Mom and Dad and Baba come to visit - Part I

Way back at the end of September, my mom, dad, and Baba came out to visit us here in Victoria. The last time my parents had visited, two years before, they had arrived on Halloween and stayed through a typically horrible and rainy first week of November. While they made the best of it, I strongly urged them this time to visit as early as possible so that there was some chance that they could see the sun while they were here.

So this time they arrived at the end of September, and were able to stay until Thanksgiving. Also, Baba was well enough to come along too, so we had a full carload on our trip to Salt Spring Island the first weekend. For those of you who haven't been out here much, Salt Spring is one of the Gulf Islands to the east of Vancouver Island, and it's a quick half hour ferry ride there from the terminal nearest us. Salt Spring is known for its somewhat "alternative" culture, with lots of artists, artisans, and organic farmers (and the odd dirty hippy). We took the ferry over early Saturday morning so that we'd be in time for their weekly market in the main town of Ganges. The first picture shows us enjoying the view and some sun on the ferry, while the second shows one of the many booths selling such things as produce, handmade soaps, jewellery, clothing, cheese, bread, etc.




Mom was quite taken with this particular booth mostly because of the beautiful red-coloured leaves on the overhanging tree. I don't actually remember what they were selling.

Mom and Dad came away with quite a bounty from the market, including a new wrap/jacket for my mom which apparently has been warm enough to see her through all but two days of winter so far in Toronto. She still hasn't changed the ugly buttons on it though for the nice new ones she bought to replace them - you really ought to get on that, mom. Baba's walker came in handy for stashing away the purchases while we walked around.

We also picked up some nice bread and cheese, which provided us with lunches and snacks during our two days on Salt Spring, when matched with the wide variety of apples (but more on that in the next post).

And Jeremi and I picked up an incredibly beautiful but far too expensive braid of garlic, which we're using now, actually. I'm also including a picture of my mom and I posing with the exquisite garlic, in front of a little mural.