Weekend Wanders

How did it get to be Tuesday already? Here in BC, we’ve just come out of a much-needed, welcome long weekend, and I don’t really know how it disappeared so quickly. But of course it did, and now it’s time to leap into another busy week. But first, I thought I’d share a few things I’ve seen and places I’ve been in the last few days, IRL and online: The recent cold snap brought with it glorious sunshine here in the Lower Mainland. This meant that the treadmill at the gym suddenly had a most excellent view of the mountains and, one morning, a giant bald eagle circling the clear blue sky above the buildings. Not a bad place to work up a sweat, that’s for sure. At my local coffee shop on one of the coldest days last week, a handful of hardy customers (aka smokers, mostly, with this notable exception) sat outside on the patio. One of them, sitting up straight and tall in a patio chair the whole time, appearing to be part of the conversation, was a brindle Pitbull wearing a purple sweater and a knowing smile. It often takes me a few days to get to the links I open from tweets or Facebook, which puts me behind on things some of you may already have seen. But if you’re like me, maybe these are new to you: Russell Brand, who is a great writer, wrote this excellent piece for the Spectator in the wake of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death. One of my favourite landscape photographers, mostly of the West Highlands in Scotland, is composer Steve Carter (@highlandrampage). Recently, he added a page to his website for the Rivendell Guest House in Shieldaig. Generations of my ancestors came from Shieldaig and the surrounding area, and this guest house was, for many years, the Temperance Inn run by my great great grandmother.  I had the pleasure of eating dinner in the dining room at Rivendell in 2008, and even though I know the work that went into restoring a building that had fallen into terrible disrepair in the years between the Temperance and Rivendell, I could still feel the history of the place and imagine my ancestors in it. I’d love to go back again. And finally for today, Susanna Kearsley (I do occasionally remember who posted something I like!) linked to this lovely Bell’s Whisky ad from South Africa:       Share...