Life in the Fast Lane

You know you're having a good day when the sun shines and you hear several people on the street whistling a tune. Not only that, but our toilet was replaced today!  Routine cleaning revealed a cracked bowl which was duly reported to the management company on Sunday and voila!

Our new ceramic throne.

October 31, 2011

From our pumpkin patch to yours - Happy Halloween!

October 16, 2011

Unknown flower on growing on the deck

View from the desk of Sooke Harbour

Squinting in the sun.

Did I mention that the weather in October was magnificent?  Start with a dollop of that, add a whiff of a seasonal offer, and throw in a gift certificate that is 4 years old and ... presto! ... we have the perfect combination for a mini-vacation at the Sooke Harbour House in Sooke BC.

Yup.  A beautiful 1-hour drive out to Sooke with all the fall colours, check-in shortly after 3 pm, tea on the patio, 3-course gourmet locally produced dinner starting at 5:30, and followed by dessert in front of the large roaring fire before retiring to our room.  We might have eaten too much, but it truly was too good to leave behind.

Sooke Harbour House - dining room on the main floor, our room above the red doors.

View from our room. Sigh.

A happy place.

After dinner, we turned out all the lights and lit the fire, and just sat there talking and watching it burn.  After a wonderful sleep, they bring breakfast to your room!  What a way to start the day .... checkout wasn't until noon.

October 15, 2011

The weather in October was pretty nice this year.  It got quite cool on many days but I was still able to ride my bicycle to work most days.  I bought fenders knowing that the rain is going to start pretty soon and I will be needing them.  One of these days, I'll actually attach them to the bike!

On Saturday the 15th, the sun was shining and it was warm outside. We knew it would be foolish NOT to take our tea to our favourite beach for one last picnic in the sun for the year.  So we made the tea and to celebrate we stopped at our favourite bakery (okay, one of them) and picked up a sweet for each of us to enjoy with tea.  Well, it was such a magnificent day, that we were obviously not the only ones with the same idea.  Not to be scared off by this, we found a different beach just a short distance away.

Fruit tart with custard

Thanksgiving

We were lucky enough to be invited out to our friends pub for Thanksgiving dinner today, so I had the opportunity to take my sweet old time doing whatever I wanted.  We slept in and had a late breakfast with our Sunday latte.  It was the Victoria Marathon today so we also spent some time looking out the window at the runners and their families coming back from their run.  Some had medals around their necks, some were limping a little bit, but almost everyone was enjoying the sunny Fall day.

After breakfast I started to clean up by washing the dishes.  I do this 'chore' almost daily, usually in the evening before bed as we have no automatic dishwasher in our little kitchen.  This is not an unusual situation for a rental apartment, especially in an older building like ours.  I don't mind as it reminds me on a regular basis how to be careful about how many dishes we use, how much soap we use to clean our plates, and besides, we only have so much counter space!  Because the dishes need to be done daily, I like to do them once only and leave them to air dry.  In the morning I put them away and start the whole process over again.  One of the things I enjoy the most about 'doing the dishes' is finding a way to put all, or at least as many as I possibly can, on the dish rack.  I treat it as a 3D spatial puzzle.  First I have to plan the order in which to wash the various pieces that require cleaning so they can be appropriately layered on the drying rack.  Since the best laid plans do not always work, I have to find a way to actually make them fit. I try use every available inch of the rack but still provide enough room for the air to actually dry the dish.  Included here is a photo of today's creation.  Can I really call it a creation? I'd like to think so.

Another of today's creations was we made our first batch of almond milk.  Yup.  Grind your own almonds, add water and little something to sweeten and/or flavour it and strain it through a nut bag .... ta da!  So no more hunting around for the best price on Almond Milk.  We make our own.  No extra packaging either.  Probably fewer calories, too!  However, I will have to find room on the drying rack for one more bottle, won't I? You can see the gauze nut bag hanging to dry beside the rack of dishes above.

Well that's it for today - a glimpse of some of my life's small things.  I have so much to be thankful for.  Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians!

Pie Confessions (or is it Concessions?)

Blackberry/strawberry pie

Seems I have a confession to make about this past week.  It is almost embarrassing to admit it, but hey, that's how it goes with confessions, isn't it?  Well, here goes .... it was 2 pie week!  Yup, I first felt the urge last weekend and because I had Monday off from work, I took the time to make gluten-free pastry and fill the cake with the last of the frozen blackberries we had hiding in the freezer.  I considered making it a bumbleberry pie as we didn't have quite enough blackberries for one pie filling, but ended up just adding some strawberries that were crying out to be included.  Since I wanted to make a pie with the lattice top, I doubled the recipe.  To roll out the pastry, I cut the ball in half and started rolling.  It became obvious that I had enough pastry for both the bottom shell and the lattice.  (Now, you know where this is going, right?)  Result:  One delicious blackberry/strawberry pie!  Plus the added bonus of one ball of pastry in the freezer ready for an impromptu pie baking at some later date.  I was very happy with this result and Peter agreed, although he didn't know about the frozen supply. Yet.

Well, maybe it was because I was generally pretty happy having a Monday off AND having some lovely pie that we easily consumed on our own in just 2 days, or maybe it was because Peter felt the same way, but I must have let it slip at some point that there was the 'backup' pastry in the freezer.  Maybe it was because Peter loves blueberry pie and he knew we had filled the freezer with this years bounty of frozen blueberries.  I don't know how it happened, but on Thursday I came home from work and Peter had made dinner including the best potatoes I have ever had, and had pulled the frozen pastry out of the freezer to thaw.  So, of course, we had blueberry pie that night before we went to bed.  All in all, a good time was had by all.

Blueberry pie