The Office

More like the view from the office really. I'm mostly pretending to work whilst gawping at snow-capped mountains instead.

We had a high of -6 degrees today. Toasty. I'm beginning to understand the lure of winter sports. How amazing to be up in the mountains in this weather with all this scenery around you?

And excuse the fitting if slightly random commentary, I was on the phone at the time.....

Dawgz

Spike, sleeping.




Max, sleeping.

Max, sleeping. Spike, pretending.

Max, sleeping. Spike, trying.

"We love our sleeping bag"

Bowen Island day trip

Just an AWESOME day. Lots of fresh snow on the mountains looking back to the sunshine coast. Me and my buddy Rachael having lots of fun enjoying the views and being mostly very silly.





Here's some of the mostly silliness.... more of this kind of nonsense on Facebook.

A video of the view from the ferry crossing the straight between Horseshoe Bay and Snug Cove. The sound is the almighty Squamish wind as the freezing air rushes down from the mountains out into the Georgia Straight.

New Snow

OK, so its all melted now, but these were the scenes a very very cold morning this week.






Fair comment, this last one isn't technically snow, but it is what warmed me up after returning from the icy morning walk and made me a smiley coffee bunny.

Horseshoe Bay Daytrip

Horseshoe Bay is the ferry terminal for ferries going over to Vancouver Island. It is less than an hour's bus ride from downtown Vancouver (provided you get on the correct bus....) but once there you already feel as though you're on the edge of the wilderness frontier.
That 'rock' in the middle of the bay has had many cameo roles in movies; keep an eye out for it pretending to be an alaskan or mexican rock!

Vancouver Graffitti

Just Vancouver

Birthday Kat

Celebrated my birthday with my good friend Michael taking me out for dinner at the Jericho sailing club. The eatery there is possibly the best place to view Vancouver over your dinner on their beachfront deck. Some good beer, salmon burgers and sunset across the bay - lovely! And Michael bought me a very pretty pendant which I'm showing off in these photos.

Animation film fest

It's the time of year for the Spike & Mike's animation film festival here in Vancouver. I found some of the best ones also on Youtube etc, so if you need an animation pick-you-up-giggle, take a peek at some of these.

Going West - for paper-cutting inspiration
For Sock's Sake - Clothes with personality
Stranded - I have no idea how to describe this
Western Spaghetti - my favourite all time image; post-it note butter!
A town called Panic - i like particulary that the horse has a yorkshire accent
Love & Theft - no need to take drugs kids!

WAM@MOA

The World Art Market at the Musum of Anthroplogy, the first of its kind, was held last weekend. A very inspiring gathering of artists from all over the world and from different traditions were present to not only sell their work, but also to demonstrate and discuss their craft.

There was a Japanese potter, who not only was making pots, but giving them out free as souvenirs! The photo is of the one that was given to me.






There were some artists from Mexico, from a region where the traditional is a form of painting created from yarn. A board is covered with beeswax and then individual threads are pressed on to the surface to build up incredibly bright, multi-coloured pictures with traditional symbols and motifs.

The closing ceremony for the fair was a show of traditional dances from the First Nation people of Haida Gwaii. They bought out a great variety of masks worn during the dances, which I believe we were very privileged to see, including a transformation mask which I had never seen actually being used in its proper context. The effect of seeing the mask being worn for the dance and then opened for the transformation at the end is spectacular.

Local Wildlife

I found this very impressive snail attempting a hazardous crossing of the courtyard. I bought him inside for a brief photoshoot in the kitchen and then set him back somewhere less likely to get stomped on and hopefully on something tasty to eat.

Saltspring

Saltspring Island is an hour and half ferry ride across the Georgia Strait from Vancouver. The ferry ride is worth doing alone, as you cut through narrow waters between the Gulf Islands. The islands rising out of the sea either side feel almost reachable from the ferry deck.




My landlady invited me to spend the weekend at her lake-side cabin on Saltspring.
We had an entirely pleasant time looking round the farmer's market, beach-combing and lake swimming.

Breakfast at Volunteer Park

I took my coffee for a walk through the park this morning; this was the view!

Sunset