Die Walküre - filial defiance

Wagner’s Die Walküre is 5 hours and 18 minutes. That is a lot of opera. Rebecca bought her ticket many months ago, but a trip to Hazelton, B.C. came up so I enjoyed her ticket and sat beside her colleague for whom this is his first opera at the movies. In fact he said it has been about 20 years since he went to the Tillicum Mall and he left a lot of time to get there, so he arrived at 8 am – time to have coffee at Tim Hortons and a breakfast sandwich, but making it an even longer day for him.

Sieglinde and Siegmund

We compared notes as to how we had prepared for the opera. I spent last night reading the libretto, one that has German and English side by side, but the English is translated into archaic prose. Still, I needed to refresh my memory about the plot. Bob said he did the same thing. As well, I told him, I went out and listened to the Ride of the Valkyries, just so that I could get that melody in my mind again. He said he usually buys the CD for an opera and then listens to it a few times before he goes. And he has a few compendiums at home that are all about opera which he consults, so I think I may not have been Bob’s equal, but still there was lots for us to share.

He loves opera when it is live and he is often travelling to San Francisco or London to hear opera live. In fact he is going to Russia in a couple of years and has tickets to see something there. And I think he is going to see the whole ring cycle in Germany the year after that. He was a bit skeptical about seeing it on the screen, but it is Wagner’s longest work and it is not done that often, so he thought he would give it a try.

Brunnhilde

see interview with her from MetOpera

After the first act he said that NT Live does give close-ups that a person can’t see from the opera floor, even when they buy the best ticket that is available.

I agreed with him.

Watching the singers shape their vowels or carry the melodic lines with such craft makes the opera fly by.

We agree that the best place to hear the human voice soar over 80 instruments is in the opera house, but even NT Live tells you that what they present is good, but to please come to the opera house and her this for yourself.

I didn’t tell Bob, but I also took a page in my daytimer and sorted out the characters, which families they were from, which of them were mere mortals and which of them were Gods. Norse gods, that is.

The themes are painful. Fricka, the Goddess of Family Values or maybe the Goddess of Marriage makes some demands that have a distastrous impact on Brünnhilde, Sieglinde, Siegmund, Wotan, Hunding, and even on her relationship with Wotan.

Bob does a lot of work with law students when they do moot court. Because I was sitting beside him I might have been thinking along the line of how clear the arguments are as the Gods and the mortals argue with each other, both giving their gifts to one another and then taking them back.

The Valkyries stole the show. One of the reviews I read was critical of their costuming, saying that it was hard to tell them apart. Not if a person does a lot of sewing. The flounces in the skirts of their costumes were so individualized – such a joy to look at. And while I am at costuming, who wouldn’t love the broach that Wotan had on his cloak. I think it was about the size of a man’s fist and it was the skull of an antelope, maybe.

And when Fricka arrives in her chariot, one reviewer said that her chariot upstages any other means of transportation in the opera. Well, the Valkyries riding their horses is good. But I have to say that Fricka was sitting in a dream chair, each side of it appearing to be a ram.

Bob and I wanted to talk about the themes of the opera – we should have done that for every act. Family values, love, opposition, adultery, incest, power, dominion, loss, fear, revenge, all of that was there. And Wotan’s need to punish Brünnhilde? That was pretty harsh. I know – old Norse myths, stirred in a pot by Wagner. I shouldn’t expect to have the complicated plot all tied up in a neat bundle since this is only part of the ring cycle.

The opera makes me emotional. I can feel a few tears run down my cheeks, either in the overture, or just when I heard “maestro to the pit”. And this opera had its high moments – Wagner’s colour and then grappling with difficult themes.

You can read about what MetOpera says about it here. Oh, do come to the opera, one and all. I think the next one is the Dialogues of the Carmelites. Also a show not to be missed.

Arta

Onlne Sunday School Week 13

 March 31, 2019

I was methodical in my reading this week of pages 120-130 of the TRC Summary. I was thinking about the simplicity of the form of the arguments  in the pages. I was witnessing the many voices I heard. I was curious about the occasional paragraph that said that in some sectors, people were trying to do what was right but their efforts were stopped by underfunding, poor working conditions, bad infrastructure, and by the removal of children from their family units into places that were devoid of love.

I read to the end of the chapter, just a little further than page 120.  I enjoyed the summary in the last few pages and  was underlining all of the paragraphs, since I am convinced of the truth of the summary there.

