Tag Archives: victoria

40 Days

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Wednesdays are a crazy day in my world, especially yesterday Wednesday.

The cycle downtown from work to choir practice freaked me out yesterday. Four drivers who weren’t looking for bicycles nearly hit me. It is only a 7.5km ride, and it isn’t like I’m an obnoxious rider, yet these drivers managed to nearly hit me. Yes, I go quickly, but I obey traffic rules and try to be visible when I ride: I have multiple front and rear lights, wear a turquoise reflective jacket, have white bicycle and orange backpack. It isn’t like I blend into the road. Sadly though, this wasn’t the first time cars haven’t been paying attention to me and I’ve had near-misses before (weekly?). For a city that prides itself on having one of the highest amounts of bicycle commuters per capita in the country, there are a lot of drivers who are not paying attention to us. I guess that is what made the statement of Ash Wednesday even more poignant: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return“. We’re all just one event away from that dust.

We got some new choir music in rehearsal last evening. It was new liturgical music for the season of Lent that I’m excited to sing… altos have some wonderful parts and they are all nice and low and minor sounding. One of them, from the Iona Community, asks a simple question: O brother Jesus, where have we left you, Saviour and Lover of all? Where indeed? That line reached out and grabbed me as we sang it.

Lent is probably my favourite season of the church calendar. I like the expectation and anticipation of Advent but often find myself frustrated by the gross commercialism and crazy busy-ness of Christmas that envelops and overwhelms it. Lent on the other hand, often gets overlooked. Aside from pancakes on Shrove Tuesday and the constant question, “What are you giving up for Lent?”, the beginning of this season often goes unnoticed.

Which brings me back to our Lenten liturgical music: O brother Jesus, where have we left you? Am I giving something up for Lent? I am not sure yet. I’ll allow myself until the weekend to decide. On the other hand, I would much rather that I find Jesus during Lent. Find Jesus. Find God’s heart for the lost and poor and marginalized.

In closing, another song for this Sunday (also Iona Community):

Sent by the Lord am I; my hands are ready now to make the earth the place in which the kingdom comes. The angels cannot change a world of hurt and pain into a world of love, of justice and of peace. The task is mine to do, to set it really free. Oh, help me to obey; help me to do your will.

Snow Day

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We kind of had a lot of snow yesterday (enough that Victoria and snow were Jian’s opening essay on Q this morning). I ended up walking to work where about six of our staff of over 20 made it in for staff meeting. Of fully booked schedules for the doctors, about six patients showed up. I went home early.

I don’t remember having seen that much snow all from the sky here for that long of a period of time (virtually all day from 5:30 onward) in a long while. With the snow, it has gotten cold, cold by Victoria in February standards. It is well below zero outside at the moment and the snow shows no sign of leaving any time soon.

Consequently, I stayed home today. So far, I have gone up and down between floors, made bread, caught up with the computer work I’ve been avoiding for a few days, did some knitting, and contemplated doing some research for my clients. I am still in my pjs. Did I mention it is half past noon? Snow days are a glorious thing and since we get so few of them on the South Island, I am milking it for all it is worth.

That isn’t to say that I am doing nothing! Last night I cycled across town to meet a friend for dinner. She is visiting from out of town on a work trip and it was easiest if I made my way to her. The roads looked alright (and the main roads were fine) so I headed out on my bicycle. It would have taken me easily three times as long on the bus.

This afternoon, I again have to cycle across town towards the highway to help out at an after school club at an elementary school. Then I’ll head downtown, again on the bike, to meet friends for our weekly coffee gathering. Then it is the opera this evening. So I’ll be out in the cold soon enough. Until then, I’m enjoying the warmth of tea and a fireplace from the comfort of my couch.

Still Light

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I took this on my phone tonight, as I got home from practicum site #1 in time to shove some food in my mouth before heading out to practicum site #2 for some evening appointments. The interesting thing about having a schedule that does not vary each week is that I can see the changing of times of light and dark much easier.

For example, I got up at 5:30 this morning to head to yoga. On my ride home at 7:30, the sun was peeking over Mt Tolomie and starting to turn the tops of the trees beside the road a beautiful fiery gold. Last month, it was still pitch black at that time of day. And then again in the evening: Monday nights I am usually heading home around 5:30 and Tuesday nights I head out to site #2 at around the same time. On each of those trips in the last two days I have stopped to contemplate whether or not I needed to turn my bicycle lights on or if it was still light enough to safely ride. Last month, it was pitch black by 4 or 4:30.

