Island View Beach – Summerhouse Art

strawberries What a lovely weekend, hot, sunny and full of surprises.

We went out yesterday to get strawberries. We go every year to the same place, a little stand on Veyaness Rd where a grandmother in her sari sells us a flat of lovely strawberries. This afternoon, they will become a few jars of freezer jam. And will taste as fresh as they are today. Nothing like local strawberries.

Then after a stop for lunch and iced tea in Sidney we decided to take the long way home. Does that make you think of that song by Supertramp? Oh go on and enjoy it on youtube. I apologize in advance for the youtube ads.

And headed off to Island View Beach. Ah lovely ocean breezes, so cool and refreshing.

sunbathers kids-on-beach With the strawberries keeping cold in a cooler ( we think of everything, dontcha know) we spent a bit of time walking the beach.

After making another stop to get the smallest of new potatoes for a summer salad, we headed up a road we’d never been on before. Isn’t that what you might do on holiday, discover somewhere you’ve never been before?

As I’ve maybe mentioned before, since we live in our fave holiday destination and actually don’t take the usual holidays we designate every summer weekend as our holidays. And this one little diversion ended up feeling like a holiday in the south of France … except, all the signs were in English. Ok I admit I’ve never been, but I’m pretty sure it’s just like this, except for the signs….

So here we are, meandering in lovely green countryside….

road-near-grapes1

with a farm lady whizzing by on a tractor…

tractor

on our right, a dappled horse grazing in a meadow.

horse-grazing We discovered acres of grape vines for wine? Mind you looking at the photo today, I’m wondering….maybe kiwi? Never mind, imagine grapes in the south of France, ripening in the hot sun….

grapekiwi near rolling farm land.

hay-field It felt like a holiday to us as we meandered along, drinking iced tea and stopping at every good photo spot on the long way home.

Now that Garage Sale season is over, we’ve taken to having strolls instead. And we always take our little camera, since we never know what we might see on our travels. Last week had it’s share of interesting sights.

First off, the usual, but still lovely, sites like this backlit sunflower on the Gorge Walkway.

sunflower-in-sun

Or the Arbutus tree angling upward in a blue sky.

arbutus-in-light

Or the eye-catching orange berries set off so nicely by the leaves. Mother Nature never gets her colors wrong.

orange-berries

Then to the more unusual…. like this tree. Is it half dead or is it half alive? Sorta like half full or half empty. But an oddity all the same.

half-dead2

This weekend we headed out to Beacon Ave Beach. Well, that’s what I call it. It’s at the end of Beacon Ave in Sidney and it’s a gravely beach. But the real reason we go there is to find the lovely beach pottery shards and beach glass that is, for some reason, quite plentiful there.

This Saturday’s unusual site was some divers doing exercises.

And when they emerged they did look a little bit otherworldly. But look closely to the bottom left and you will see a little Pixie with pink wings looking for beach glass too. I’m pretty sure she’ll have those wings on tonight for Halloween don’t you?

divers-and-pixie

Then off to a cafe for a Decaf Cafe Mocha for me and a Dark Roast for Bill, along with some rather nice Carrot cake. From the window of the cafe, we saw another unusual site. A little horse, drawing lots of attention for its owner, who just happened to be running as a candidate for election. Here Buckley (his name) is getting a nice scratch for an irritating itch.

candidate-with-little-horse1

We finished up having another stroll on Island View Beach. This beach just stretches out forever it seems. Hardly anyone there that day and it was lovely. We made a promise to come back much more often.

island-view-beach

Tag: Island View Beach

Strawberries and the long way home…

The Usual and Slightly Unusual Sights Found on Fall Strolls