Summer Food Fun and Drink 11 Scented Garden Bed and Breakfast Chemainus · 18 July 2010 by colin newell
In addition to seeing “Guys and Dolls” this weekend, we stayed at a wonderful B&B in Chemainus British Columbia.
Located on Maple Street in Chemainus, The Scented Garden B&B could not possibly be located in a more quaint neighborhood – nor could it be more suitably located relative to the Chemainus theater.
Just four houses from the beach and steps to the center of Chemainus village and a leisurely 7 minute stroll to the Chemainus Theater – convenient!
The surrounding neighborhood is thick with character houses and a short walk to the World famous “town of wall murals”.
I have stayed in a few B&B’s – and Andrea has been in dozens and dozens – and this was one of the sweetest. Beautiful inside and out. The Scented Garden has two suites (both large) and the one we stayed in (Island Thyme) was huge with a massive soaker tub and a shower big enough for 4 people.
Breakfast selections change regularly but we had a superb French Toast with whipped cream and edible flowers. Best French bread since Hawaii folks! Other items include Yogurt, granola, breads, juices and big pots of great coffee and an English pot of tea.
Rick & Micheala O’Doherty, who run Scented Garden, felt like family within minutes of meeting them – I would not hesitate to stay there again – and encourage others going to the Theater or visiting Chemainus or using the area as a base camp as a jumping off point for other Vancouver Island exploration options to consider a long stay.
It was a great weekend indeed!
Summer Food Fun and Drink 10 Guys and Dolls Chemainus Dinner Theater · 17 July 2010 by colin newell
Andrea and I hit the road Friday for Chemainus, British Columbia and the Chemainus theater for their presentation of Guys and Dolls.
Ten Tony awards, seven Laurence Olivier and six Drama Desk Awards make Guys and Dolls an lovable piece of twenties Americana. Luck Be A Lady was the one song that rung bells for me – and although I am more of a Gilbert and Sullivan kind of guy, I found Guys and Dolls well paced, and lively with a cast of journeymen actors (some of whom multi-tasking in the orchestra!
The velvet smooth Sky Masterson, played by David Leyshon was perfectly cast with vocal wunderkind Megan Morrison as Sarah Brown. The subplot of Miss Adelaide (Janet Gigliotti) and Nathan Detroit (Robert Clarke) keeps the audience busy with its heartwarming storyline of unrequited patience – Described as the perfect musical comedy; Gangsters, card sharks, night club headliners and the Salvation Army – is a high energy show that would resonate with anyone a tad over the age of 40 – some of the situations and “lingo” might miss the mark for the younger crowd – but everyone seemed to have a blast.
The Chemainus theater has 274 seats in a very steep “Savoy” style and design which puts you in the action. The stage area is inches from the front row – and in the case of Guys and Dolls, the set was simple but immensely innovative.
At the last moment Andrea and I opted for the dinner buffet in lieu of searching in vain for Chemainus cuisine (I am sure there are other street choices but I did not dig that deep.) The buffet, at around 25$ per person was staggering with interesting and fresh choices, an enticing salad bar with some modern choices, hot entree’s included wild salmon, vegetarian ravioli, carved strip loin and BBQ pork ribs. The dessert table buckled under pancreas stressing cheesecakes, pecan flans, fruit pies, cream pies and an ice cream sundae attendant!
Guys and Dolls plays matinee and evening shows through September 11th 2010 – Don’t wait. Get your tickets now. We are actually considering going in for seconds!
While in Chemainus on the Friday night, we stayed at the ultra-romantic Scented Garden B&B – going to blog that shortly.
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Summer Food Fun and Drink Chapter 5 Working with Wood at Camosun · 30 June 2010 by colin newell
Download the Fine wood-working schedule here – Camosun-Woodworking-Summer-2010.pdf | We spoke with Betsi Davis (bdavis@camosun.bc.ca) at Camosun in the Continuing Education dept. about some of their fine wood working courses for the summer of 2010. There are a few of the courses that are in jeopardy of not happening owing to enrollment minimums not being met.
Two in particular are “ Veneering and Inlay” course and the “Wood Carving Level 2” which are never offered outside of the Summer Woodworking Institute in July.
I have attached the pdf brochure for the courses. Let’s get the word out.
Attached a handout on our Woodworking Summer series of courses as requested.
Betsi says… “As you now know, we need to meet a minimum number of students to run any course and by sharing this information with you – and having you share this information with your colleagues, we could possibly meet the minimum requirements for those upcoming courses that we discussed.
Again, thank you for your input and your efforts!”
Betsi Davis – Administration
Trades & Technology – Continuing Education
Camosun College – Interurban Campus
250-370-4563
Final Rite of Spring #39 - Let's attack the poor - it's fun · 21 June 2010 by colin newell
In Canada we have ancient magazine pushers like Readers Digest – who prey on the elderly with their micro-font contract deceptions and postal station busting book dumping binges…
Neoconservative Liberal funded think tanks that trumpet their masters every word (for a price…) – like how good the HST is going to be for us regular folk.
(And) Seemingly reputable publicly funded media outlets, like the CBC, that re-bleat and tweet every utterance of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation
Photo above right – Minister of Housing and Social Development, Rich Coleman
And all of this sort of makes sense – I mean, Readers Digest is a company that profits from sort of legally manipulating our elderly and vulnerable into parting with their retirement savings – I mean, sure, the elderly can eat pet food, yea?. (And)If we paid more attention to our seniors, a lot of these abuses would not happen.
