Living off the land

Tomato salad and squash bisque with fresh baked herbed scones for dinner, followed by the long anticipated blackberry crumble (or rather, as I am reminded when I look up my old recipe, blackberry crisp). Ah, the satisfaction of it all.

Okay, so the squash was from Pat’s garden, not mine, and it’s not as if I grew the wheat for the scones, but satisfying nonetheless.

Little culture update: the Gabriola Theatre festival was a blast. Saw three plays in three days. The first, Whisky Bars was absolutely first rate. Even bought the CD. The second, St Mark’s Gospel, was another bravura turn turn by our resident theatrical genius, Anthony Holland (retired founder of Langara College’s renowned Studio 58 theatre training programme) The third was Bed Among the Lentils, one of Alan Bennett’s delightful Talking Heads series of one act plays.

There was even a free Bob Bossin concert (though, sadly, he didn’t do the Nanaimo song).

This is only the festival’s second year and apparently it’s already acquiring quite a buzz in the world of thesps, so it’s likely to be a bloody marvellous annual event. (Whisky Bars in particular was as good as most things I’ve seen on the West End stage in the past decade.)

Off today for a mini break – four days visiting old mates Darryl and Morag on Malcolm Island, way the hell up the north end of Vancouver Island and then, like Gabriola, a 20 minute ferry ride. Darryl is managing to carve out a niche for himself doing photography work. Am looking for some tips on opting out.