CAA's Canwrite! 2010 in Victoria left me in information overload. I'd been doing a lot of sitting too.
After the awards ceremony, Jane (from Langley) and I (from Surrey) met Ann from Whitehorse and Ruth from Ontario and stood in front of the hotel talking of the G20 in Toronto.
Psychiatrist, comic poet and blogger Dr. William Hay entertains his fellow members of CAA.
Ruth and Ann told us they were going to walk down to the houseboats. But Jane and I, both in heels, headed for the elevators. Jane was planning to watch the CBC news for the latest G20 developments, but I felt restless. I changed my shoes and went out in the balmy air.
Passing the big hotels, I followed Kingston around, turned down St. Lawrence Street and walked along beside the silent houses with their fragrant flowering hedges to Ogden Point.
The cruise ship pier was a blaze of light with three ships in port: the Norwegian Pearl, the Sapphire Princess and the Osterdam. To get close, I had to avoid a steady stream of buses and limos.
As I turned to walk back, I noticed the trunks of some huge Garry Oaks that butted right up against the narrow sidewalk. One tree had some roots cut off. The rough-barked tree resembled the leg of an enormous elephant, the cut roots its neatly clipped nails.
Over my shoulder, the rising moon looked close to full. It disappeared behind a house, and reappeared swathed in a variety of clouds. Such innocuous-looking clouds, Julie and Colin Angus said, had presaged the hurricane that tried its best to sink their tiny boat in mid-Atlantic.
As I returned from my quiet half-hour stroll, I was amazed to see a parking lot advertising a daily rate of only $4. Last week when I had an evening event in Vancouver, I had to pay $5 just for the 15 minutes that I arrived before the evening parking rate kicked in.
Ahead loomed the castle-like Empress Hotel, its venerable stone flanks swathed in vines and bathed along the front in pink light. This time in Victoria has indeed been a lovely change of scene.
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