Goodness, if I don't write in my blog more consistently, no one will read it. (I wonder if anyone does in the summer, anyway, but I like to write so I will do it anyway and hope that I can be more consistent.)
Have you been getting outside and enjoying the unstructured time? (I know that it isn't unstructured for those of you who have jobs or are doing school things.) I find it difficult at first, to go from full on schoolwork to full on relax mode, but I think I am getting close at this point.
For the first week of the holidays, I went to Qualicum Beach on Vancouver Island. I had never been there before, although I have been to Parksville several times and also Nanaimo which are quite close. Qualicum Beach is a lovely town with lots of cute homes and little shops and the beach is terrific. We stayed at a hotel right on the beach and the view was terrific (even though there was a noisy road in between our hotel and the water). It seems like a place where people would go to retire, and I really liked it, but I don't think I could retire there. Although their museum was quite good and it is very walkable and there were a couple of good restaurants, here's one thing I was challenged by -- (and you'll say it is a very minor thing, but nevertheless) there is a nice theatre on the Main Street and I was interested in whether there were any shows on while we were there. There was a thing called "Bard to Broadway" or some name of that sort. Okay, that's promising. Then I looked at the shows and one was certainly Broadway -- "Chicago". But there was no Bard to be had! The other shows were "Baskerville" (about Sherlock Holmes) and "The Savannah Sipping Society", neither of which is remotely Shakespearean. I don't think you should call something "Bard" unless you're committed to doing something Shakespearean.
We found a couple of nice coffee shops for breakfast and one morning, we were sitting at our breakfast table and noticed a film shoot going on. It was for a tv show called "Chesapeake" (which I have never seen) and it was fun to watch the extras walk by the cute little house so many times and see the people setting up cameras and lighting equipment. It reminded me how boring it is to be on a film set -- it all seems to take so long and nothing really seems to happen. It's amazing that they ever get a finished product to show.
I went to the Port Moody Film Society's latest feature, which was "Maudie" starring Sally Hawkins (of "The Shape of Water" most recently) and Ethan Hawke. I just loved it. It was about this artist named Maud Lewis and her work and her life. I was going to write "difficult life" because she faced many challenges -- she had rheumatoid arthritis which gave her an ungainly walk and later made it painful for her to paint. Both her parents died when she was young and her brother sold the family home and left her with an aunt who wasn't very sympathetic to her. She got a job working as a housemaid for a harsh man with whom she had to share a bed (they later married and seemed happy together, even though they were poor and struggling). She had a baby out of wedlock and her aunt told her the baby died because it was so deformed, but it turned out that the baby was perfectly fine and her brother "sold it" for adoption. (They don't really explain if he actually sold the baby.). Anyway, the beauty of the story was that Maud didn't let the difficulties she faced stop her. She didn't even really let them BE difficulties. She accepted that things were challenging, and of course, they are for all of us, even if we don't have arthritis or have to face an unloving family or poverty. Obviously, she had enormous challenges to bear but she found great joy in painting and in the beauty of the world around her and she lived a pretty happy life and I loved her and her husband and the actors and the movie.
I've been reading a lot (just finished The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, which I recommend highly -- about a boy who also grows up in difficult circumstances -- he loses his mother in a mysterious terrorist attack -- and does let that awful event change him, and not for the better) and I have returned to the Aquafit classes at the pool (great for exercise and also fun because it's outside!). We are going out today to have our passport photos taken (we aren't going anywhere interesting because we have to have the roof replaced and that is going to cost a pretty penny), but it's important to have a valid passport, I think -- who knows? Maybe some kind mysterious benefactor will send us a letter and say that there are tickets for us at the airport for anywhere in the world we'd like to go! Where would you go? I'm not sure. There are lots of wonderful places in the world that I'd like to visit. I was thinking of going to London this summer, but then I have already been there. If it was a free ticket, maybe I would want to choose a more expensive place, but then, many of them would be very hot at this time of year. Maybe a nice trip to Prince Edward Island! There is this lovely hotel called "Dalvay-by-the Sea" near Cavendish and when I was there long ago, I thought it would be nice to stay there for a week or two, and just wander on the beach and see the L.M. Montgomery sights and eat lobster suppers and sit in the lounge at the hotel and have a drink and read. I think I've decided so if you're a mysterious person who wants to send me on a trip, I'm ready to go!
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