Our front garden is awash with colour these days. Driving or walking up to the house makes me smile inside. Hydrangeas are at their best, and the roses are flourishing (and need to be dead-headed). There's lavender and daisies in the opposite corner.
This morning is cool and damp after yesterday's almost steady drizzle. Oh where, oh where is summer? I don't want to complain too much because I know that some of my readers are suffering with intense heat. Such strange weather across the globe.
We took the boat out for two nights this week, to Mayne Island, one of the Gulf Islands the ferry boats pass en route from the mainland to Vancouver Island. There are a couple of small villages and several marinas.
There were fun and lovely sights to see along the way. The Briary sells gourmet preserves, made locally, from the cutest little stand full of whimsy. It looked like a fairy house in the forest.
There are a number of farms on the island with golden fields recently cut. One farmer passed us in his tractor with a bale of silage stuck to the front. We joked that it looked like a marshmallow on a giant stick, ready for roasting.
Cattle grazed peacefully in fields of dappled sunlight and shade. I always enjoy seeing a zig zag split rail fence and there are many throughout our province.
At last we reached the goal of our long walk - Mayne Island Lighthouse. Here is where boats enter Active Pass a narrow-ish passage of water with lots of treacherous currents, and one of the busiest waterways of Canada's West Coast. A lighthouse here has guided ships since 1885. The light is now automated and the house closed up.
We purchased sandwiches in the village store at Miners Bay and ate them while enjoying the expansive view. Bald Eagles, Kingfishers, Starlings and more entertained us along with the waves lapping the rocky shore.
Another view of Active Pass, with two large ferries passing each other, and one smaller ferry ahead. A lovely sight on Canada Day.
We walked back across the island to our little boat and I was happy to take off my shoes and wriggle my toes. Thankfully it was a cool day. That night we moved our boat to another island to be closer to home for the next day in order to catch the proper tide for taking the boat out of the water.
It was an unsettled night with the boat sloshing about in the waves and neither of us slept well, so we got up at 5 am and headed home. I'm glad we left earlier than planned for the wind picked up and it was a rocky trip home, with the wind increasing throughout the day, and rain beginning mid-morning.
The Boscobel Rose by David Austin is one of my favourites, a steady bloomer with a deliciously sweet scent.
This morning is a wee bit brighter with no rain, but lots of puffy clouds allow for only small patches of blue. Hopefully the blue will prevail as the day goes on.
I plan to sew this morning, pick blueberries once they dry a little, and generally putter here at home. Deadheading the roses is also on my mental list. And I hope to send out the invitations for my mother's 90th birthday party in August.
