Damp and Stinky

The rain is back. Sigh. We went out for a walk anyway last weekend. We decided to revisit Norvan Falls (where we went on Ollie’s birthday). There was no snow this time, but there was a fair bit of mud! The walk is mostly undercover, so we didn’t get too wet. It seemed like most other people on the trail were running it, which Rosie always finds impressive as she is at constant risk of tripping up even at walking pace.

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As well as being damp and muddy, the trail was also pretty stinky because of all the skunk cabbage. This plant looks a bit out of place – almost tropical. It gets its name from it’s smell. We’ve never smelled a skunk before, but we’re not too keen to after smelling this plant. Apparently bears eat it as a laxative when they come out of hibernation (we’re sure we’ve told you this before…), we didn’t see any bears or bear poop this time.

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The rest of the weekend was mostly used to catch up on boring stuff, but we did make an excellent vegan pizza on Saturday night. We’ve given up eating North American cheese, when there is a company down the road that makes a vegan version that tastes the same.

There isn’t much else to report, apart from some new travel restrictions that have come into effect in British Columbia. Cases are still increasing, but apparently we will be getting our first dose of vaccine in June.

The province is split up into five “Health Authority” regions for health care administrative purposes. On Monday last week, we were told that we would only be allowed to leave our health region for essential reasons. We live 1km from the boundary between two of these regions. Being banned from the neighbouring one would mean being separated from our usual supermarket, not being able to go into downtown Vancouver and being banned from most of the mountains and nice walks! Ollie was booked on a mountain biking course with a company 10 minutes away who tried to cancel his booking. However, by Friday the government changed their minds and merged ours and the neighbouring regions for the purpose of the travel restrictions. So now we are restricted to the light green area on the map below (we haven’t been outside of this since staying in Sun Peaks anyway).

Ollie’s mountain biking course has now been reinstated. He has already got in two practice sessions this season (thanks to Thom and Hannah for lending him their bikes!). He was glad for the second one, as he needed his confidence rebuilt after an ungraceful fall in the former session. He blames Thom for letting him lead the way.

We have another rainy Saturday to look forward to, but Sunday looks better at the moment. It’s a birthday weekend with Sam, Ollie’s youngest brother, on Saturday and Stefan, Rosie’s uncle and our #1 fan, on Sunday. A happy birthday to both of you!