HOT DOME DAYS

"You can smell the heat coming up from the earth..." -Peter Mayle

Smoke over the dome

Roses wilting

Burning in the heat

"If you saw a heat wave, would you wave back?"

                     - S. Wright

Patience shining like a sun himself

Simon giving in to the flops

Smoky coral sky at night

"I can dream of icicles and snow...." -Harding

Wild Sweet Peas.......love the heat. The annual ones are dying off without blooming.

Pink clouds morning noon and night

Blooming then drying up in the heat

Only Cordelia stands fresh  and cool

Nights of orange

Days of mauve

"It keeps one in a state of perpetual inelegance" 

-Jane Austen

Over the ocean

Rona curls like a stretchy noodle in the heat

Paper roses really do turn to paper in the heat, in the Crunchy sun of day...

"And night at last. At last it is night. Orange turns to gold, and dark at last..." -R. Raphe

Photographs 2021

 

I wish I could remember.....

SONNET by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830-1894) excerpts

I wish I could remember that first day

First hour, 

First moment of your meeting me

If bright or dim the season, it might be Summer or Winter

For aught I can say

So unrecorded did it slip away

So blind was I to see and to forsee

If only I could recollect it, such

A day of days!

I let it come and go

As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;

Meant so much

If only now.......

I could recall

First touch of hand in hand

Did One .......

But know!

Rossetti wrote romantic, devotional children's poems, 

plus a couple of famous Christmas carols: In the Bleak Midwinter and Love Came Down

Photographs 2021

 

Lá an athar Shona (Happy father's Day)

"La an athar Shona" (Happy father's Day)

1950's my Dad on the wooden docks in the Inner Harbour, near the Empress Hotel, Victoria. He had just come off work and was  really wanting to not pose for pics, but my Mother insisted. He didn't have a hat at the time. She liked him to wear one.

1950's  "Pretend to play the guitar with your sister, Davey."  Apparently they were singing "She'll be coming round the mountain..."

June 27th, 1955. My mother giving camera directions with the dog they adopted for a few years. That dog loved my mother so much.  Her parents in tow, Davey in the back,and company on the side. Dig the plaid.

1936 Honeymoon on the "Kathleen" CPR passenger ship was built to replace the Princess Margaret which was used during WW1. King George V! and Queen Elizabeth travelled on the Kathleen in 1939.

1930's Corn fields at Bethune farm. 

1933. Mum and her dad, Robert Shiels, on an early visit, before she  married my dad. 

1950's With my grandmother and the adopted dog. My dad would sit with her, outside, in the afternoons, I was told. He would read to her ,as she was blind.  She and my grandfather loved my dad. The dog  would often sleep on her blanket covered feet.

1940's Mr. Cool. Looks like a dectective or a gangster.

1935. Stanley Park. Nice warm June. My mother made him wear his hat for the pic. He never liked wearing a hat.

1949 With niece, Sheila Murray at Stanley Park.

1940's Vic West. Looking like he stepped out of a gangster movie. That darn hat again.

1930's early days before he married  Nessie. No hat. My mother said he should have had one. But she took the pic anyways.

1950. December on the farm.  Working horses. Even the horses liked my dad. They would slobber on his sweater and pull on the yarn. Years later I found it in the closet, with big pulls taken out of the  rows.

1936 on the Kathleen. in 1939 it was used as a troop ship. Was returned to Canada for  cruises to Alaska in 1949.In 1952 she ran aground at Lena Point in Alaska. Everyone was rescued. She sank into the ocean. My mother always thought that was neato, that they sailed on a famous ship. She made my father carry his hat with him, even on the ship.

1932. Football. He loved to play football.  Didn't require a hat. My mother thought he looked spiffy in this pic, even though his team lost.

1950's San Juan Capistrano. Pigeons everywhere. Pooping pigeons.  Later he told my mother he wished he had a hat. They kept sitting on his head.

1930's Old Esquimalt wooden bridge. It's been replaced a few times. They were headed to the Princess Kathleen.

1940's On board a coast ship. Working hard .

1950's  Out for a walk downtown Government Street, Victoria. Photographers would take your photo. My mother loved this pic. She thought she looked spiffy and so did my dad cause he looked complete with a hat. (I think he still looks like a cool gangster)

1955 approx. One of the last pics of my grandparents together. A simple life they lived their last years with my mom and dad who took care of them. That old tree was soon cut down, I was told, after my grandmother died.  It had become hollow and whistled in the wind. 

Nov 21 1936. Wedding day. No hat. But I still have the net ribbon from her bouquet. Her wedding dress she stored in an old wooden trunk and I found it rancid with oil and stained with brown streaks. But the ribbon was  pretty much untouched. One of dad's old hats was at the bottom of the trunk. It was crushed and smelled of mold.  I can still see him looking  cool with his hat. Wearing it to please my mother....

Vintage photos 2021