I have been watching the UofA Faculty blog wrap up for the semester as well this week. I shall miss those voices coming to my mailbox each day of the work week. Scott Richardson was compelling in his arguments on Wednesday. I wonder if anyone else read that.  Not that everyone wasn't good.  The woman who talked to the point of how discouraging and hopeless this work seems, rang a bell with me.

I loved the link out to Jeremy Dutcher’s award.  After watching it the first time, I joined Rebecca when she went out to see his performance at the Junos.

Next week: pages 120 to 130.

The Parliament Building in Victoria

Moiya and David missed the ferry yesterday morning.  They were #15 on wait list and they didn't get on the boat, though the boat did take up to #14.

Moiya and David were told they could leave their car in the lane and come back at 2:30 pm for the afternoon sailing.

They spent the day across the street in the parliament buildings.

Moiya sent the pictures below and recommends this adventure for anyone who misses the morning ferry.

Arta

NT Live Performance - Die Walkure

Greer Grimsley and Christine Goerke in
Wagner’s “Die Walküre” at the Metropolitan Opera.
Photo: Richard Termine

Wagner's Die Walkure is showing on Saturday on NT Live.

I am going because I can.

A privilege and especially because I know so little of my Norse gods, of their heroes, their heavens, their interactions with mortals -- al of this on stage with me knowing so little about what is going on.

Still, I am going because I can.

Here is a review from OperaWire.

There is a review in the New York Times.   (March 26, 2019.  I can't see it because I have gone there more than 10 times this month without subscribing.  I get there and click before I even know it, so I am sure 5 of those shouldn't count.  Anyway, do go there and take a look at that review.

Here is another review from the Emily's New York Life.

That is about as much homework as I will be able to do before the show.  I did see a very old review that said this opera can be summarized in three sentences.  So here they are:

1. Siegund and Sieglinde fall in love and elope
2. Fricka coerces Wotan into killing Siegmund
3 Wotan punishes Brunhilde for tryig to save him

I may try to refresh my memory with more.  And in fact, I did go out and read some of the lyrics last night.

In the worst case scenario, I can just go cold and enjoy Wagnerian sounds.

Arta

Sightseeing in Victoria: a photo essay

Sight-seeing in Victoria
Dave and Arta 
with Moiya behind the camera

Rogue Art at Royal Oak Bay
The mother whale who tended her dead baby for 10 days.

We stayed close to home, trying to sight-see Victoria.

I have done this once before with Greg, Wyona and Rebecca.

Their excursion had stopped for a day in Victoria.

What Greg wanted to see was the houses here, so we drove through quiet, treed and flower garden-laden neighbourhoods.

... cherry blossoms at the long house ...

This was different.

Moiya, David and I were on our own with a lunch that she had packed.

Always take Moiya on such an adventure.

... I have only seen the outside and not the inside of the longhouse ...

She brings the best lunched.

We walked up Mount Pkols – sea level to 1.5 km.

The vantage point there lets a person turn in a circle seeing the US, then the north sea, then Vancouver and continuing around a full 360 degrees, a perfect view.

... totems at the longhouse ...

Blessedly, the sun was behind the clouds and rain was predicted for the day.

So we drove, trying to beat the rain, over to Mount Tolmie next, still hopping out of the car to find the highest vantage point to see the city.

The cherry blossoms are out but the trees aren’t fully leafed out, so it is possible to see between branches to the Juan de Fuca Straights and seemingly further.

... so many sail boats to see ...

The wind was blowing.

We had the hoods up on our rain jackets and it was too cold to picnic, so we drove home and picnicked on Rebecca’s living room table, her fire warming our backs as we planned for the next part of the day: see downtown, then drive to Beacon Hill Park.

We walked along the harbour, from Front Street to the Legislative Building, and going into the yachts listing in the harbor.

We walked back, wishing we had stopped at the Information Centre, which was closed by now.

But we were glad we hadn’t stopped in a way.

... Dave and Arta at the harbor

They would have given us so much literature that Moiya and David would have had to stay another week to go see everything and I would have been right by their side.

We finished off the day by driving along Beacon Hill Drive, and then down through Oak Bay where David went very slowly for us so we could admire the homes that back onto the ocean.

Breath-taking.

... wondering if we should take the water taxi ...

Occasionally Moiya would ask if I were enjoying the drive. I was trying to keep the wonder of it all to myself.

My evening was spent in a chair in front of the fire, too tired to move anymore.

When I was fall asleep someone would suggest that I go to bed.

But it was just too hard to get out of that chair, so I let them keep waking me up and then I would fall back to sleep again.

