vancouver island

yesterday i went on a day trip to vancouver island. i went with a couple who have been involved in most of the gatherings i've mentioned but haven't gifted with a nickname, for some reason, so i shall now christen them smudge and puck. that being the names of their cats. gosh i have a gift for invention. *anyway*. puck was going to a bare naked ladies concert so we went over too, and spent the day touristing. i heard that vancouver island is the size of england. don't know if that's true. anyway, it's very beautiful, with lots of national parks and small snow capped mountains in the middle. we caught the ferry over, which took an hour and a half, the last bit weaving through little forested islands.

puck grew up on vancouver island, so we met up with one of his old school friends and got a tour of victoria, the main city on the island. it is hte capital of the province of british columbia. this is their parliamentary buildings:
it's an older city than vancouver (i think cos vancouver got burnt down a couple of times) and has lovely old architecture. apparently it's crawling with tourists in summer. we did some shopping (lots of funky little shops, kinda like brunnie st) and had some seriously good food.

speaking of which, eleanor and i made pizza on thurs night. it was fab. she made the sauce:

and i did the base (or "crust" - my vocab is still extending). not one of my best, but we only let it rise one-episode-of-buffy long:
smudge came round and helped us eat it.

that's about it for my news. i was hoping to go to a big slam poetry championship tonight but they've sold out and i don't fancy standing round in the rain on the off-chance one of the pass holders will fail to turn up. so that's a bit of a bugger, but gives me lots more time to catch up on all the masses of work i have.

yes, it's raining again, but my, what lovely weather we had for our trip! sunny and perfect.