Day 274: Winter Solstice

It's the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, or the longest night depending on your preference. Actually it's not until tomorrow, but tonight was the Secret Lantern Society's mid-winter celebration and Tiddley Cove Morris were at the Roundhouse Community Centre in Yaletown. I love watching them dance and though I wasn't feeling too well, I wanted another chance to test out the new flash. I'd say that as ever, results were mixed. One thing I was pleased about was that inside the warm hall, the batteries lasted just fine, not even one missed shot waiting for them to recharge. On the other hand, the lighting was low and I was perhaps a little too far away for the relatively slow lens we have for the camera. I got a few I'm happy with, but really it wasn't until I was in a much better lit area to take the group photo that I'd say the flash showed what it could do.

Six months ago I wrote about how the project had changed scope since I started it, and I wondered about how I would fare as winter approached. I would say the answer to that has been that the dry weather we've had so far this December has been a huge helping hand. Dismal days are still ahead, but now they'll be longer dismal days :-)

Solstice Tiddlies

Day 40: May Day

It's the First of May; May Day, one of the cross-quarter days, also known as Beltane, the beginning of the Celtic summer season. For the last few years (ever since Maria joined them) we've got up to see the sun danced up with the Tiddley Cove women's Morris dancers and the Vancouver Morris Men. The weather forecast was perfect and even though Tiddley Cove (TCM for short) weren't dancing until noon, we still went to watch the men's team dance. This year there was even a television camera with a reporter for Global TV BC. For all his filming and interviewing, the slot on the evening news was a scant two-and-a-half minutes of edited snippets. I made sure I wasn't in a position to have a furry microphone thrust under my nose, keeping myself mobile and busy taking photos of my own :-)

Come lunchtime, it was the ladies' turn and I joined Maria and the rest of TCM in Yaletown to dance to the largely disinterested young and fashionably upwardly mobile audience. But the light was perfect for getting good photos, and the colourful red and white dresses look wonderful against a blue sky. The last stop on the tour was a park with a children's play area, complete with shock-absorbing ground cover. There was one point where I could get a view of the dance with a clear view down an alley through to the Harbour Centre tower and beyond to Mt Seymour. Vancouver, Morris dancing and mountains, all in one shot. Seemed to sum up living here...

May Day Morris dancing

Day 4: Keep looking - you never know what you'll find

Keep trying and something will work out. Well it did. We originally had plans for a walk on the beach, but we ended up in Yaletown sampling the local hospitality. It had been a dull day, and I didn't have much hope for anything grand photo-wise. On exiting the Canada Line station near the Roundhouse, I spotted an interesting sculpture which looked like it would be my photo for the day. I took a couple, thinking that would be enough, and we continued on our way to the pub. We went into the New Oxford which claims to be a modernized version of a traditional British pub.

Inside, the decor was dark oak panelling with larger-than-life portrait photos of various Oxford University alumni. Tony Blair greeted us at the door, while Michael Palin and others kept us company where we sat. But the crowning glory, much to our amusement, was the huge portrait of Margaret Thatcher which dominated the wall next to our table. In keeping with being in a pub, the Iron Lady was sipping a glass of beer. However, she was not drinking from a traditional British pint glass - oh no - but from a European or Belgian-style glass. Oh, the irony! Maggie Thatcher drinking from the cup of Europe. Ha ha ha.

Well, the place was alright I suppose. Attempts to make drinking establishments look like "traditional" pubs almost always fail in one way or another and they invariably end up looking cheesy. (Having said that, there's many a British pub with plain awful interior decor.) Oh, I got that wrong: apparently the New Oxford is classed as a restaurant, not a pub. Huh? Make up your mind, folks. And how on earth can you justify serving some draught beers in different-sized glasses than others? Just bizarre. The food was good, although I feel they were trying a little too hard to be some combination of trendy/cool or whatever. I suppose that's what Yaletown can be like.

We left the pub and headed up to Granville St to catch a bus home. Along the way we passed a building which stopped us all in our tracks with its attendant gargoyles over a gateway into a courtyard. On closer inspection we noticed that one of the gargoyles was distinctly femininely endowed. How confusing! A gargoyle with a feminine figure, and striking what could be called an alluring pose. Was I supposed to be attracted or repelled? Perhaps if I were a gargoyle I'd feel differently ;-)

And with that, the gargoyle easily won the prize for photo of the day, though I have to say Maggie came a close second (and arguably maintaining the gargoyle theme...).

An "alluring" lady gargoyle