Wednesday, 6 June 2018

First jottings from North America

We have now left Vancouver after a fantastic week with Blair and Meghan in their downtown apartment. It has been wonderful to see where they live and work amongst the hustle and bustle of that beautiful city.

It was lovely to have a meal out with some of their friends to celebrate my 60th birthday. That was a surprise as I thought I had planned it to be very low key!! We used their bikes to explore the surrounds as there are safe dedicated cycle lanes and it gave us a chance to slowly get used to the ‘right’ side of the road.



Meghan works Saturdays so Blair drove us up Mt Seymour ski-field and then we walked up Dog Mountain. It was a 6km return easy walk made a little more difficult by snow! They had a late snowfall a few weeks ago and it has not all melted so not quite what we are used to.

Now we have ventured forth in Blairs car for a trip around Vancouver Island. Our first stop was very special. We spent 2 nights with a new ‘cousin’ of Rob’s who he has found through his DNA matches. Lesley and Ron live just out of Victoria in a lovely 2 hectare property. Lesley is a passionate gardener but also a very talented fabric artist with an incredible purpose-built studio. Ron is retired but very active in local sailing competitions anywhere around the Island. We enjoyed a walking tour in Victoria with the history of the BC capital city and Chinatown. Our next visit today was a lovely lunch with the parents of Kirsten a Canadian friend of Hayden’s who has done the opposite to Blair and has residency in NZ.

The weather is very pleasant here and getting better every day. The days are long starting at 4.30am to 9.15pm. We are heading up the West Coast but have to criss-cross a few times. We will keep you posted as we explore.