Looks like it will be three posts, just to keep things a little more manageable. We had an extra long weekend on Galiano, followed by a new experience at the new Oakridge Park, a night out at Bard on the Beach and a Whitecaps game. The summer just keeps coming fast and furious!

A Long Weekend on Galiano (July 30th)

With the BC Day holiday on Monday, we headed to Galiano on Thursday night and stayed all the way through Monday night. It was a nice long stretch and we were hoping to relax and have a fun weekend.

We took the 7:30 ferry to Galiano, which as per the norm, was running 45 minutes late. We got up there around 9:30, already noticing that our nice, long summer days are already shortening. We relaxed and then spent Friday working.

On Saturday (Aug 1st) I golfed in the morning and we got a bunch of stuff done around the property. We spent quite a bit of time watering the gardens and the orchard and the rest of the trees around the property. Everything is so dry and most of the plants are really suffering. After getting the irrigation on the garden sorted and replanting most of the garden things are starting to come along and we’re starting to get some harvests (finally). It’s also blackberry season, so we got out and harvested a good haul from the bushes on the property.

The garden is getting better, but so many of my plants just bolted and went to see. Like my fennel - it’s like 4’ tall and never formed proper bulbs

The asparagus did really well. The hops, not so much.

Beets, peas and swiss chard

The blackberries were awesome. We froze quite a few this year.

The full harvest, out of the basket.

The hydrangeas bounced back well, after the lack of water at the beginning of the season.

Late morning, David and Tova stopped by on their way to go mushroom foraging up past our place. We tagged along – never a bad time to look for mushrooms. We did a nice hike and found a few. Summer is not the best time, so it was fun that we found a few. As we walked back, Tova remembered that we were close to one of the biggest trees on the island. So we did a bit of bushwacking and found it. It’s a really big Douglas Fir. Doing a bit of a lose measurement we think that the circumference was somewhere between 21 and 25’. I guess they missed this one in all the harvesting. It was very cool to see and it’s nice to know that some big trees remain on the island.

We found the big tree!

It’s an absolutely massive Douglas Fir that survived all the harvesting on the island while owned by Macblo.

The people in the photos really help with scale.

It was a fun morning out, a nice hike and there were mushrooms!

Our hike, including the short offshoot to the big tree.

Sunday was another fun day. I golfed in the morning, and then we pretty much just relaxed. There was some bocce, and in the afternoon we again met up with David and Tova to do an early dinner at Crane and Robin before heading to Montague to do some kayaking and paddle boarding.

Dinner at Crane and Robin was excellent, as usual. It was surprisingly a lot less busy than I expected and we got a seat right away which was nice. We all ordered the usual things, and we had a nice dinner. This time of year, high tide is later in the evening, so doing things at the beach was well suited to our later start. The tide was nicely in when we arrived, and the water was a lot warmer than I expected. Usually, the Montague side is frigid – this time, it wasn’t too bad. Still cold – it is the Pacific Ocean – but manageable.

It was a beautiful night out on the water - and it was surprisingly swimable!

David and Tova had a Stand-up Paddleboard (SUP) and we have our inflatable kayak. Both allowed us to lounge on the very calm waters and enjoy the evening. We had a secondary mission, which was to do some SUP practice. When we go to Antarctica they have SUPs on the ship, and we did not want the first place that we’d used one in years to be in Antarctic waters. Falling in will be very different there!

Justine and I both got some practice time on the SUP and we all also got in for a swim. It was a lovely, relaxing evening. And I only fell in once while using the SUP – when Justine tried to climb on at the same time.

Monday August 3rd was BC Day, and a holiday. It was also a very momentous day in my golfing career. Today I managed my first Hole in 1! I have been golfing for almost 40 years, and while I have come close, never managed to pull one off. This one was also on quite a difficult (albeit short) hole - #4. While less than 100 years, it’s from an elevated tee box to an elevated green, and one that if you miss, you’re guaranteed 5 or worse. It’s a tough hole. I’ve been close on this hole before, but this was one hop and in! And while I was golfing solo, one of the greens keepers saw it, so I have a witness! I was very excitied all day.

