Hello, everyone. First of all, apologies for my absence… I have not even been able to manage more than a cursory glance at any blogs over the last several weeks. I have a situation at work that feels like “death by a thousand cuts”. I am the point person in the middle of something, which means that any of the angry participants get to direct their anger at me. Not at me personally, but even though it is only as the messenger and mainly by email, it still impacts me emotionally. My boss is much better at compartmentalizing than I am, but at least she is there to support me. It’s also meant long hours seven days per week, only stopping to eat and sleep. Thank goodness for the “long-suffering husband”, who has kept everything going on the home front.

We arrived at our annual home-province beach getaway in Osoyoos on Saturday evening, after a journey partially pictured above. I wasn’t sure it was going to happen, as our old dog has not been very well, with his heart condition and worsening bladder stones. While surgery has been postponed for now, the vet did suggest that putting him in a kennel was not a good idea and so we had to ask my older son to come and stay, leaving behind his air conditioning and his short commute to work. That settled, we cleaned the house and were a couple of hours away from leaving when we noticed a huge puddle of water on the floor of the laundry room, which apparently had come all the way from the master bathroom shower upstairs. Looks like a pipe has sprung a leak and given the distance the water travelled, it might be an expensive fix. Luckily, we determined it was limited to the master shower and so just directed my son to use a different shower during his stay.

The first night sunset was spectacular. Beautiful, but possibly partly due to the smoke particles in the air from the large number of wildfires in the province already. It’s very early in the season, but the recovery from the extremely hot temperatures has caused lightening strikes, and the hot, dry conditions have made anything human-caused hard to control. There are over 200 active wildfires in the province right now, with 750 so far this year. The number of hectares of land that have burned to date is already more than burned in all of 2019 and 2020 combined and more than three times the 10-year average for early July. Sunday and Monday we could smell a bit of smoke, but it cleared up yesterday. Today has been heavy rain, which will help the situation. (I don’t mind too much… still on vacation and doing vacation-type things.)

Sunday we discovered that we had forgotten all of our beach chairs and beach umbrella, and so we headed into town to rectify the situation (before I had to work for the rest of the day on my horribleness at work, with Trevor Belmont distracting me with his antics).

As we left the hotel, we noticed fire, police, and ambulance just to the right of the hotel. They were putting a guy onto a stretcher around 30 feet past the marked pedestrian crosswalk. Seemed like the story was that the guy and his girlfriend ran across in the middle of the road and were hit by a grey pick-up truck, which was severely dented. Police stayed for around 4 1/2 hours mapping out the accident. Afterwards, we read in the news that the guy and his girlfriend were actually in the crosswalk and the guy was hit so hard that he was thrown 30 feet! He was airlifted to hospital (we’re in a very small town) and apparently is doing okay. Last night we heard that in fact he saw the truck coming and managed to push his girlfriend out of the way before getting hit himself. Heroic, but a terrible end to their vacation.

Strangely, in this small town where nothing ever happens, there was also a non-fatal stabbing, a fatal drowning, and a small plane crash where everyone walked away, all in the last week!

Sunday night was rounded out by a wonderful steak dinner in our suite (we have a barbecue on the balcony and a stove inside for the corn-on-the-cob and mushrooms and onions).

Monday, was our first winery day, with lunch at Tinhorn Creek, a favourite view spot (view as pictured above) with some great food (pictured below). They convinced us that the only salad option, the baby kale Caesar salad, was “tender like lettuce”. Hmm. Not quite. My husband referred to it as the Nietzsche Salad, as in, “That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.” I concur.

We followed this with a visit to another favourite winery, Stoneboat, where somehow they convinced us to become wine club members! Commitment of 3 shipments of 6 bottles over the year, but it got us 10% off merchandise and free shipping of our day’s wine purchases. I took advantage of the 10% off and bought a T-shirt that says, “Pass the pinot”, just in case anyone ever wonders what I would like!

And then finally, Indian food at our favourite family-owned restaurant in Osoyoos, Ambrosia, where we had homemade iced chai lattes and local beer.

Tuesday, was a day in the sun. Very relaxing. A quote in the beach book I was reading (How Lulu Lost Her Mind by Rachel Gibson) summed it up perfectly: “There is a stillness…, a quiet that allows my heart to beat without worry and calms my mind. My head is clearer and I can think about moving forward.” The temperature was around 35 degrees Celsius (95 F), but a dry heat alleviated with quick dips in the lake as necessary. Trevor had a good time too, sunning himself on the towel! As did the little dog on the skim board! The day before, at Tinhorn Creek, I bought this fabulous water bottle. It keeps the water icy cold even in 35-degree heat, is dishwasher safe, and the colours just make me happy!

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Today we are off out to another winery, where after our tasting, I’m sure we will spend far too much money on wine, once again!