Where masts and streets collide

Blue Girl was the name emblazoned upon the back of the boat belonging to our much beloved and many times elected city mayor, Frank Ney.  You can read more about Frank by clicking my signposts link in the left column .. I've written about him before.  What in particular about this boat that caught his fancy forever, I cannot seem to dig out of Google.  I've tried.  I got lost surfing.  I don't know if that happens to you too ... you go looking for some particular tidbit of information on the interwebz and find yourself miles from where you wanted to be learning about native life of Australia.  Happens to me allll the time.

Annnnnnd getting back on track ... Blue Girl Way overlooks the Newscastle Island Channel and the Nanaimo Yacht Club.  It's a pretty spot ... a small street of stone pavers that houses one condo complex with "west coast" windows.  Meaning they are large and impossible to clean without a climbing harness and safety rig.  Window cleaning may actually be a bigger business here than car washes in Calgary.  Particularly since Nanaimoites also like huge balconies .. a predilection I can fully appreciate ... most often hung out over a chunk of property that falls away to the water or blackberry bushes far below.

Blackberries are a wonderful fruit in my opinion, but I have come to discover that unlike, their red Alberta counterparts, blackberries put their roots down into the very soul of the island.  Getting rid of raspberries does require a bit of tenacity, but it's doable. Blackberry removal may well a career choice - if the patch in the back between us and the neighbors' fence is a reliable indication.  Unlike more placid Alberta cousins who can be dealt with by wearing a sturdy long-sleeved denim shirt and leather gloves, the blackberry patches here require teflon and a flame-thrower.

While looking for Blue Girl Way, I happened upon this random patch of berry bushes (see, there was a connection between berries and Blue Girl Way) and thought I'd show you the wicked little stickers that make life as a city groundsperson one that requires danger pay.

A Valentine for my husband

In all the planets in the cosmos, there is no language like that of love.  Yet sometimes, Bruce ... there are not enough words on this planet to tell you about the depth and breadth of what you mean to me. 

And yes, I like your singing.  Now and always ... even those silly ditties that drive us both crazy after a day.

A trio of birds

Tucked into a spot near the hospital is an odd shaped couple of streets set around an oval.  While Bob-O-Link and Chick-A-Dee actually meet up, only Thunderbird gets to meet up with Bob-O-Link.  It's a pretty litte place on a sunny day.

I guess these names aren't unusual if you're a bird watcher, but they did strike my funny bone when I was looking through the street names, especially with all those hyphens.

 

Bob-O-Link

Black-capped Chickadee

Thunderbird

Clicking on the pictures above will take you to links where you can learn more about these particular birds of British Columbia.

A colourful greeting

When you arrive at Nanaimo's not-quite-yet-but-maybe-one-day International Airport, you will soon be greeted with a huge mural of life in and around The Harbour City.

My friend Cecile (her website is included with friends and family links below) has been commissioned to do the mural and is shown here happily up to her ears in spattered paint.  You can check out the progress of this fantastic mural here.

Cecile's Dutch heritage is showing .. note the Amsterdam logo on her paints.

A Pooh Kind of Day

Blustery.  Breezy.  Windy.  Gusty.  All words that don't quite allow for how much the wind whipped and tangled my hair as I walked around Nanaimo streets today, camera in hand, trying to get some shots that didn't have random strands of somewhat reddish curls adorning them. 

Leaning out over the railing to get a picture of the Yacht Club, I was struck by the wind driving the water near the walkway.  Maybe more telling is the fact that there isn't a single sail to be seen on the water.  I think there was a "small craft warning" on the waters today, Environment Canada's BC equivalent of Alberta's "heavy snowfall" warnings.  Weather advisories out here tend to do with heavy rain or wind, so "gale force winds" would equate to 'blizzard conditions." 

And you thought this website wasn't an educational tool.

As I was parking my car, I noted something that will most certainly make me seem the landlubber I pretend not to be when I'm around my cool lived-beside-the-ocean-all-my-life friends.  These are garages for boats, something which assuredly has a more nautical term I don't know.  But ... look at that.  Damn!  Now that's a business to get into.   Ten years ago, Bruce was paying a couple of hundred bucks a month to park a monstrosity of a classic car in spot that took at least an hour and half to drive to.  Can you imagine the revenue here in a completely convenient location?  Oh.  Em. Gee.

In Calgary today, it was -16° and snowing.  Here, it was 14°, sunny and windy as a spring day in Lethbridge.  Any of you want to swap your snowshovel for a very dishevelled hairdo?

It was just this way ...

When Sandy and Melvin met. Or at least, I imagine it this way.

Les Dangereux from Daniel Klug on Vimeo.

To shoo or not to shoo ...

No, he most certainly doesn't belong on the bathroom towels .. the clean, cat-hair-free towels in the visitor washroom.  But  .. you gotta admit, the oversized cat sqeezing his way onto this shelf for a nap is adorable.

Bruce laughed when he saw the picture and told me Mr. Tippy's been doing that since he was a kitten.  ...  *sigh*