Slowly but surely the days are getting longer.

When I took this picture and posted it on instagram tonight, I put the caption “Still Light” on it because, well, it was still light outside at 5:30. Reflecting later however, I realized how it captures a moment of stillness, of quiet, and that it is an image of wonderfully still light. Light is anything but still though. But the stillness of the tree be-ing in light is something I am now thinking about.

SALTS

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I have been associated with SALTS, the Sail and Life Training Society, for over ten years now. My first trip was a three-day coastal voyage in high school. I’ve been on board nearly every year since then. For two years, I worked for SALTS in the position of cook. Coastally, I’ve sailed all around the Gulf Islands and Sunshine Coast/Desolation Sound as well as circumnavigating Vancouver Island at least once. Offshore, we circumnavigated the Pacific Ocean: Hawaii, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Micronesia, China, Japan… I lived and breathed SALTS for those two years – at times literally never leaving the boat for weeks on end (the longest passage we had was 30+ days without sighting land). I had to miss sailing with them this summer because of school, but I am looking forward to getting back on the water next season. It is hard work, but it is some of the most rewarding work one can ever do. Enjoy the short video. If you watch closely, you might pick me out once or twice in the offshore footage at the end.

#yyjsnowapocalypse

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For those of you not in the Twittersphere, the title of this entry is a Twitter hashtag. What is a hashtag, you may ask? It is a way to create groupings on Twitter. For example, people “tweeting” in Victoria often use #yyj to signify that the content of that tweet relates to the city of Victoria. YYJ is our airport code.

Monday, the Victoria hashtag of choice, however, was “yyjsnowapocalypse”. Plain and simple, this means that when it snows, we freak out while the rest of the country enjoys a good laugh at our expense. What constitutes a snowstorm in Victoria has the rest of the country merely increasing the speed of their windshield wipers. Jack Knox, of the Times-Colonist, wrote a wonderfully tongue-in-cheek piece about this in his article last week.

Consequently, I’ve devised a step-by-step guide to Victoria’s snow weather:

  1. Environment Canada issues “Heavy Snowfall Warning” for the region.
  2. Mass hysteria and panic ensues: salt and snowshovels sell out, stores close early, people leave work early, a run on tire shops occurs as people rush to get tires installed.
  3. The first few snowflakes fall.
  4. Hysteria continues and the weather is now all that we can talk about.
  5. It continues to snow. Perhaps a collected accumulation of 4-6 cm.
  6. Public transit is running 1 hour behind on the routes which are still open. Many routes are suspended or have altered routes.
  7. CRD Police forces close down certain roads, specifically anything with a slight incline or decline.
  8. Anyone who did not  already leave work early, does. Shops close, meetings are cancelled. Taxis make do a roaring business driving everyone who was too afraid to drive their own car home.
  9. Three days later, the city is still reeling and Gillian is still riding her bicycle.

Oh Hai…

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…its Monday.

The question that I usually ask myself about now is “Where did the weekend go?”

It was stunningly gorgeous this weekend. I took a ferry to Vancouver Friday afternoon and basked in sunshine on the outer deck the entire way. My reading and enjoyment of the outdoors was momentarily interrupted by a whale sighting (“Attention passengers, we will be passing some killer whales on the starboard side” “Starboard side? Starboard side?!?! Where is the starboard side??” “Relax. You’re on the starboard side.” = Infestation of every single passenger on board, blocking my sunshine and view.). But, I did get a tan (I have sandal lines to prove it!) and I did enjoy my book.

Yesterday, enjoying the continuing sunshine (for part of the day), the fact that I had finished my paper for the week the previous day, and Victoria Harbour Ferries free rides all morning, I harbour ferry hopped and then wandered markets and shops. After obtaining a hot, soy mocha from one of my favourite coffee standards in the Cook Street Village, I sat on a bench over-looking the ocean and Olympic mountains, reading some more.

Today: it rained and was overcast and muggy. And it fit my mood: I had to work. Goodbye weekend.