Playing hookey

Today, my friend Cécile and I goofed away the entire day.  We started early  .. as it turns out, we both began by checking emails, working our way through responses and a steaming hot cup of morning tea.  We'd planned to meet up at 9:30 or thereabouts, knowing that Cécile has a penchant for having her own notion of time that doesn't always coincide with .. you know .. world clocks.

We drove off to have the quintessential girl day ... time at the spa and lunch after.  Tigh-Na-Mara Resort is the perfect marriage of log cabin and seaside chalet with high-end services.  If you get a chance, I highly recommend a visit there.  It was here, while sitting out on our balcony one late September night, sipping wine  and watching a cruise ship slowly moving up the strait, that Bruce and I made the decision to move to Vancouver Island. We'd found a chunk of paradise we wanted to hold onto.  So I guess I'm rather partial to the place.

At about 1:00, we emerged from the spa with fresh rosy faces, completely relaxed and .. hungry.  We headed around the corner to a small sushi place that Cécile knew, only to find that they were closed Wednesdays.  I guess business must be good when you can run a restaurant that is only open from 11am to 7:00 pm every day but Wednesday, when it doesn't open at all.

Since we were around the corner from the beach front park, we headed there, with the ice cream concession in mind .. only to discover that the sand carving competition had been recently completed and they were taking donations to view the completed works.    I really like this part of the Parksville Beach  Festival .. competitors come from all over the world to to carve up the local sand.

This one took first prize for a work done by a solo artist

A cup of tea .. loved that splash

Bruce .. another practical gift of a heart of stone.
Or sand .. whatever.

Not really too sure about this one, but man, that font work is great.

This one made me laugh .. and think how much my brother Jamie would love it.

The sculptor of this entry hailed form Europe

Not sure what this represented, by I thought it well crafted

This took 2nd place for the group work (you can see first place in the background).
The next two pictures show different views of the same piece

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After the sandcastles, we took in a Vietnamese lunch in Nanaimo at Huong Lan Restaurant.  The service was amazing and even at 2:30 in the afternoon in a somewhat sleepy strip mall, business was hopping.  Food was pretty good too.  Cécile had her first bubble tea and decided that perhaps tapioca bubbles were not really the thing she most wanted to find in her drink.  I whole-heartedly agree.

All in all, it was a pretty amazing vacation day.