Hard to lead a person to bed, especially when they are too tired to make it on their own.

Arta

The IdeaFest Gallery

Insignia at from of Dispute Resolution Room

I know about Rebecca’s Christmas holidays. 

They are spent in a quiet room, marking test papers.

The first few take an hour or so each. And then succeeding papers can be marked faster, sometimes getting up enough speed to do 2 per hour, and at the end, maybe even three per hour.

That process seems normal, since I get faster on repetitive tasks as well.

But she has different kinds of papers to mark and I wonder about the speed of those.

John Smith

Just the question of how to mark an essay or a project seems like an odd place to begin a post.

But I didn’t have a way to enter the problem that is perplexing to me. That is, how Rebecca marks the projects as opposed to the papers she receives.

Maybe the question I should be asking myself about the projects I have seen that have been handed in by law students is why have some of the the projects I have seen, made such a profound impact on me? So much so that I have only begun to write my engagement with some of them one week after the close of the show they were in.

The Beginning Over the course of the last few years there is an option in Business Associations Class to write an essay or do a project on the student’s response to Take Back the Economy: an Ethical Guide for Transforming Our Communities by J.K. Gibson.

Last year I picked up the book, just out of curiosity. I made my way half way through the book, even thinking of what I might do if I took up the idea of making a response to the book, as she was asking her students to do. Unlike the students, I have been in the good position of seeing the efforts of others, since the projects often end up in Rebecca’s office after they are marked.

Motherhood
This may look like a figure in stirrups.
It is.

Gillian Calder and Sara Ramshaw give similar assignments in their classes. The same question is asked to the whole class. Some students write a traditional essay and others become creative. The three professors decided that they would showcase work that have been handed in over the years, and decided to do it during UVic’s IdeaFest week, inviting the students and the public to come and see what students had done.

They hired a someone else to curate their show.

I got to see behind the scenes at how this was done.

 One Saturday morning the three women gathered at the law school to do 2 things: to look at the space where the show would be held and to show the curator what objects they thought should be displayed.

 So in that order, they went about their tasks.

Are You My Mother

The book has pull down figures
underneath which
is the story if written
by a man who is a mother.

All of them walked around the Dispute Resolution Room first. 

One of the long sides of the room has full-length glass windows in it – good for looking in, but not really a perfect place to hang displays.

The rest of the walls are done in beautiful oak paneling and only the white boards lend a place for work to be displayed vertically.

At the front of the room is a judges’ bench and a witness box, both raised and on platforms.

And behind the judges’ chairs there is a large insignia that tells us this room is about “the law”. The room was full of tables and chairs when we first looked at it. It would be an easy task to take those out.

A Book made of Paper Bags

An insert is inside each bag
which goes with the story on the bags.

The next job was to bring all of the projects out of the three offices and into a large room, place them out on tables and then figure out which of the 66 projects should go in the show.

I had only seen the projects in Rebecca’s room so now I had a 200% idea of possibilities.

 The curator needed the projects numbered. Sticky tags were attached to each.

 Lorinda Fraser, the curator, took pictures of each object now that it was numbered.

 The professors went around the room describing each numbered project: giving the project a name, and naming the course for which it was produced. I offered to type this into an Excel sheet as I sat there. On the second time around the room, each professor looked again at the works that had been produced choosing what she thought definitely should go in the show, and then they picked out projects that they thought wouldn’t work.

What were chosen shown were not all “A” projects. Some were selected for their fabulous creativity, or because they represented a type of project that could be attempted, more than the best project of all projects marked.

Painting: Take Back the Economy

To further showcase the works there were four events during the week: there was a grand opening, four noon-hour presentations and the closing event offering some bling as door prizes.

That Saturday morning preparation was overwhelming to me. I love being in museums and art galleries, all the more when the show has been curated and there are signs that help me see what is going on in the show. But this was more than that. I was getting to see all of the objects gathered and watching the creativity of how a show is pulled together, what is to be shown, as well as getting a glimpse of how space is organized.

Billboard
Common Knowledge

This was a low budget event.

These professors didn’t have any big funders backing them.

For weeks I had been telling Rebecca that the dress that was to go into the show should be put on a dress form.

I had spotted a sequined one for $50 at London Drugs.

 No, she told, me, she thought her friend, Stacy might have a dress form for free.

Stacy did, but Stacy’s was crafted to fit Stacy’s form. Serendipitously, Sara found two forms at the Bay that weekend – $15 each. Good enough for two items of clothing to be displayed.

