone else a fan?