Gaze at the moon

Gazing at the moon

Now that I am long past the ridge where the west commences, I’ve started staring at the moon, and Jupiter.  I haven’t completely lost my senses, but I’ve started collecting bugs to help my dad feed the two spiders that live in webs the size of dinner plates suspended between the ceiling and railing of my parents balcony, so perhaps I’m close.  He’s been nurturing them for months and now I’m helping by collecting earwigs and some kind of armadillo like things from under Barb and Terry’s plant pots.  Terry’s even getting into the game; he volunteered to put holes in the candy tin I collect them in.  I still haven’t seen one of the epic struggles my dad has described which sometimes end up with the web in tatters and the bug wrapped like a mummy and ready to be sucked dry.  The long view from the balcony is of the 14^th hole of the Oak Bay Golf Club, but for the moment the close up is much more riveting.  At night the moon is bright and Jupiter’s brilliant.

Fall comes much more gradually in Victoria than it does in the Gatineau.  There are shades of yellow, peach and red on some trees and bushes, but many trees that look deciduous never completely lose their leaves, so there’s still plenty of green and many flowers are still in bloom; the roses are especially remarkable.  I drove with mom and dad today to see the salmon run at Gold Stream, but it hasn’t started yet, so we walked along the paths among the enormous B.C. cedars and firs.  The last few days have been sunny and cool, perfect for walking.  I’ve also had good walks around the inner harbor with Barb a couple of mornings and I spend two or three hours every afternoon walking along different beaches and reading by the sea.  At one place I talked with two fishermen who had just caught a huge halibut.  One of them was filleting it very skillfully and I mentioned that my husband had been good at filleting.  We talked about pickerel, and I mentioned liking pickerel cheeks.  He took the cheeks out of the big blubber-lipped halibut head and gave them to me.  As neither of us had a bag, I walked back to the car, about 15 minutes away with one in each hand.  They were thick and the size of my palm.  We had them fried in butter as part of our dinner.  They were  quite stringy and tough, so either I did something wrong or ….  Today I walked to a Chinese Cemetery by the sea and took pictures of the gates and some of the stones.  On the way I saw a few art deco houses that reminded me of ours in Vernon so I took pictures of them too.