It's been a while (ok, several months) since my last post and that's because I don't like to post unless there is something new to say. And I've only collected new things to say at the rate of about two a month. So here are the December to March highlights:
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| Rain at the war memorial on my way home from the gym |
A lot of rain. Almost every day. For three months. Just as we were building the arc, it eased off and worst seems over now and as it was 18 degrees at Easter weekend, cannot really complain given the UK's winter.
Serious gym time. Learning to ski and trail run in one season was a challenge for my legs. About 50 gym sessions have made my legs stronger and, weirdly, straighter. Started running again last week and back in the mountains soon to get ready for our summer trip...
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| Sunrise at from Grouse Mountain, Mt Baker, WA in the distance |
Plenty of skiing. We had season passes for a different, more challenging, local mountain. I took lots of lessons because I love lessons, Mark didn't but was, annoyingly, almost as good. We conquered moguls (no style, but can get down them), did the double blacks and even a few blacks at the way more hardcore Whistler. We skiied at sunrise and sunset with the coast mountain range and the ocean bathed in golden light. A winter without weekly skiing now seems strange: Milton Keynes snow dome anyone?
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| Me, last summer, looking at the complex coastline |
Campaigning for the coast. As you saw from my last post, BC has a pristine rainforest clad northern coast which is threatened by a mega oil pipeline from Alberta's tar sands to the coast and the huge tankers which would transport the oil to China. It doesn't make economic sense (Canada loses the benefit of refining the oil) let alone the environmental damage.
So in February I volunteered to lead a North Vancouver group to make it a huge issue in the upcoming BC election. Email campaign, door knocking and an event planned to persuade both main political parties to say no. Bit nervous as a new kind of project me, so fingers crossed, will update you after the election!
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| From Port Townsend pier, back to the same Mt Baker but 200km south (it's a big mountain) |
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| I don't remember this photo being taken |
A pretty awesome ten year anniversary mini break. I know: 10 years. Spent the weekend in a rain shadow (v important to know location of these) in Port Townsend, Washington state. Beautiful hotel, lovely walks and I pretended I was 21 again and got a little too merry at our romantic dinner out. Mark got me an amazing present of a box of 100 mini cards, each printed with a photo from our first ten years; I cried.
And now the blossom is out, the daffodils are up and spring has sprung. Next post is about our glorious Easter weekend, meanwhile, here is a picture of the morning commute:
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| "Seabus" from North Vancouver to downtown |
p.s. Noticed the quality of the photos has gone up? That would be Mark's new hobby, check out his own photo blog here: Letsclearuplater blog
