A visit from Marie...

Well it's been a long while since the last post, but this is largely because we lost our camera over Easter weekend in Vancouver. Not exactly sure where, but it seems to have disappeared. The last time we had it was in Jenny's apartment, but she hasn't seen it either.

We spent Easter weekend in Vancouver, where we went to meet Marie at the airport, flying in from Korea after 20 months away from Canada. Her brother Marc and his fiancée Mary came into town from Calgary for the weekend as well. We had a great time despite the terrible weather, and Jer and I even got to attend Claudia's third birthday party Saturday morning before Marie's flight arrived. We were also able to have a wonderful supper with Jenny and her boyfriend Leo, who was visiting from Germany, on Thursday night. (They then went to Vancouver Island for the weekend and we had a bit of an apartment swap.) Of course we have no pictures of any of this to post, due to the lost camera. I also ordered a spinning wheel while in Vancouver as there are no dealers on the island. They didn't have it in stock, unfortunately, so I won't actually get it until mid-May. After that, look forward to lots of posts about spinning (assuming we find our camera or get a new one).

Marie came back to Victoria with us Monday evening and stayed until Sunday night. It was just like in Halifax, it seemed so normal having her with us in the spare room with all the same furniture as her old room. We were very sad to see her go, but we spent a great week eating and drinking our way around town.

On the weekend it finally cleared up and we had a gloriously sunny Saturday and Sunday, with the air so clear we could see the mountains in Washington state across the Juan de Fuca Strait more clearly than I've seen them since moving here. We spent Saturday afternoon going for a hike out in East Sooke Regional Park with our friend Gerd, who took the pictures shown here. Unfortunately you can't see the crystal-clear mountains across the water behind us, or the pod of 100 or so orcas who put on a display for us in the channel. I've never seen so many whales in all my life. I was joking that BC was putting on a tourism commercial just for Marie's benefit, and all that we needed was a bald eagle to swoop down now to pick up a salmon and a bear standing over on the next rock. Not ten minutes after saying this a bald eagle really did come swooping down to pick a fish out of the water, which made us all look around nervously for the bear. Thankfully my second prediction did not come true, but this didn't stop Jeremi from asking me to predict that we'd come home to find a pig roasting on a spit in the back yard with barrels of beer waiting for us. Sadly, this prediction failed as well.

We'll see what we can do about finding some camera or other to continue posting things - we had some nice pictures of us digging our new vegetable garden in the back yard, and I'd love to show how the plants are doing, but it will have to wait.

Fools' tour

This Saturday we went on a wild and crazy pub crawl organized by our friend Shannon who we met while she was doing grad school at Dalhousie. She's now moved back out west, and decided that her friends hadn't been going out enough lately, so she organized a pub crawl for a group of 35-50 people she knows here. It was on Saturday night, April fool's day, so she dubbed it the Fool's Tour.

She knows some people at the Vancouver Island Brewery here in town, and they offer a deal for groups with a brewery tour and then some time in their tap room, where you can drink all you like. She pulled some strings so that we got to drink the whole time rather than dividing it between the tour and the beer. Thus, for $25 apiece we got t-shirts, as much beer as we could drink in 2.5 hours, and free cover to the following 5 bars. Not a bad deal, overall.

In addition to the t-shirts and the tour, she organized some props to get people interacting. Here you can see me wearing the "dancing queen" skirt, and Jeremi wearing the "Seargeant Stumbles" hat. As the evening went on and we found someone deserving of the prop, we were to hand it off in exchange for a drink. There were also clown hats and noses, a bib for people who spilt, and cat ears for people who were pussing out, among others. On the whole, she did quite the job. These pictures were taken fairly early in the evening before we got too drunk and forgot about the camera (which is probably for the best).

Then Sunday afternoon we headed over to a friend's place for a whiskey tasting extravaganza. We were a bit slow getting there, especially as Jer didn't make it home until 6:00 am (well, 5:00 am plus the time change), but I'm glad we made it. Our friend Steve has a collection of over 80 bottles of scotch and Irish whiskey, and he wanted to finish off 10 or so near-empty bottles to make room in his cabinet. We managed the task admirably, and he took us on a tour of his cabinet based on which were our favourites. It's very generous of him, but he really loves whiskey and likes to share his enthusiasm. I only wish we'd brought the camera to show you a picture of his whiskey cabinet. It's quite the sight.

How does my garden grow...

Over the past few weeks we've been getting very excited about starting a vegetable garden. Initially we wanted to have a container garden on our balcony and back stairwell, but then I (Julia) went a little nuts buying seeds, so it seemed that we'd have to expand a bit further. We talked to the landlord's son, who looks after the property and lives downstairs, and he's agreed to let us use a patch of the backyard in addition to a variety of containers. Now I'm thinking of asking for a patch in the front yard as well for the herbs, but at least we'll have some ground to work with.

Here's a picture of our spare room, where the bed has been turned into the seeding ground to get things going. We're limited to the spare room as they have to be kept safe from the cat until they're a bit bigger and can survive having a few leaves eaten. I learnt this the hard way when I was growing plants in Montreal - she waited until they were all sprouted and about 3 cm tall, and then she finished them all off in one night. And then of course she threw them all up. I'm not letting her or the other neighbourhood cats near them until I think they've got some chance of survival. And of course I'm growing some catnip to distract them.

Chicken chicken

This week was Italian week at our house. The first Italian meal we prepared was a stuffed chicken. But not any stuffed chicken; a completely deboned chicken, exept for the wings. So we bought two little chickens and had a deboning workshop. As you can see Julia was much quicker than me. Her already stuffed chicken looks plump and juicy next to my pile of boneless flesh. I made a stuffing out of last week's leftover pitta bread and mushrooms. Julia's stuffing was the extra stuffing from the grape vine leaves we made last week, with rice, pinenuts, raisins, and herbs. Truly these chickens have no backbone.