Mobile
Where does fabric come from?

The curator of the show knew that her mother-in-law had some crates on which objects could be places, since she exhibits in craft shows.

And so the women figured out between everyone, who had anything at home that might work, trying to pull together ideas of how to make the show best displayed. I can tell you that nobody was more excited than I was about the project.

 The curator had a week to figure out categories of works and how to link them together. There were broad categories already defined: games, art work, video, audio, various kinds of books, museum boxes, and framed works. Of course, there was one category called objects which just defied description but these were going into the show.

Morven's Dress Project
... the tag at the armhole says purchased for $3 ...

What didn’t work for me is that I didn’t get enough time in the gallery during the week of the show.

When the noon hour presentations were going on, I was interested in listening to the living words, and unable to concentrate my attention on the projects.

... underneath the skirt are its hidden costs ...

In retrospect, I think I should have taken half a day, locked myself into that room and just looked at the books and ignored the objects.
 My regret is not reading all of the literature that had been gathered together and displayed on the judges’ table.

I picked some up and half read them: scrap books, published poetry, children’s books, a zine, photograph albums – one about a gay marriage.

I just didn’t get enough time there – and maybe that is the mark of a good show – to want to go back again and again.

When Rebecca gives this assignment, students are told they have to hand in a paper along with the project. The paper is to tell the process of the project and if the object fails there can still be an “A” for the purpose is to engage with the book, and that is where the learning occurs and where the mark is really situated. Can the student demonstrate an ethical way to engage with the economies of our community?

There is another kind of reading the project as well. One of them was about the games that were displayed. People were invited to sit down and play the games. I wish I had done that.

Two Spirited Figure

Both sides of the figure
should be viewed.

I think curators must grapple with the problem of where to situate the gallery walk on the programme when trying to figure out how to do the special presentations around a show. I hadn’t thought of that before. If the gallery walk is on the day of the opening, patrons haven’t had time to look at anything. If it is on the last day, then there is no time to go back and linger at something, and now have a deeper understanding of it.

And where is there a chance for any interested person to read what went on in the gallery walk. Reading the text of the professors talking about the student work will give you a taste of that lovely hour. I will make a link to their presentation – much more interesting than mine.

The Quest for Gay Fatherhood Game

One of the students in Sara Ramshaw’s class did a dance performance for the class as her project. I saw her do some of the dance at the Gala Opening. But on the last day, I heard her talk about the experience of performing a dance as her project and now I want to go back and see her do the dance again. So remarkable. Transforming, really.

I always have the question, how do you mark these projects, Rebecca. I have heard the students ask this question of her. She tells them to test the limits of her power to understand the work they will turn in.

Metis Mask
 ... with audio for a niece ...

Rebecca makes me laugh when I ask her the same question in private.

Rebecca has a degree in music, an MBA, an associate degree in speech arts, a JD and has probably seen more Shakespeare, opera and NT Live than the regular person from the street.

 But her background isn’t what matters.

 The paper that comes along with the project tells Rebecca a lot about how the student has engaged with Take Back the Economy. That is where the mark is. So it is not if Rebecca has the qualifications. It is does the student engage with the problem that the book asks them to think about.

Beaded Feathers
one beaded during leisure time
the other beaded in hours after a 12 hour day of work

I heard her tell the students that the co-authors have written another book about taking back the economy, but the other book has high theory in it.

Half of her law class will love it: those who can hardly wait to read hard theory. 

And the other half just don’t get it. Sometimes theory doesn’t connect. So the book she assigns leaves out the discussion of the theory and gets right to the point of engaging with the economy.

I have yet to get the pics up in this blog, but I am just getting the words out there for now.

Arta

Ladysmith, B.C.

 Driving Victoria Island has its charm.

An early morning breakfast is available at this bakery.

A hot bun and a hot drink.

Not much can match that.

This isn't Tim Hortons.

Just a small bakery in a small town.

The scent of those carbs can hit you right at the door of the store and linger until you have your box of goods into your car.

Raspberrys or blackberries swirl the top of the cinnamon buns.

And unlike the ones I make, these have a thin layer of icing to give just that crackle that is good for all.

These pics were taken by Glen on his way back down the island to the airport and on his way home.

Some guys have jobs to be envied.

Arta

The Pacific Marine Circle Route

Botanical Beach

Moiya, David and I have never driven The Pacific Marine Route.

We had been told by the woman at the Tourist Information Centre that we should go at low tide.
She had provided us with the low tide times and we had worked the hours backward to know that we should leave home at 7 am to get there. 

