The Country Mice

Part of the Grade 5 school curriculum requires study of the role of Canada’s government. Thus the Princess has been coming home with queries and comments regarding minority governments, Stephen Harper (hmmm, two Stephen Harper mentions in the last three days…), the legislature and our beleaguered premier, Christy Clark.

So what’s a group of homelearners to do? Why, organize a trip to our province’s capital city, of course!

Thus a couple of weeks ago a gang of us boarded the Big Ferry (as it’s known around here) to Nanaimo (on the eastern side of Vancouver Island, for those of you who’ve forgotten your B.C. geography) and then drove an extraordinarily pleasant two hours of winding coastal highway southward to Victoria.

We all packed into the James Bay Inn, spitting distance from the legislative buildings and the little white and purple house where I rented for two years. For all the children, it was beautiful springtime glory. For me, it was old home week.

I had a la-di-dah lunch in the legislative dining room with Sue Hammell, for whom I worked in the late 90s, I had lunch with some other ex-politicos, I had coffee with a distant cousin, I drove past the property where a dear elderly aunt lived, and I walked and walked and walked on Victoria’s lovely flowered streets.

Oh, there was a bit of academic activity as well — visits to the B.C. museum, to the legislative buildings, a little horseback riding (okay, not entirely academic but highly anticipated by the girls in the group) and a little bit of exploration.

** A bit of note about the photo: In the springtime here, boulevards lined with cherry trees (some of them a long-ago gift from Japan) sprinkle their spent blossoms like pink snowflakes. The show goes on for a week or so and pink snowdrifts build up, begging to be sent back upwards toward the sky.

It’s a very pretty sight.

Everyone needs a field trip to Victoria, I’d say!