A thing of beauty

On February 28 we cracked open the first beer of the first batch that we have ever made. One word: Delicious. It's a Munich Dark Lager (not a
Guiness-type stout), and as you can see it's beautifully dark and frothy. I was afraid that it would be flat like other homemade beer I have had in the past. This picture is from last night, Friday, 10 March, just before we went to the theatre to see Tempting Providence with the festival vouchers we got from Baba for Christmas (thank-you). The play was about a nurse, Myra Bennett, that had gone to Newfoundland after the first World War to help in remote areas. It was a very good play. To accompany our beer, we had supper: oxtail stew, homemade pitta bread, ajvar (roasted eggplant and red pepper middle eastern salad), and baked hummus. This week was Middle Eastern week in our kitchen. Next week, Italian.


We are in the process of making a few preparations for when Marie comes in April. This picture is our present brewing efforts. From front to back we have a carboy full of Australian Shiraz, a batch of Winterfest Ale and a batch of Honey Blonde Ale. Should be good.



Finally this is a picture of the homemade pitta bread that I (Jeremi) made for supper, flat and fluffy with a well-defined pocket. Julia was very impressed.

Who let the cat out of the bag?

Here you can see the cat camping out next to her kitty fort (colourful tube and blanket draped over chair). This bag held the wonderful chocolates on their long journey from the Marshall's to our bellies and is now the cat's best friend. She loves to play with it! Do you have any comments about the cat's cuteness? Feel free to add your comments.

Cat in the box

We would like to thank Joy and Bill for the Valentine's day chocolates and the cat toys for Aeris. As you can see, she was quite taken by the tanning box and the cat tent (pictures in next blog). She spent hours trying to tan the whitest belly in the world - unfortunately, to no avail. I can relate.

Jer's victory party

After Jeremi passed his board exam a week ago today, we decided to throw a big party: a keg of beer, a big bowl of sangria, and no less than 13 courses of homemade finger-foods. Saturday was a blur of activity, with Jeremi madly cleaning the apartment while I was busy in the kitchen, with the help of our friend Jenny throughout the afternoon. Jenny took the ferry over on Saturday from Vancouver to help celebrate, as well as helping with both the cooking and cleaning up the next day.

The party as a whole was a great success, with good turn-out and a diverse group of people. Most of the people were linked to either the Navy, my knitting group, or climate research. (Some belonged to more than one group.)

The first of the pictures here is of Gerd, one of my colleagues, who was an invaluable (and sober) presence in the kitchen throughout the evening. The picture here shows him (a non-drinker) opening bottles of wine to prepare a batch of sangria. What's not shown is him carefully tending the cast-iron pan full of bubbling oil a few hours later when I decided that it was time to fry up the spring rolls I'd prepared. Fearing that the drunken host sustaining serious burns or catching her kitchen on fire might ruin the party, Gerd opted to keep an eye on the pan. I'd have to admit that he knew best in this case.

The second picture shows a couch full of knitters. From left, are Kelly, Kelly's date (I don't recall his name), Sharon, Brandy, and Analisa. I have to say that both the Navy community and the scientists were quite pleased when the group of attractive young women showed up all together.

The next picture was taken a bit later in the night, after we'd finished the cheese fondue. Here, Jenny is generously sharing the oma with me. (Oma means grandmother in German, and is the word used in Germany for the cheese that burns to the bottom of the fondue pot. It seems that in Germany people will fight over this last bit of cheese, and I'm grateful to Jenny for being so selfless.)

Finally, the last picture is from even later (and drunker) in the evening, and shows Jeremi and Shannon gamely singing their hearts out to Meatloaf, I do believe. At the right is Steve, who may well claim that he wasn't singing along, but I doubt that's true. For that matter, Shannon may even deny it. But as for Jeremi, there's no denying you're doing a little Meatloaf-karaoke with a face like that.

Now after he passed his exam Jeremi is supposed to get a shore posting, but since his new posting message hasn't yet officially arrived, he still "belongs" to the Calgary. As such, he's away with the ship right now en route to Seattle for the weekend. Since there's not much for him to do there, he's taking vacation next week and he'll be paying his own way home on the ferry on Sunday. (His ship is out at sea for another week after that.) He has to use up the vacation before the end of March anyhow, and this way he gets to spend more time at home. I was very unimpressed that he had to leave again after passing the exam, especially as I got to spend yet another Valentine's day alone, thanks to the Navy. Two years ago we were actually in the same city, but he found out on the 13th that he was being posted to Victoria against his request. I will be so happy when he finally "belongs" to himself and not to the military. But he should be home for a while after this, which will be nice!

The Bent Mast

Here we are having some beer and food and the Bent Mast, James Bay's friendly neigbhoorhood pub. From bottom left going clockwise around the table to bottom right; Diego, Kirsten, Shannon, Doug, Julia, Gerd and Laura. The beer was good and the food was OK. Afterwards, we went to Irish Times, had a Murphy's and saw a celtic band.

Fantastic Fondue

This was my welcome home supper, Emmental and Gruyère cheese fondue, made by the wonderful Julia of course. We bought the fondue set with the Capital Iron gift certificate we got at Christmas from Joy and Bill. Unfortunately the first time we tried to buy it, they were sold out. So we had to put our names on a list to be contacted. Lucky us, someone returned theirs last week but without the forks. So they called Julia to see if we wanted it and we got 25% off. We had baguette, little potatoes and roasted cauliflower for dipping and gherkins, cocktail onions and freshly picked mushrooms as palate cleansers. Fantabulous!