Finally!

Here in November, it's snowy and very pretty. Back in Vancouver, it was early September and . . . steamy. Not meteorologically, perhaps, but horologically. To wit: the steam clock!

See the white wisps up around the top of the clock? Well, that's the clever use of a steam vent that the good burghers of Vancouver thought of, and Hub 1.0 -- pictured here with me -- just absolutely had to look see how it worked.

While we were admiring the clock -- which we visited twice to be sure to hear all its on-the-hour toots (which are silenced during the night, so we didn't hear it when we first showed up at -- yes, you guessed it! -- 9:00 a.m.), a street character engaged us in touristy conversation. He was quite nattily dressed for a homeless guy, and he had some good suggestions of where we should go and what we should do. We happily tipped him for his advice and headed off toward Chinatown. At that point, Hub 1.0 went off on his own for a further ramble.

The guys on the beach. Our flight wasn't until the evening, so we thought we'd go to the anthropology museum on the university campus. Upon arrival, we discovered we were literally two days late -- it had just closed for renovations. But that was okay -- we found a lovely bistro for lunch and then explored the coastline of this bay (inlet?) during the afternoon. After that, we returned the rental car and flew home.

Wow! It feels like just ten weeks ago that we did all that. (Actually, that's not even true -- it feels like a LOT longer than that. Something about all the legal work I did in October makes that trip seem like ages ago. Just think; when we started that trip, none of us had a clue who Sarah Palin was!)

Such a Nice Man

If you haven't been following along, the district attorney for my county commented on a blog post I did last year. (You can see the post, and comments, here.)

Well, as a result of my legal work, I've just had a chance to talk to him on an unrelated topic, and he's such a nice man. Which makes me feel good. Not about his Christmas columns (still gotta talk to him about those...) but about him, and the legal community here, and my small role therein.

So I retract my criticism of him personally, and I am genuinely sorry I judged him without talking to him first. I certainly shouldn't have written so harshly about him. But in a way, I'm glad I got to this place the hard way, because it humbles me (always a good thing) and because it reminds me that this is a good place.

I like Susquehanna County. I really do.

Autumn in Harmony

I'm back. I've commented on the election here. I've shown the quilt I finished in September here. My legal work has quieted down a bit. (We lost the trial against That Man. I'll let you know if there's to be an appeal. Everything else is continued, or pending, or resolved.) So now it's time to get this blog up to speed.

I'm down to the last day of our trip to British Columbia, although I still owe you photos of Hub 1.0's trek onto Mendenhall Glacier. I also have photos from our trip at the end of September to England. But for now, here are some pretty pictures of life in Harmony this autumn:

From September.

Early morning, to be exact.

And this was an early morning in mid-October.

I just love the colors in this photo. But you can tell we didn't do anything special for this shot. If we had, we'd have moved the recycling bin in the corner and tidied up the hose!

That's Just SO Two Months Ago

Finally -- we're nearing the end of our epic journey that only feels -- because of delays in my posting the photos! -- like it's taken over two months!

We stayed at this lovely bed & breakfast in Victoria:

It's right across the street from Canada House, the official residence of someone important. In fact, as we walked into town the first day, we saw someone important -- not the resident of the house in question, but a visitor. Still you can tell it's someone important when the car is a luxury town car (Jaguar? Mercedes? something like that) and it's got flags all over it.

Hub 1.0 and me on the porch. Our hostess was a lovely woman who did all the work. Our host was a voluble man who made all the recommendations as to where we should eat. It seems somehow fitting that the only bit of Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican Convention I saw was on the TV in the sitting room at this B&B.

This is Craigdarroch, a stately home open to the public -- it was right around the corner from the B&B -- we were clearly staying in a tony neighborhood! Actually, the point is that it used to be a tony neighborhood -- the mining tycoon who had Craigdarroch built owned a good bit of land, but when his widow died and the kids inherited, a lot of that land was sold and developed into more conventional suburban plots.

Craigdarroch is another pastiche of the stately English home that you find from time to time in North America. Inside is lots of lovely woodwork and stained glass windows; the original furnishings didn't survive because the building was used as a school for many years, and as a nursing home (I think; it's been a while). The current caretakers have gotten some furniture from the period, but it's the building itself that's worth visiting.

No particular reason -- I'm a sucker for early 20th Century children's book art. (Hey, I've spared you the photos I took of the floral collage entirely done in dried seeds -- so Victorian!)

This one's for Hub 1.0 -- this is a finial at the top of the curved staircase. This is precisely the sort of thing that gets Hub 1.0 to declare, "He's rather sweet!"

The view from Canada House (or whatever it was called). The gardens were open, and on some occasion Hub 1.0 and Starman wandered over for a longer walk. This and the following photos are their choices of what to photograph, so where with me you'd have gotten more flowers, with them you get -- well, you'll see.

A pretty view...

Interesting sculpture...

An arty backlit photo of Hub 1.0...

And a turtle. Nice job guys -- diversity in nature and in my blog. I love it!