Coastal Cogitations

/ Diane Henders

I’m on vacation this week!  We’re on Vancouver Island, and I’m enjoying both the change of scenery and the change of pace.  My senses seem sharpened by the glorious sea air that smells so good I could make a meal of it.

Sometimes the enhanced sensory experience is wonderful; sometimes, erm… not so much.  Here are my observations to date:

My paranoid writer’s mind never quits. Doesn’t this look like a concealed camera to you?

hidden camera

It’s in the ceiling of our hotel room and the rest of the knots are solid, but not this one.  And you guessed it, it’s right above the bed.  There’s even a shiny thing that looks like a lens inside the knothole.

Suspicious as always, I stood on the bed and poked my finger into the hole.  All I could feel was plastic vapour barrier, so I’m hoping that’s the source of the gleam.  But if you happen to discover amateur porn videos featuring Arlene Cherry on the internet, please don’t tell me.  I’d really rather not know.

Pacific loons are the Fonzies of the ocean. Clad in sleek black, they kick back casually on the waves, far too cool for the rest of the seabirds.  When they dive, it’s with a laid-back ease that makes the mergansers look like skinny little punks who are trying too hard.

I love good oysters, but there’s nothing worse than a bad oyster. And once it’s breaded and fried it’s impossible to tell the difference until after you’ve eaten it.  You don’t want to know how I discovered this.  But, as the saying goes, “This, too, shall pass”.  And it did, quickly.

‘Moving’ right along…

I can’t decide whether I like the ocean better…

…in the sunshine when it’s blue and beautiful:

blue ocean

Or under cloudy skies when it looks like molten silver:

silver ocean

I love it when it’s stormy, too, but we’ve had beautiful weather the whole time we’ve been here so I didn’t get to photograph any big waves.  Maybe next time.

I don’t know this for certain, but I suspect that the designer of the Hyundai Elantra’s seats sneaked into my house while I was sleeping, measured every inch of my body, and designed the seat contours specifically to torture me. (Fortunately the car rental company exchanged it for us, or I’d be in serious pain right now.)

No matter how devastating the damage, nature will eventually recover if it gets the chance. I was lucky to have visited Cathedral Grove before the big storm of 1997.  It was still majestic after the storm, but the mossy grotto beneath the towering trees had become a brighter place criss-crossed with the massive trunks of the fallen giants.  Now, nearly twenty years later, I’m happy to see that it’s slowly returning to its green and shade-dappled glory.

cathedral grove

mossy tree

And best of all, the trilliums and daffodils and camellias are in full bloom, along with cherry trees, magnolias, tulips, hyacinths, forsythia, and just about everything else.  I could keep snapping photos all day long, and the scented air is divine!

trilliums

daffodils

camellias

What’s blooming in your neck of the woods this week?

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P.S. We’ll be on the road today, so I won’t have a chance to respond to comments until we’re back this evening.  “Talk” to you then!

P.P.S. If you haven’t had your say on the format for the Virtual Book Club yet, please click here to offer your comments.  The Book Club will start next week!

43 thoughts on “Coastal Cogitations”

  1. DH, let me add to your paranoia. (By the way, great pictures of the Pacific northwest.) I just finished reading a New Yorker article by Gay Talese entitled The Voyeur’s Motel about a hotelier who spent 30 years spying on his guests. The hotel owner went to a lot of effort to conceal his viewing spot so I suspect that the empty knot is just a ploy.

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  2. Love the Island. Daughter in Victoria, friends in Mill Bay, Duncan, and Qualicum Beach, plus my Dad’s 94 year old cousin in Courntey-Comox. You would love her. Precious Pat is on her third husband, this one 10 years younger so he can keep up and possibly outlive her. Don’t think she would run a Love shop but if you needed a feisty old lady to kick some ass you could work her in.

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  3. That missing knot was a ruse. See that other knot up and to the right? That is the real deal. You can buy them in the spy catalogues. This is the kind of mind I got from reading your books. Don’t start going coastal now.

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  5. Hmmmmm, my human read and laughed at the camera segment since he had a similar experience. He spotted what he was sure was a “hidden” camera in the room’s ceiling in a place that would provide a great vantage point to capture the beds occupants getting it on. He found a broom and shoved the handle up into the camera to disable it. The camera spit on him, the bed and everything in the room. Sprinklers sometimes look like cameras.

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  6. Gum in the hole, maybe? … too late this time, but there’s always the future to be prepared for. Those are some gorgeous photos! Our crocuses are sticking their noses out, but they’re ready to pull ’em back in the moment we get our next every-other-day snowfall.

