Spooky encounters on the ghost bus tour November 1, 2011

John Adams showed us his storytelling skills in a bravura performance during our ninety minute tour of some of Victoria's spookiest places.  John kept us spellbound with interesting stories about the ghostly events relating to houses, public buildings, roadways, and of course, cemeteries as we drove past on our magic and, for today, spooky, bus.

He spoke without notes and virtually without pause for the whole trip pointing out creepy dormer windows, graves, and even golf courses in which ghostly apparitions had been reported. These included St. Ann's Academy ...

.. and Ross Bay Cemetery - which also had some unspooky activities going on, such as leaf blowing and a party of school children making rubbings of some of the headstones.

We thought we would never see an actual ghost, but I did catch a glimpse of the giant head that sometimes appears at the cemetery - sometimes even in daylight as in this sighting.  The head appears to be partially obscured by an iPhone in camera mode.  Some say the giant head ghost (which is actually rather attractive in my view) appears because it is disgruntled that its new iPhone 4S is not yet available and it has to make do with a crummy iPhone 3.  Who knows!

According to John, this is the only picture of Isabella Ross, and people claim to have seen her ghost in the cemetery. I admit she does look rather scary.

And here is one of architect Francis Rattenbury, whose work we inspected last week at the legislature.

In a deliciously soap-worthy turn of events, Rattenbury was killed by his wife's lover, and his spectre is said to have been seen inside the Empress Hotel - another of his landmark architectural projects in the city. 

Lunch at Spinnakers and a short drive back to the centre rounded off our supernatural Let's Do It Day Trip.

The Legislative Assembly, October 26, 2011

This was an extremely popular trip, and it was interesting and enjoyable.

It's quite good to concentrate on and learn something new about something we see all the time and perhaps take for granted.

This picture is taken many times a day by many different visitors, but they don't all have this bright red jacket in them.

Inside, we saw the chamber before the afternoon sitting, which started with oral questions.

The rotunda has a fantastic mosaic at the bottom, and if you look up, the effect is celestial!

Fortunately these bag-pipes had been safely disarmed earlier and were secured in a glass case.

We saw several versions of the BC coat of arms.  The Latin apparently means "beauty without diminishment," literally, but this translates to Beautiful British Columbia! We agree!

The ledge is majestic without being pompous.  It's very light and airy considering the weight of the construction.  We were amazed that the main part of the construction took only 4 years - about as long as the blue bridge renovation is projected to take!

This beautiful stained glass window, made in Victoria, was a present from HRH the Queen for her silver jubilee.

This beautiful window commemorates Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. This one was made in Leeds in the UK and was lost in the ledge basement for decades before being re-discovered and replaced in a new location quite recently.

Outside, the winter pansies were already in place.

And there was another coat of arms...

The fountain was working

... and Queen Victoria was looking tall and regal on her pedestal and not at all like she did in the movie Mrs Brown.

What a great chance to renew our appreciation for this great building.  Our tour guide was excellent, and the restaurant was well worth a visit.  This was another great Let's Do It Day Trip!

Handy trip sheet

Print and cut out this handy trip sheet for your wallet/purse

Oct 26 BC Leg 10:00

Nov 2 Ghost Bus 10:30

Nov 9 No bus

Nov 16 Nanaimo Museum 9:15

Nov 23 Guided Tour of Base 10:00

Nov 30 Chemainus   10:30

Dec 7 No trip

Dec 14 Christmas chocoholics’ tour 10:30

Dec 21, 28 No trip

Little Qualicum Cheeseworks

What a fantastic trip to Little Qualicum Cheeseworks!  Our almost full bus made great time to the Trees Diner via a pit stop in Chemainus. The weather cooperated, and we had an incredible scenic ride to Parksville, thanks to our intrepid driver, John.

After a great meal we headed off to the cheeseworks.

We were greeted by the friendly farm poodle.

Then we checked out our ride.  We were thinking this might be a cool replacement for our bus (in both senses of the word!)

Half of our group got the wagon ride while the other half checked out the farm, starting with the milking area.  Then we switched so that we all got to do both.

With 8 stations - no waiting- the lucky cows got milked in about two and a half minutes each, and each one would about half fill the glass collecting bottle!

This calf was born last evening - it was about as big as a medium sized dog.

These white faces calves were a few weeks old and were much bigger than the new-born. These calves will not be milkers.

The pig sty was not as dirty as a pig sty! Pigs are clean and kept their waste to a bathroom area of the pen leaving the rest clean and dry for messing around and playing with the tyre.

 And that's no B/S.  This, on the other hand is B/S.