And the CBC – well, it has a symbiotic relationship with Big Banks, Conservative think tanks and professional realty pundits and so on. Everyone wins in this game.
And I am not being cynical… really. I’m not. Yet anyway.
What I do not get is the Liberals twitchy and obsessive fixation with going after the most vulnerable in British Columbia society (yes folks, even the poor are part of our society…)
In late May 2010, the minister responsible, Jabba Rich the Hut Coleman, said the ministry had filed 317 cases in small claims court seeking repayments. Some of the cases involved fraud, while others may have filed incorrect information that resulted in over payments, he said at the time.
A single employable person (on social assistance) in BC gets 235.00 a month for food…and 375.00 for shelter. In Victoria or Vancouver that will not rent you a greasy corner of a garage.) Ironic that Coleman’s first name happens to be “Rich”!
Can you imagine an over-payment for a welfare recipient? What would that be? An extra $25 a month over the period of a year? A real back breaker that, yea?
In a Province that hands out millions in visibly excessive over compensation to corporate, government and academic fat-cats – Well, it is genuinely cynical… sick… miserable. And doesn’t make me feel particularly good about the place I live, my community, my society, my leaders or my Province.
And that’s where I am coming from. And thus ends a 39 part series on Springtime in Victoria B.C. Canada. Time to move on.
Rites of Spring #36 - B.C. Mudslide - so what the heck went wrong · 18 June 2010 by colin newell
A week ago today (Last Friday) an Osoyoos hiker near the Testalinden Lake, Oliver B.C. noticed the water was over spilling the earthen dam and contacted a local B.C. tourism office…
which in turn alerted the RCMP…
and then the RCMP notified the provincial government…
…two days before Sunday’s catastrophic mudslide…
And then. Nothing.
Until Sunday… then… Whoosh!
The RCMP informed the forests ministry because the hiker said the overflowing water was muddying a road beside the lake…
…which the RCMP thought would be a forestry road. And they were right.
Our honorable Minister of Public Safety, Mike de Jong, was not available for comment.
A dam gives way, wiping out five homes near Oliver causing millions of dollars of damage to homes, farms and infrastructure – and nothing from our leaders.
Grower Kathy Mercier, who raised grapes for Toronto-based wine giant Andrew Peller Limited, experienced a near total loss on her seven-acre property.
“Think of a giant lava flow, that’s exactly what it looks like. And it stops right on top of my Merlot,” said Mercier.
She also ran a popular B&B in the area – and it was crushed by a combination of mud, tree trunks, refrigerator sized boulders and random automobiles.
Mercier, whose insurance will not cover the devastation, said her neighbors recall regular inspections of the lake decades ago, but in recent times those checks dwindled and then all but stopped.
Affected residents in Oliver may be eligible for disaster assistance compensation of 80 per cent of their losses above $1,000 to a maximum of $300,000.
Good thing this didn’t happen here in Victoria – 300G would cover the loss of the garage… hardly a home or property.
Humor aside, this incident illustrates vividly the Provinces general disinterest in British Columbia residents, small business and so on. Gordon Campbell and his ilk are only concerned about making deals with huge corporations and bankrupting us all in the most creative fashion possible.
Currently Gordon and his boys are wrapped up in the B.C. Rail scandal (taking his eye off of what is obviously more important.)
Til that scandal and who-knows-how many other scandals wrap up (in the courts and beyond) – this is the kind of emergency response I guess we can expect.
This all makes living right here on the West Coast dead center in a subduction zone… kind of scary.
Good luck everyone.
Rites of Spring #33 The ups and downs of the Victoria B.C. Real Estate illusion · 8 June 2010 by colin newell
Like Victoria, Vancouver, Toronto and other major Canadian cities, house prices go through cycles of boom and bust… up and down… near affordability and utter un-affordability.
Particularly in the Victoria and Vancouver B.C. markets.
Where a simple 2 bedroom 2 bathroom bungalow on a postage stamp sized lot can set you back 1/2 million dollars. This same house, 10 years ago, would have sat on the market for weeks or months and maybe netted 200G… a price that would have been considered obscene in any other location in Canada.
And yet there appear to be buyers eager to scope up these houses all over the lower Island and mainland… for now.
And the trend appears to indicate that a market, a mere year ago that was hotter than a stock car brake pad, seems to be cooling… a little faster than even I would have expected.
But not according to the likes of the B.C. Real Estate board, or the CMHC or our local rag, the Times-Colonist – a newspaper that seems to be little more than a trumpet for the Provincial real estate entity…
“Average home prices are anticipated to climb by six per cent this year over last, to $494,600, said Cameron Muir, B.C. Real Estate Association chief economist, said in his housing forecast released yesterday.
“That really represents the price increases that have already happened.” Prices reflect sales of all types of homes sold through the multiple listing service.
Say what?
My wife and I have been house shopping for quite a while – like hundreds of other folks on the lower Island and Vancouver – I have a computer listing of 100 houses in front of me – that are in our price range… and 53 of those houses have had price reductions of 20 to 60 thousand dollars. Some have been on the market for 60 days or more… gone are the 2 day price wars and sales markedly above asking price.
But don’t tell the Times Colonist or the B.C. Real Estate board that – they work hand in had in maintaining this illusory fever that lots of folks fall for.
And while the bubble may not burst, some of the air is getting out…
So take a deep breath. Save your money… for the time being.
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