Victoria!

We spent a couple of days "Down Island". Norma's brother lives in Victoria and suffered a stroke a few months ago. He is now in a new nursing home and was having a small birthday party. Norma and I headed down, picking up our youngest granddaughter, Sierrah, along the way. We bought a couple of cakes, one regular and one ice cream, got to the residence and found Willea's room. It is a nice place if you have to be in such a place. His totally separate wing or "house" as they call it has twelve residents, each with their own room and a dining room. There are two male nurses dedicated to the wing and more support staff available when needed.

A bunch of Willea's friends as well as Norma's cousins, Al and Colleen from Nanaimo showed up for a piece of cake and some catching up. The leftover cake was taken by the nurses to the next wing to be shared. Happy 73rd, Willea!

We then went with Sierrah to the "Green Cuisine" vegan restaurant she works in on weekends for lunch. It was my first venture into a vegan sanctuary and was about as I expected. I had nut loaf, a couple of salads, kale, veggies and some other stuff I can't spell. It is "buffet style" where you take whatever you want, they weigh it and you pay by the weight. All three plates weighed $33, a good deal. Sierrah wanted to treat but Norma and I successfully wrestled the bill from the struggling part time working student!

We left Sierrah to meet up with her friends downtown and fled Victoria to face the "Calwood Crawl", the horrible, snail paced traffic mass leaving Victoria each day. An hour or two later we arrived at Brooks' home in Shawnigan Lake where we had a fun evening of pizza and couple of scotch.

We left early as they were getting ready for work and after I raided Brooks' burn pile, stopped at the Pioneer House for a delicious breakfast and got home before noon, exhausted!