Saturday

Today was V.I.C. Fest ... right in our front yard!

Okay, it wasn't really our front yard, but it was out our front window. The Vancouver Island Cultural Festival was held on the grounds of St. Ann's Academy across the street. We'd been assured it would be over by 10 pm so we were a little curious about the whole thing. The music started about 11 am and the organizers seemed to have it quite well organized. A good part of the grounds was fenced off, there were security guards all over the place, lots of volunteers, portable toilets (top left) at both ends of the venue, a big dumpster for garbage (far left), an ATM for cash (bright green van), and they even set up a 'smoking area' in the parking lot (closest to us) marked off with 'caution' tape.

At about 1 pm we walked around the perimeter just to see what we could see. There was a wine tent in the garden at the far side of the building (where they usually hold weddings), and a 'beer tent' in the orchard area, as well as local artist, clothing and food vendors at the front of the building. On the other side of the front walkway was the stage area. Here is a pic of us standing on the outside of the stone wall listening to one of the first local band to play.
We were a little worried about how attendance would be as the forecast for the day was miserable - showers! But it managed to stay dry after raining last night, and the sun even came out after dinner. We had a visit from three young local firefighters in one of their ladder trucks - not sure what they came to see. At one point it looked like they'd have to leave as they came running back to the truck, put on their turnout gear, but as they were about to drive off, it was cancelled at the last minute.

As the day went on we got hear several bands and had a birds eye view of the parking lot. It was quite a well contained and well behaved crowd. Amazingly the smoking room got used as intended and we felt like we felt like we got to know some of the more frequent attendees personally. It is now past 10 pm and sure enough, the bands stopped playing (after the obligatory encore) and the clean up has begun.
Just in case you're wondering, we also did various chores, laundry, grocery shopping, took another load of 'extras' to the donation drop off, and made sushi for dinner. Just another Saturday in Victoria. Life is good.