Once upon a time

A couple of months ago I finally felt up to the task of going through the boxes of photos and memorabilia I’d left in the closet after Mike’s sudden death. In amongst the holiday snaps and opera programmes and baseball tickets I found one envelope which contained some photos of the house on the day we first came to see it and in the early months of our occupancy.

I thought those who’ve only been here in recent years (and those who’ve never been), might be interested in seeing the transformation since 1996. And now, thanks to Darryl very kindly scanning the photos for me, you can.

November 1995: We arrive with our estate agent (and friend) Patrick and his partner Jill to have our first look at 460 Spruce Avenue.

We enter through what will eventually become the kitchen, but on first sight is a utility room, with lovely fake wood panelling. (This photo was taken after we moved in, got rid of the ramshackle shelving and put in a table and chairs.)

More lovely fake wood panelling in what should obviously be the livingroom (it’s where the woodstove is, isn’t it?), but is being used as the diningroom. (The “kitchen”, such as it is, is in an alcove off this room.)

The big front room, with wonderful picture windows on three sides is being used as the livingroom. This room and the semi-finished basement underneath it (see below) have been added on to the small cottage at some point.

What we fail to notice on our first or second visit is the lack of a single electrical outlet in either of the extension rooms.

And this tiny room, purporting to be the bedroom, seems as it if might be the deal breaker. By the time you put a double bed in here, there wouldn’t be room to swing a cat – and we have two. (Not that either of them particularly enjoys being swung around rooms.)

But then I say to myself (and Mike): “Wait a minute, this house is backwards. The big front room, with all the windows, is where the bedroom should be, so you can wake up in the morning and see all the trees.” (At this point I actually lay down on the carpet in the front room to illustrate my point.) The livingroom should indeed be where the woodstove is, the kitchen should be where the utility room is and the diningroom should be where the so-called bedroom is.

And, as for the basement, it should one day be the study and spare room, complete with its own bathroom.

Speaking of bathrooms…

Just kidding. Although I don’t have a picture of it, there was actually a bathroom (same dark fake wood panelling as the middle room – and lovely orange carpeting), but the outhouse – until it was felled by a tree knocked over by a wind storm – did come in handy during winter power failures when the pump wasn’t working and the indoor toilet couldn’t be flushed.

After longer than expected negotiations with the owners, we finally moved in with same spare furniture in February 1996.

That was the weekend we first discovered the lack of plugs in the front room, making it necessary to make the acquaintance of an electrician as soon as possible. It was also the weekend when we finally registered that the middle room didn’t actually have a window in it.

Several weekends later it did (see new window on left), thanks to Tom, the wonderful handyman we discovered, who played a pivotal role in all future fixes.

Another thing we didn’t have was a woodshed.

So, in the summer, Tom and I built one. (Yes, that really is me on the roof.)

And then we were ready for the following winter.

The kitchen gets moved. Skylights are installed in most rooms. Painting over the fake wood panelling helps, but several years go by before we can renegotiate a bit extra on the mortgage to start the dream renovations.

The wall between the kitchen and spare bedroom comes down.

Work begins in earnest on the basement conversion (although Tom and I have long since built and insulated a downstairs bathroom/laundry room in one corner).

And, as for how it looks today (and with thanks again to Irmani for her help with the down with brown project), click here. .

Ton of bricks

The dastardly fucking deer have now gone for the mint. Really? Bastards.

So, a trip to the garden shop to buy a replacement mint, which I plant down in the garden – definitely not as convenient as just outside the kitchen door.

Dedicated followers of this hapless horticulturist blog may remember when I first started the herb garden by the kitchen.

The project involved the dismantling of a brick “feature” created by one of the many idiotic workmen Mike once employed.

Two years later I’ve finally figured out some use for all the bloody bricks (other than the ones Darryl and I used to weigh down the tarp on top of the leaking woodshed).

Look, an actual vegetable plot.

The stick marks where I’ve planted the first of the lettuce seeds. Wild rocket (arugula here – why?) seeds are germinating. The last time I tried to grow rocket from seed it committed suicide. But not this time, oh, no. This time I haven’t just hoped I had soil in my garden capable of nurturing life. This time I’ve dug in manure and lime. This time the rocket (and lettuce) will thrive. Not only that, but the wild rocket is a perennial. I will have rocket for salads every year for the rest of my life. (Short break while I cross my fingers.)

And look, another bed!

Oh, my god, how good is this well manured and limed soil? It’s a miracle.

Oh, okay, I bought and transplanted broccoli, cauliflower and cabbages. Yes, I cheated, but after the disappointments of 2010, I need some guaranteed results.

The purists can scoff. Someday I may, too – but that will be after I figure out how I can afford and where the hell I can put a greenhouse.

Preserving myths

In the larder I now have bottles of peach and raspberry chutney (delicious, I discover, on the pork chops Mike’s bought for dinner), pear and blueberry chutney and pickled beets. How cool is that?

Well, it would be way cooler if I’d actually made any of these delicacies. I could claim I did, but that would, not even strictly speaking, be untrue. Along with a small basketful of lovely stones collected from the beaches of Malcolm Island, the preserves are a souvenir of a recent visit to Morag (maker of said preserves) and Darryl, old friends from Greenpeace toxic days, now living in Sointula.



And, yes, it is every bit as pretty as Darryl’s poster suggests (although the mountain in the background is not on the island, but one of the coastal mountains seen on a very clear day).

Was quite looking forward to the long drive from A (Gabriola) to B (Sointula).

Glove compartment full of old favourite CDs to play at high volume and sing along to on my way up the island highway. (Singing alone in the car being the only time I can let rip musically without people clapping their hands over their ears and begging for mercy). Unfortunately, as I discovered soon after I got onto the highway at Nanaimo, the CD player in the car has died. Bugger. Oh, well, will just have to listen to the radio. Hmm. No signal of any description (let alone CBC, which I want) seems to be available anywhere on the radio soon after I clear Campbell River. And now the “highway” is two lanes, it’s pouring with rain and I keep getting stuck behind logging trucks for miles until I have a shot at overtaking them. Not quite as enjoyable as I’d anticipated.

Still, despite rain and logging trucks, I make such good time I am able to catch the 4:05 ferry from Port McNeil, rather than the 6:30 I’d been aiming to catch. (Turns out Morag’s estimate that it was a five hour drive from Nanaimo to Port McNeil had been based on people who, unlike her – and me – actually stick to the speed limit.) So, of course, when I arrive two and a half hours early, they are not home. Never mind, I get to enjoy the view from their deck, which, if I’d had any trouble figuring it out before, makes it easy to understand why they traded in a leaky condo in Vancouver for a home in this outpost.


Not bad, eh?

They arrive back soon afterwards from a trip to Sointula’s only food shop (the oldest co-operative in BC, apparently) with news that earlier that afternoon a pod of whales had spent an hour rubbing on the beach by Bere Point. Sadly for Darryl and Morag, this news came second hand from someone at the Co-op.

Hardly surprising that we spend chunks of the next two afternoons hanging out on said beach to see this.



Wish I could say we did, but all we got were some dolphins in the distance and one seal (who I swear was a scout for the whales, sent to warn them if there were any witnesses). Morag and I did, however, get hours of enjoyment out of throwing stones at a log. What a lot of fun you can have doing absolutely nothing.

PS Despite it turning out that the Sointula pub, the Rub (for whale rub, not rub a dub dub) was holding a karaoke on the Saturday night and despite my inability to sing along with old favourites in the car, I was not tempted to get up and sing.

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.