This is the tenth anniversary of our flight out of paradise. Here we are at the top of Mount Maxwell on Saltspring Island, gazing west to Vancouver Island which was our home for awhile. People often ask why on earth we would leave such an idyllic spot. The short answer is RAIN. In fact there were many reasons why we left but basically, despite having met many friendly people, we missed the east. It was an adventure though.
This is the closest I got to painting a mural in Chemainus. It's a garbage bin...oops...beautification barrel. Here I'm depicting a historical building, namely the first library in town. It was for a contest. I won a prize.
For Chemainus Day George dresses as a camera and cavorts in the parade with Neil, the clown.
He's happy to get out of that outfit. The blue tights are cute though.
George gets his picture in the paper as a member of the 'Brady Bunch' jazz band. They played a few happenin' gigs in Victoria, Duncan and at the Chemainus Daze (sic) parade.
Still our first year there. I get invited to a dress-up tea party and find myself in the paper. It's quite easy to be 'famous' here.
You can't believe everything you read in the paper. This publicity shot for the murals of Chemainus shows George and I 'scrubbing' one of them. As if. It was all a set-up. But when I saw the picture in the paper I began to question our reason for being there in the first place.
As volunteers for the community a bunch of us got to go aboard a minesweeper! I don't know why.This one, HMS Mirimachi, took us up to Ladysmith and around Galliano Island. And around...and around. Nice way to spend an afternoon.
Not sure what I was thinking while sitting on that log in the rainforest but maybe it was, "what am I doing here?"
This was our little house. It was described in real estatese as a 'character house' meaning you need a good sense of humour to appreciate it. Good thing we had lots of experience in the renovating and decorating business. It took us six years to turn this place from homely to homey. And then we sold it.
But before leaving I painted this little watercolour. If you click for a larger image you can see the two cats. (Not the ones we have now) They flew back a few days ahead of us.