Everything is beautiful in Victoria.
Cherry blossom buds are pink on the branches of trees. The weeping willows are showing that chartreuse colour on just before they leaf out. Early Saturday morning the roads are clear. We passed a serious bicycler, he was wrapped in black plastic, as was all of his gear that was tied to his pack.

The tourist information woman told us she had gone to Botany Bay with her friends. She told us that it was only a short walk to the first bay, and a little longer one with a boardwalk that had recently been refreshed, and then a small scramble over some logs to the beach.

Between Dave and me, you can see the height of 
the rock we climbed just around 
the corner of this cove.

While I was doing the small scramble I was thinking about Wyona and wondering if shse could have made it. In fact, I was wondering about myself, if I could have done the walk alone, David having to steady me every step of the way. The bonus part is that I did take along my walking sticks and in about the first 700 metres of the trail, I knew I had full value from them. There are so many things to say about Botany Beach, and then the next beach over, the Big Wave Beach. We watched the surf pound against the rocks in the bay, sometimes splashing with great fury upwards, then the small drops falling and being picked up by the surge of the wave after it. The water ran down the crevices like small waterfalls. Dave climbed to a high peak to watch far out to the ocean. That is what he said he wanted to do. Watch the waves in the ocean. I told Moiya if that is his wish, she should be going on cruises with him. Moiya and I looked in the small pools of water for aenomenes and for star fish. I picked up some shells that were lined with blue iridescent colours, tucking them in my purse, then taking them out and putting them back on some other rocks after seeing a sign suggesting that those of us who love shells, leave them behind so that hermit crabs won’t loose their homes.

The woman at the tourist centre had told us that she had packed a picnic lunch and brought it to the beach. Her friends wanted to eat in a restaurant instead. This would never be the case with me if Moiya, were bringing the picnic basket. She served chicken salad, slices of home made bread, grapes, a mango drink, the Costco Asian salad and lots of oranges. Only a very upper end restaurant would be able to match that.

David holding Moiya's walking stick.

The woman at the tourist centre had warned us – stay 10 feet away from the ocean. You don’t want to be one of the people who gets pulled back into the sea from a sudden wave. I thought about the number of people I have seen in the middle of the lake on light craft when a storm was threatening and I am always amazed why they haven’t watched the signs in the sky and come in. So my heart was going pretty fast when a wave did come in, as we were in a small cove. Suddenly the water looked waist deep to me, between us and the cove we had just come from. I looked at my dry shoes and then at the high of the water and I decided to just pitch through it when it was only waist deep instead of waiting until the next wave which I was sure was going to be at least shoulder deep. I moved around the bend and no one could have stopped me. I came out only being wet from my knees down. Moiya and Dave followed me, mostly with Moiya calling out to Dave to save me if I went down. Then we watched the wave subside. It went out to sea leaving plenty of space for us to have walked around that corner. Too late. All three of us were soaking wet, at least from the knees down. The walk back to the car was less pleasant, water squishing in our shoes at every step and I haven’t had the occasion to finish an afternoon off by wearing wet jeans for a long time.

This picture reminded me of the height
of the cover we were in.

Moiya and I dried out our feet on the way home, blessing the hot air vent.

Dave, having to drive, left his shoes on and this morning he was showing me that his runners were still on the vent, drying out from yesterday.

He had some shiny brown brogue shoes on for church.

I commented on their beauty.

He said they were his father’s.

I said that his dad had kept them in good condition. 

“Nope,” said David, you are seeing the shine that I put on them. They were pretty well beat up when they came into my possession.”

I bought these walking sticks at Coscto.

A godsend.

Worth every penny.

Wanting to finish off the Pacific Marine Circle Route to make a perfect circle instead of circling back on ourselves, , we kept driving, passing the Fairy Tree which we had read about in the literature.

 The park was closed. We stopped there. Moiya and I were too wet and cold and tired to walk in.

David went around the barrier gate and to the lake to see a small bonsai tree growing out of a log.

He said he couldn’t get a good picture, but he reported to that there was an illegal camper at the edge of the lake.

We drove on at which time David pulled over to the side of the road alongside other vehicles. “There it is,” he said. “Other people are taking pictures of it and it is purely visible from the road.” We also stopped in Cowichan to see an oudoor museum of old box cars that we used to see on the railroad track not so many years ago. The kind the hobos used to hitch a ride in. And there were many logging machines that used to run on tracks. David was in heaven and Moiya and I sat by the Cowichan River and rested a bit more.