The wagon ride took us past the manure area and on to the original homestead cabin.

There was some commotion on the farm as they were moving the sheep into the barn. A bullock and the sole lama (Carl the lama) took the opportunity to escape and had to be wrangled back into confinement. Once Carl had his halter in place properly he had some food and gave us a photo-op.

We didn't see any unattended children....nothing ominous there!

Next was the cheese making tour and the retail portion of the visit - tasting and purchasing excellent cheeses and wine, not to mention some candies. And, of course, we called into Russels on the way back to the centre.  Everyone agreed that this was an excellent Let's Do It day trip!

Times Columnist, October 12, 2011

We were met in the lobby by Angel Crane from the circulation department who was our tour guide.  Waiting a few minutes gave us a moment to view the huge cedar sculptures from various angles.

Our tour was excellent, starting with the editorial department and a short presentation from the features editor.  We saw how the copy editing was completed and page layouts were created from his computer. Next we met Jack Knox who began with a (humorous) profuse apology for anything he may have written and who went on to describe his job as a columnist.  Today he was writing about Thrifty Foods co-founder Alex Campbell and was getting revved up for a rant about the senior air traveller who had her heart medications confiscated as she went through airport security in Calgary en route for Victoria. Apparently medications have to be in the bottle with the prescription label and not in a daily dispenser box. We agreed that this was an eminently rant-worthy topic.

Next we saw how the plates with the page layouts are printed and then went through to the press, which was on two floors of the building.  There we saw how the plates are used to print the final copies of the newspaper. The press guys explained how the process works - it's something like this. The TImes Columnist presses are not exactly like those on the page linked to, but the process is the same.

Finally we got to see how the paper inserts are put together and put into the finished newspapers.  We managed to get an explanation for why the TV TImes always seems to be folded incorrectly with half the pages wider than the other half. It's to allow for the bulky advertising inserts of course.

This was an excellent tour; we learned a lot in quite a short time.  The TC has a free on-line edition that is updated every day at least but which contains only limited content.  There is also a full version online that is only $11 per month and which includes all the content including puzzles and comics, full archive access, and full access to the other newspapers in the group including the National Post.  Home delivery subscribers to the TC get free access to the full electronic version.

The TC sells roll ends of newsprint for packing purposes, and people can also order mounted prints of photos or whole pages from the newspaper.

Todays paper...

...some ads and awards...

Next on our agenda was an excellent lunch at Princess Mary - the halibut was fresh today - say no more...

It's quite an interesting little spot...

and no-one else ended up in the brig.

An excellent scenic drive back to the centre rounded off a really good Let's Do It day trip!!

Let's Do It again soon....

And Slowly Beauty... October 5, 2011

And Slowly Beauty.. has been receiving rave reviews, and, seeing the play this afternoon, it was easy to see why.  The acting was very good, and the staging was excellent. Dennis Fitzgerald was warm and very credible as Mr. Mann, and the other cast members played a range of roles throughout the play. The play itself was thought-provoking, funny, and moving.

Thanks to Michael for an excellent scenic drive to the Fernwood Inn and a great stop at Mount Tolmie...

...with its excellent views, including one of either the worst case of moss ever or a grass roof without the aid of goats to keep it trimmed.

 Ah - and slowly beauty......

... and a handy guide for orientation.

The meal at the Fernwood Inn was great.  Overall, our two Belfry trips have been excellent.

Salt Spring is always great

Thanks to Michael for taking over as driver for this trip and for doing such a great job.

Here we are poised to get onto the ferry!

SInce we couldn't get a wine tasting, we decided to go for cheese instead and had a fantastic visit to the Salt Spring Island Cheese on our way up island. This turned out to be our best tasting visit yet.

On arrival, we were greeted by the owner and given a very interesting tour of the farm.

As we found out, there's quite a lot to making cheese.

The farm had some great opportunities for photography....

and some adorable livestock.  Salt Spring Island Cheese import goat and sheep milk from local suppliers and concentrate on the cheese making rather than dairy farming, so these guys are more decorative than productive.

They do sell eggs from some good looking and well cared-for hens.

The tasting and tour was free.  We got to cut our own pieces of cheese to taste on crackers, and there was a wide variety to try from absolutely fresh feta to some well cured hard cheeses.  The camembert type was especially good. The owner packed our purchases in a box with ice to keep them fresh. We will definitely be visiting Salt Spring Island Cheese again!

Ganges was beautiful as usual and a great place to browse and have lunch, and, of course, we called in to Russell Farms on the way back to the centre.