Just a walk in the parks

As I've mentioned before, Greater Victoria is made up of a number of areas and cities of varying sizes. Sometimes it's difficult to figure out where one ends and the next begins. At times, I get help with this from my phone's camera, but today it wasn't so obvious. From what I can gather, today we walked in Esquimalt, Colwood, and Saanich. I'll just leave it at that.

Yesterday, Greg mentioned that Fanci had four walks that day. Today he was aiming to top that, but I think we stopped at four. It continues to be lovely weather for walking - lots of sunshine and temperatures that allow for t-shirts, which is great.

Gotta love these pets!

On my laptop, the desktop is set to cycle through my thousands of photos at one-minute intervals. It's just a quick glimpse, and often brings back so many memories of our travels. It makes me feel so fortunate.

This morning I was awake too early, in my eyes, as it wasn't yet daylight. This is the photo I first saw, which just made me smile. I love this photo!

Reflect and recycle

Photos of flowers in this post were taken over the past week, but don't directly relate to this story. My mother enjoyed flowers though, so I'll link it that way.

Unofficial survey - Coke or Pepsi?

Before I tell my story, I'll just start with some colourful flowers seen on today's walk.

Curb-side "tote collection" (garbage & recycling) is every two weeks here. To complicate things, each month your collection date moves to the next day of the week. For example, in August it was Thursday, and September it became Friday. For those of us who often wonder what day it even is, it really complicates things to change the collection day. I guess we'd get used to it though.

Our most recent collection day was September 16th. The following day we had a slip of paper in the mailbox, asking that we save cans and bottles for a charitable collection that would be done today, the 24th. I commented then that if only they'd given more notice, it would likely have increased the volume they'd collect. It seems I may have been wrong.

Today I went for a walk in the neighbourhood. Here's our collection, and - keeping in mind the title of this post - there's no hint of whether there's Coca Cola or Pepsi inside. We're choosing to remain anonymous, at least at this point.

Looking closely through the bag, locals may recognize one type of can showing through. By the way, they're in a COBS bag - our favourite bakery; we have lots of those bags!

At the next sighting, it was easy to tell their preference; looks like they have a love of Coca Cola. I just hope that's not one week's worth!

This home also had lots to donate, but who knows what was in there.

Ah, another Coca Cola lover, for sure.

On a neighbouring street, I saw this stack of boxes. It made me wonder whether this collection is an annual event. Otherwise, how could someone have so much to donate in such a short time? I had to take a closer look.

Let's just say many of the bottles looked like liquor bottles. As I was taking this photo, I heard someone coming out of the house, so I moved away quickly. Can you imagine ... "Why are you taking photos of my empties?"

Nearing our home, I noticed a bag outside our neighbour's house, with the instructions attached. After looking inside, I just shook my head. The instructions seemed clear to me. Maybe they thought someone had switched collection day ... yet again!

As I neared our home, I could see that Greg had added two cans to our stash. Our secret was out; at least some of the cans were Kokanee, a BC beer. OK, there's also evidence inside of Greg being a Pepsi drinker, but he may be in the minority around here!

For those who read my previous post, about the injured deer, I'm sorry to say things don't look promising. It managed to move to a sheltered area across the street, but has been resting quietly there all day, laying on its injured side.  I saw four large deer near it early this morning, but they then moved on. If it doesn't have the ability to move on, things don't look too hopeful. It's so sad.

Another quiet day in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia, just a few miles away from the hustle and bustle of today's historic Royal visit. In some respects, I wish I'd made the effort to be a part of the welcoming crowd. Maybe I'll plan to be there to waive them goodbye next week instead.

Oh dear, deer - Part 2

A while ago I wrote about the deer seen regularly in this neighbourhood. In the local newspaper, opinion letters regularly address options for control of the local deer population. Today we witnessed an incident just a few houses away from us.

Just how rainy is it in beautiful BC anyway?

As this is our first visit to British Columbia, we've been comparing it with Ontario, wondering if perhaps - even with its high real estate prices - it's somewhere we'd consider for our "golden" years.

Having asked many residents what they like about Victoria, the most common answers are the number of days of sunshine and the overall temperate climate. A few cautioned about the amount of rain in winter, but we're snowbirds, so we don't give that as much attention, for now at least.

I thought I'd see if there's data to support these opinions (ignore the highlighting below).

Scents of romance

This is the fourth time we've house sat for our current homeowners. Having taken on some gardening work, with their permission, we've needed to take garden waste to the local recycling centre a few times. It's become a joke between us and the homeowners that Greg's idea of a romantic date is to take me there. Today he offered to romance me, but it didn't involve a trip "to the dump", as I call it.

Seen at the park today

Sights at the Inner Harbour, Victoria, BC

Victoria is the capital of British Columbia, and the parliament buildings are in the inner harbour area, where we were yesterday. This is a photo from Google images, not one I took.

Chalk it up to being a tourist

The local newspaper is useful for knowing what's happening in Victoria. Today I particularly wanted to go to the Chalk Art Festival, which was being held outdoors at the Inner Harbour. This is the most touristy area of the city, so today - for the first time since we arrived - I guess we were tourists!

The theme of this year's festival was "Adventures in the Forest World; a Celebration of Nature's Spirits".

Navigating our way across Victoria

We're currently house sitting in the city of Victoria, British Columbia. Given its temperate climate, the city prides itself in being attractive to those who enjoy outdoor activities, including walking and cycling. There certainly are lots of pedestrians and cyclists here. In an effort to accommodate these activities, the city has reduced speeds in many areas from the usual 50 km (31 miles) an hour to 40 km (25 miles) an hour, and in many cases 30 km (19 miles) an hour.

Here's the sign that's at the bottom of our street.

A blooming lovely walk

First some updates on earlier posts.

I wrote about the bankruptcy of the Hanjin Shipping company, and that one of its cargo ships was 'parked' outside our home. Well, now there are two! The one has been there about a week. I wonder about the staff on board ... Do they have enough food? Will they get paid? What about their family in South Korea; are they worried? The repercussions are endless. 

Do you have a Little Free Library?

While driving around Victoria I noticed a Little Free Library on a quiet side street. It's not the first I've ever seen, but I wanted to take a closer look. The following day I tried to retrace our steps, to get a photo, but I couldn't find it. As is my norm, I then went to Google for help.

An example only, but not one from the website

Tall oaks from little acorns grow

"An optimist is a man who plants two acorns and buys a hammock."

Author: Jean De Lattre De Tassigny

We're currently living in the picturesque district of Oak Bay, one of the communities in the Greater Victoria Region. The Greater Victoria Region has a population of about 350,000, whereas Oak Bay has about 20,000 residents. It has a lovely small-town feel to it.

After our trip to the market yesterday, we went to the main shopping street of Oak Bay. No big box stores here, in fact I haven't seen a Walmart or Canadian Tire since we arrived in Victoria. 

The main shopping district is nicely landscaped and maintained

Why stores may be low on stock this holiday season

House sitting in a city that's new to us often has us adopting new habits. On this house sit, I routinely read the Victoria newspaper, The Times Colonist, and I mean real paper. Most of my reading these days is online, so this is a pleasant change for me. Another pastime of mine here is to look out at the waters of the Juan de Fuca strait, which we can clearly see from our home. Let me explain how the two are particularly relevant today.

At the market today,
having a Pacific salmon burger for lunch

Today's dog and pony show

I've mentioned before that one thing we enjoy with the house sitting is that it can often be more like our usual home life, rather than being on vacation. Such has been the case over the past few days. If you're hoping to learn about some big adventure we've been on, you'll be disappointed. The past few days we've lived a fairly low-key lifestyle.