a cup of the brown stuff, the shade of an acorn

Ma, Nathan and I went to the Butchart Gardens. That's the sunken garden, which used to be a quarry, behind Nay and I.


Then we had afternoon tea. With trifle.


And then with a great deal of other good things.

Cucumber sandwiches were not under-represented.



Then we took the ferry back. That's the Empress Hotel, all covered in ivy behind me.

mighty...British Columbia!

Nathan, mom and I took a ferry to Victoria, the capital of British Columbia.


We arrived in the morning and went to the Royal BC Museum right away. There were stampeding mammoths!


And other horrifying sights.

And Parliament!

(There was a street magician down below us who drew quite a crowd and inspired my theory that the real mark of a Capable Human Being is that the subject owns a vest. I do not own a vest. Yet. I do have grand plans for vest-ownership, though.)

The next day it rained for a bit, and that happened to be a bit while we were outside, so we sought shelter in a shopping mall with a vast, steampunky clock which says "Westward the Course of Empire Goes Forth" round the bottom and shows how the sun never did set on the British Empire, back in the day.


Then there was a wardrobe change, or possibly the sun set and rose again, and here we were in the rotunda of the parliament building.