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.

With the homeowner's approval, we've worked on one garden area of their new home. It's been good exercise for us in the mornings. It's such a pleasure to work outside in these temperatures, compared to the heat of this summer in Niagara Falls. Today, taking great care with the new vehicle, we took garden waste to the recycle centre.

This afternoon we took Fanci to a nearby off-leash park. Victoria has 12 off-leash parks, whereas Niagara Falls, which has a similar population, has only one. Quite a difference.

I must first side-track to explain this photo. When I took this photo, Greg and I were in shorts and t-shirts and it was 18ºC (64ºF). I noticed this couple, although they didn't notice me as they were both busy on their phones. It's a little difficult to see - as I had to take this from a distance, not to be noticed - but she is wearing a fur hat that comes down over her ears and has a built-in fur scarf. Like us, she's also wearing sandals though. I admit we saw very few people in shorts, and many were quite bundled up.

Back to the off-leash park story. This is the first one we've seen where the area is not fenced in. This park stretches for maybe half a mile (0.8 km) on a waterfront paved trail, with fairly naturalized areas surrounding it. There were lots of people walking the trail - some with dogs and others without - even though there's a huge park alongside the dog area. I think the draw is being able to walk alongside the water as it's beautiful. I would certainly make good use of this if I lived here, even without having a pet.

As you can see, there were dogs of all sizes there. Greg had everyone laughing when he asked the lady with her back to the camera "Is that your dog ... or maybe it's a pony?" Funny guy!

We went out for our Friday night "date night", as my husband calls it. Our homeowner was good enough to suggest places to eat, so I checked my list. A nearby one, Bubby's Kitchen, was #41 of 893 restaurants on Tripadvisor, so we went there. Tripadvisor rarely leads me astray, and neither did the homeowner. We both thoroughly enjoyed our meals.

We came home to a lovely sunset tonight. This photo unfortunately doesn't accurately show the separation of colour. The lighter section dropping down into the trees was a wide rainbow. I don't ever remember seeing one in a sky of that colour.

When I looked in the opposite direction I saw a traditional sunset, although again the camera doesn't capture all the colours I saw. It was a beautiful end to a lovely day.

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Location: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Weather: High 18ºC (64ºF) low 12ºC (54ºF)

Note: We have permission from the homeowners to show photos of their home or pet.