It was actually one of the worst rounds I played all year, but if that’s the cost, I’ll take it!

The rest of the day was relaxing – gardening, bocce and time on the deck. But eventually we needed to take the ferry home and get back to reality. And boy was it going to be a shock.

The baby barn swallows at the golf course finally fledged and were learning to fly.

The succulents we planted in the box on the deck are doing well.

Justine got some interesting varieties that are looking good.

They are even starting to spread a bit.

It wa sa lovely sunset on the ferry home.

A First Visit to Oakridge Park (Aug 5)

Up at 41st and Cambie there was a mall called Oakridge Centre that has been there since the 1950s. It’s always been a high-end mall – mostly luxury retailers, so it wasn’t a place that we went to often. There were an Apple Store and a Lego store, so that was interesting, but generally it wasn’t much of a draw for us. It is right on the Canada Line, so it made it very transportation accessible.

Redevelopment of Oakridge Centre began in 2019, following years of planning and a 2014 rezoning approval. And when I say redevelopment, I mean they tore down the whole mall – an 11-hectare (28-acre) site—roughly the equivalent of eight city blocks.

They are transforming a shopping malls into a complete community named Oakridge Park—a mixed-use community featuring luxury retail, homes, offices, civic amenities, and a nine-acre rooftop park. Oakridge Park will ultimately feature 10 residential towers with more than 4,300 homes – a huge increase where there was no residential development before. Oakridge Park reimagines the site as a modern cultural and residential hub for the city.

They opened part of the mall on May 28, with about 650,000 square feet of high end retail (the crazy stuff most of us cannot afford) and dining, while the broader 28-acre community will continue to be completed through 2029. The residential buildings are still being finished and a lot of the “regular” retail (Safeway, Liquor Store etc.) are still being finished. The roof top park is also partially opened, and so we decided we wanted to finally go up and check it out.

Up on the rooftop park looking at a couple of the unfinished residential towers.

They built this really good looking exercise circuit that looks pretty cool.

And it looks like there will be a running track around the park.

The new buildings look really great. And they are big. We can see the development (with binoculars) from Galiano.

Heading into the Time Out market are these maazing wooden doors. I can’t imagine where they found the trees for these.

The main draw is the new 51,000-square-foot Time Out Market, a curated food hall featuring 20 kitchens, three bars, and some of Vancouver's best chefs and restaurants. Think high-end food court (with the associated prices), but in a very upscale setting. The place is really cool – many of the better known restaurants are participating. Justine got dumplings and I got pasta and both were outstanding. The food actually gets prepared – you do have to wait for it – and it’s somewhere between true restaurant quality and a food court.

It was a good experience and being able to get there without driving is a nice touch.

Bard on the Beach – Macbeth (Aug 6th)

We had a very busy week – Thursday night I had bought us tickets to Macbeth at Bard on the Beach. Over the years, Bard has been a mainstay of my summers – usually attending 2-3 plays each summer. Over the last few years that has declined as I have been unhappy with the direction they have taken with many of the plays. I’ll admit, I’m a traditionalist when it comes to Shakespeare, and current artistic directors seem to really want to mess with the plays. The “time shifting” has been common for years, and that can be OK, but lately it seems like they want to make them musicals, or really change the setting to something that just doesn’t make sense.

A couple of shots of the stage before the play started.

My hope had been that Macbeth would be more traditional. And it was. Sort of. They set it in a post-apocalyptic setting, which while fine, I found stretched the credibility of ht text of the play. I’m not sure how, when you’re set in a bunker for one of the final scenes, "till Birnam Wood remove to Dunsinane" and can come ot the “castle”. It’s kind of important to the plot. And sadly, the casting keeps getting worse year after year. The tow leads were good, but many of the supporting cast were weak. Overall I enjoyed it, but it’s still not what I look forward to.

Whitecaps Game (August 7th)

After a long break from the World Cup being in Vancouver, the Whitecaps were back on the pitch at BC Place. This game was not an MLS game, but was a League Cup match (which we lost). Outplayed them but came up empty. There’s been (frustratingly) a lot of that lately. Still, we had a fun night and the views over False Creek were lovely.