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  7. Hope you have a great holiday, looks fab from the photos.

    I’d have to agree a camera hole, but you could always give them a cheap thrill. Hehe I’m sure someone might search for Arlene Cherry porn and let you know.

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  8. Fabulous photos! I’m jealous of your trip. Victoria sounds so beautiful.

    If I were in that hotel room, I’d be looking for all the better hidden cameras and mics. I’d be trying plugging up that knot hole for sure. 3M masking tape is pretty reliable, but perhaps not for those who have adhesive issues.

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    • LOL! Maybe I should just squirt some toothpaste into the hole. It’s a very pretty green, and minty-fresh, too! 😉

      All of Vancouver Island is beautiful at this time of the year! We were in Victoria for a few hours today, but the rest of our time has been spent mid-island where the towns are smaller and we can tramp the shore in solitude most mornings. Much more relaxing than the city’s hustle-bustle!

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  9. Nothing is obviously in bloom in Minneapolis. It is chilly, grey and drizzling rain. But my iris and day lilies are sending tender little shoots up. My mulberry tree is dropping tiny little hulls onto my car, so that is likely a signal that the flowers are opening up without any fanfare. A friend harvested some mulberries to make wine one year, but he never reported back nor shared a taste of the final product. Ditto for the raspberry harvest. Ah well, better to put them to good use than letting the birds have them all. Unfortunately, I must avoid berries now. 😦

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    • It’s too bad you have to avoid berries – seems the harvest is always more bountiful when you can’t use any of it. But maybe it was a mercy that you didn’t get a sample of the wine – I’ve tasted some excellent homemade wine, but also some definitely not-excellent stuff, too. *shudders*

      My irises and daylilies were starting to poke their noses above the ground when I left Calgary, so I’m expecting great things when I return. Apparently it’s supposed to be +25C/77F there tomorrow. Crazy weather!

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    • That would be wonderful, but we only spent a few hours in Victoria so we didn’t make it to the Empress. Maybe next time! I’m glad you got a chance to take high tea, though – definitely a memory to be treasured. 🙂

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  12. What a wonderful place to visit. I’ve been to Victoria Island a couple times and loved it. But I’ll leave the oysters to you. I’m not a fan of any seafood, especially the slimy kind.

    Your pictures are great. Enjoy the rest of your week!

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    • LOL! Oysters definitely fall into the ‘slimy’ category, especially when eaten on the half-shell, but I love ’em anyway! I’m glad you enjoyed the pictures, too – I could just keep snapping away because everywhere I turn there’s another cherry tree frosted with fluffy blossoms or another flowerbed crammed with tulips and daffodils and hyacinths. *happy sigh*

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  13. OMG! Definitely a camera hole! Did you stuff cotton in it???? Ick! I am always paranoid about stuff like that, too!!!!
    Love all the photos, and to answer a question, I like the blue of the water better than the steel grey, but don’t dislike the steel grey at all. I grew up blocks away from Lake Michigan, and now I’m in corn field central, Iowa. I miss the water so much! Take an extra sigh for me!
    btw….daffodils are blooming here, and the magnolias are beautiful, but the wind is ripping them off the trees as we speak! 😦

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    • Poor magnolias! I’m sighing on your behalf. I’ll be sorry for myself tomorrow, though, when we have to leave the ocean behind and return to arid Calgary. But I have to admit I like ‘corn field central’, too – I’m a prairie kid through and through. 😉

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    • Oh, that’s so sad! I think I might have daffodils blooming next to the house by the time we get back to Calgary tomorrow, and I’m hoping the snow stays away. Alas, with our crazy climate, it’ll probably snow in May.

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  15. Hawthornes are blooming. In the flower beds around the trees in our front yard. Lived here eight years and this spring is the best yet.

    Try a wine cork and five minute epoxy for the camera hole. That’ll learn ’em! I’d suggest super glue, but we’ve had that conversation. 😜

    Enjoy your time off!

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    • I had to search ‘hawthorne flowers’ to see what they looked like – so pretty! And, dang, if I’d listened to @Sue Slaght’s advice a couple of weeks ago, I’d have super glue in my suitcase. Alas, I’m glueless (as well as clueless). But it’s too late anyway – we’ve been under the knothole’s surveillance for nearly a week. Guess I’ll just have to live with the consequences. 😉

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    • That sounds like excellent advice! Or it would have been, if I’d done it when we moved in last Thursday. Since we’re leaving tomorrow, it’s probably a bit late now. 😉

      And we are having a fabulous holiday – so sad that it ends tomorrow!

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