Getting Away

I love road trips!   

I’m just back from the most wonderful week away to Canada's West Coast – a week of renewal and rest, a week away from the news and the weather problems Calgary has been having, and from everything day to day.  

 It was  a week of renewing ties with cousins I care about tremendously.  It was also a week of  gentle weather with lots and lots of sunshine and warm temperatures and the scents of the Pacific ocean .   There were no glitches, no problems, no anxieties – just lots of laughter and conversation, ideas floating through the air like dust motes.   Talk ranged from current affairs, to books that need to be read. to philosophical ideas about life in general - it sounds heavy but really not when accompanied by a glass of wine and a great meal. 

 

 We steeped ourselves in Shakespeare's wonderful language at Vancouver's "Bard on the Beach" here and took in a splendid production of Hamlet starring Canadian actor Jonathon Young as the troubled Dane.  

In the Bard boutique we found everything Shakespeare but the highlight was a coffee cup decorated with Shakepearian curses – delightful curses like “I do desire we be better Strangers”, "You Rampallian!" and "You Fustilarian" and "The soul of this man is his clothes".  I could go on!  We googled some of those to find out just how insulting they were.  We traveled on the Aqua Ferry across the bay under a gorgeous blue sky back to our hotel.

 We walked the sea wall walk along Vancouver’s English bay and watched the rock artists balancing rocks on the sea boulders at the beach.  

 

It was fascinating to watch the artist concentrate on balancing the rocks, making them look like birds perching on the beach boulders.  This is temporary meditative art, subject to the whims of wind, weather and tides but all the more interesting for that  .

 Coming on the vista at sunset it looks like real birds resting and looking out at the freighters doesn't it?

And of course, we ate wonderful meals, and celebrated Cora's birthday at Stanley Park's Tea House Restaurant with more family. 

Walking back to our hotel along the beach under a full moon rising over downtown Vancouver we agreed it had been a lovely holiday