Yesterday Sox and I had a pretty good day. We got up at an ungodly hour (5:30 am) got ready, and scrammed for the first ferry of the morning. We were on our way to Ikea, and our child minders were already on scene.

With coffee/tea in hand we were free to our own devices. We had a list of things we needed to get from Ikea for our new place so we were on a mission. Arriving at the ferry terminal it was quite a treat to be able to sit in the truck and relax. We both got to read quite a bit without interruption.

Our ferry was the Coastal Celebration. Gotta say I am pretty underwhelmed by the new ship. It felt small inside. I had thought that the Coastal ferries were bigger than the Spirit ferries, but after reading the stats I see that I was wrong. Anyway, the Coastal ferries have a strange layout that is very different than any of the other ferries I have been on. Very compartmentalized and no open space. Didn’t try the food, but it all looked the same.

Once on the mainland I was really glad I brought my tarps. It was pouring pretty hard and was windy. We got to Ikea jus before they opened and it wasn’t too busy yet. We got shopping and by 11:30 had all the items we had come for. We stopped by the cafeteria for a meatball lunch (mmmmmmm) then got ready to leave.

Things took a turn for the worse here. We paid for our stuff and on leaving the store could see that the parking lot was a madhouse. Nuts I tell you, just nuts. Sox waited with our stuff in the loading area, and I dashed through the rain to the truck. The windows were all fogged up from Yoshi so I started the truck up, and put the windows down. After a couple minutes I went to put the truck in gear and felt something gross on the gear shift. It was dog puke. I looked back at Yoshi and he had puked in the truck, then had been laying in it. Poor dog. He was not feeling well. Course we didn’t really have anything to clean this up with. I drove the truck over to where Sox was and gave her the lay of the land. We cleand up as best we could then started loading our purchases into the truck.

The toolbox got stuffed with a lot of things but the furniture was going in the back. I layed one doubled up tarp down on the bed, loaded up quickly, then doubled up the second tarp on top. It was crazy cold and we were getting rained on. I didn’t do the greatest tarp job and soon realized I’d have to fix it. I started scanning for some cover and figured we should drive somewhere to some underground parking. We started driving, and eventually found a hotel that had something that worked for me.

With everything secured we beelined for the ferry (more on that later) and spent another 1.5 hours relaxing. It was a fun day, but now I have the task of putting everything together (kinda fun actually).

I feel like I haven’t done much photography lately. There has been lots to keep my time occupied. Moving, Christmas, and kids will do that. Victoria had a white Christmas which is something I haven’t experienced in quite a while. One morning when I went to let Yoshi out for a pee, I saw the sun coming up. It was very pretty so I zipped back inside to get my camera. I love snow pictures.

Sunrise behind snowy trees

Our snowman waking up for the day.

Covered branches

Skyline behind our house

More snowy trees

Victoria got their dump of snow last night. It wasn’t all that much, less than 6 inches, but it was way more dry than we normally get. Sox had to rearrange some of her plans because the Malahat was a mess. The plan was to drop Sprout off at Gramma’s on her way to Vancouver.

Instead Sprout spent the day with me, and Sox took the Swartz Bay ferry over, then drove across Vancouver to get to West Van.

I needed to get out to do some Christmas shopping but I was a little hesitant until I got a road report from Sox. Everything seemed to be fine, so I bundled Sprout up and we headed out in the truck. I am cautious when I drive in the snow. I’ve been involved in an accident before and it put a healthy respect for bad conditions into me.

Yet Victorians live up to the stereotypes of bad snow drivers. As I was cresting a hill close to my home there was a truck stopped in the middle of the road so the driver could talk to a friend. I had to inch past him through the snowplow dregs. Nice.

I saw lots of people driving faster than I think they should have been, and relying on ABS in snowy conditions generally isn’t good driving either. Many people were trying to stop like they do in wet roads, and that just doesn’t work.

I got to my destination just fine, but I saw more on the way home. On Hillside I saw a car almost take out someone shoveling their driveway. I saw the car trying to change lanes, but I think they might have turned the wheel too quickly. Their tires were not pointing the same direction as their travel. At the last moment the tires bit and they car narrowly missed hitting the man.

Not less than a 100 yards later a car went off the road and struck a telephone pole. This happend in front of me and the three other cars in front of me. I was the only one who stopped, and I had my son in the truck with me. The people in the car got out, and I could see the airbags had deployed. They looked a little shaken, but appeared alright. I asked them a few questions, and noticed the driver was holding his wrist so I tried to persuade him to get it checked out. I had no cellphone to offer, but they had one and were planning to call a tow truck. I don’t know why they went off the road, but that got me thinking. I bid them well and had to get back to the truck.

Then, to put things in perspective, as I was getting close to home I saw a man and his son standing at the side of the road, and a little white dog running down the middle of the road towards me. I slowed down then stopped when the dog got really close. I didn’t know where he was so I got out to check on him. He ran back toward the two people who crouched down to try and coax him in. The dog kept running past them and continued down the street.

I learned that the dog was not theirs and that it’s owners had been following the dog in their car for a long time. I guess the dog ducked around them and was now lost. The people I saw tried to help, and so did I, but the dog got away. Last time I saw it, it was heading down Old Esquimalt Road. I hope the dog found a nice warm place to sleep tonight, and that it gets reunited with its family soon.

After the decorating was done, I headed out to do some Christmas shopping. Striking out I came home and plopped in front of the TV for a bit.

I suddenly remembered that we hadn’t filled the tree stand with water. It was close to 10:30 so I went and filled a 2 litre bottle and dumped it in. As I was checking the height of the water, disaster struck.

I saw a puddle form from underneath the stand and start to get bigger. Immediately I knew that the stand had cracked and that all the water was draining out. I ran downstairs to grab some dog towel to sop up the mess, but of course they are still in a box somewhere. I managed to find two quickly and ran back upstairs.

My commotion roused Sue from bed, and she gave me a hand cleaning up the mess. Wow, 2 litres of water makes a very large puddle that can flow very quickly. Luckily it hadn’t reached any boxes, furniture, or pictures. We then tried to figure out how we could submerge the tree, or the stand. We decided that there wasn’t anything we could do at that time of night and headed to bed.

It was too bad we hadn’t filled the tree stand before I went out, but it was a good thing the crack wasn’t a slow leak and that I saw it right away. Crisis averted though, I bought a new tree stand the next day.