We were home in time to study our Tourist Guides again. We don’t know if we should go to Port Hardy, to Tofino or stay close to home and visit the potholes in Sooke or drive to a ferry and see Salt Spring Island. We haven’t exhausted out choices yet.

Arta

Online Sunday School Week 12

March 17, 2019

I felt the flush of shame today as I read pages 110 to 120. Sometimes that was mixed with horror. What I thought I would say if someone asked me about these pages follows.

1. The last line I read this morning was “The residential school system’s shameful inability to protect students from … victimization, even from among themselves, represents one of its most significant and least-understood failures.” (page 110 of the Final Summary) That sentence amplified the preceding 10 pages of reading. Such atrocities: little respect for the burial of the dead; caregivers abusing children; student bullies abusing children. Yes, significant failures and as a settler, I still have little understanding of the history of these years.

Volume 5

On the bonus side for me, Rebecca ordered volumes V and VI for me to read and this week I received them in the mail. This morning she said to me, “You had better put your name in those so someone else doesn’t mistake the volumes as theirs.” That made me laugh. I don’t know that many of my friends have these books. I probably wouldn’t have them except that she led me to them.

Next week for online Sunday School Reading: pages 111-120 of the TRC Final Summary. The chapter continues with 2 sub headings.

The first is Sports and Cultures: “It was a relief.”

The second is titled “Resistance: I am the Father of this Child”.

The Necessities of Life (2008)

I have also watched a film about moving the Inuit who were sick, down to Quebec where they could be healed in hospitals. 

The film is called The Necessities of Life (2008) narrated in French and English.  

The film is set in 1952. We see the protagonist who knows how to read and write Inuktitut being transferred far from his loved ones to a French-speaking community where he can't communicate with those who will be taking care of him.

I would recommend seeing the film as a way of supplementing the TRC Summary Reading.  Not that anyone is running out of material to read.


Arta

Raptors, Westholme Tea Co. and Gallery, Eve Provincial Park

... bear holding ceremonial mask ...

Moiya, Dave and I want to do the Pacific Marine Circle Route and we thought we would do the circle by heading up to Duncan again.

 We went to the Tourist Centre again.

 The second time there was even better than the first for this time we at least had a plan. We were already on our way around the circle route.

However, the manager of the tourist centre told us that it would be best to see Port Renfrew at low tide, which we were going to miss since the tide was already on its way in.

 We switched gears and went to see the Raptors Centre.

A hawk talk was going on just as we entered and shortly thereafter was the chance to see the raptors fly above us as we sat on some bleachers.

Gerard, one of the raptor trainers stood there as first a fledgling hawk was released for flight, then a bald eagle, and a turkey vulture, a horned owl and a peregrine.

 I would recommend this stop for anyone.

 The tours are at levels for every budget, the highest level being have a hawk land on your arm.

... fledgling eagle ...

I didn’t choose that one: $54.

 The birds are released one at a time for the show.

 The magic was that eagles began to circle above, one that were not connected to the eentre.

They could also see the prey below, either in the form of food or they could see some of the other birds who are their natural enemies.

 It was a thrill to listen to the trainer talk to his own hawks, coaxing them to fly by for the audience.

The bald eagle flew by within an arm’s reach of me.

...tea at the Westholme Tea Co. & Gallery...

The hawks stuns the fish and pick them up off the water, but the peregrine might dive for food, as deep as 5 feet into the water, so his legs are built with no feathers to get wet in the dive.

The centre has eagles, peregrines and owls, either raised by the trainors, or birds that have come in and now need a rest home.

One owl had been in an accident and caught in the front grill of a car for 5 hours.

That bird will never regain its full flying strength, but it is enjoying a good resthome.

 ... Gerard and a turkey vulture ...

The Westhome Tea Company and Gallery was only a short distance down the road.

They are a place that grows and sells its own tea as well as other exotic teas.

The couple have owned their place for 10 years.
 She pots and he grows tea.

 Well worth the time to stop here.

tea pot at the Westholme Gallery

The manager at the tourist centre also suggested Eve Provincial Park, a small gem missed by many, she said.

We went to find it and discovered why it is a tourist sight that is often missed.

The sign was so small we couldn’t see it.

... outside the WestholmeTea Co ...

A teen-ager gave us the best tip to find it – just go over the bridge and turn right.

His directions worked when we figured out that his right was our left.

Our trip home was along that same lovely Malahat, back through the doors of Costco and finally home where we prepared our evening meal and talked about how wonderful the day had been.

Arta