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radfrac_archiveFirst proper solitary walk of the season today. I got restless around 11:00, and decided to go for a ramble. Well, first I piled up my shopping bag at BPAL with pleasures I can't afford in order to counteract my malaise. Then I decided I should distract myself with the promise of something less catastrophic for my (currently hypothetical) savings. Say, fancy chocolate.
The sun came out as I was walking towards Oak Bay, and followed me wherever I walked. The rest of the day was extraordinarily clear, with just a low bank of shadow on the northeastern horizon, until on the way home the blue gave way, the haze spread out from the distance, and the whole evening deepened into a violet mist, like the fadeout at the end of a black and white film. It's still foggy now, and it makes the day seem dreamlike.
The thing about living in Victoria is that -- since the municipal layout was planned by goblins and pixies -- it is perfectly possible to inhabit the city for, say, twenty years, wandering it on foot for hours at a time, and then discover one afternoon a completely unknown park, hidden between two ridges of houses like a sprig pressed in a book. Around two o'clock I turned at random alongside the golf course, then again onto one of those suddenly rural streets that show up in the midst of apparent suburbia, and suddenly I was in a park.
It was one of those lovely rock-riven moss-addled parks on a hilltop characteristic of this area. At first I thought it was fairly small -- maybe three hundred meters across. Then, clambering around its edges, I discovered that it extended into the trees along the bottom edge of the properties above me. Expecting fences, I found a trail and entered a long panhandle of brush with yards above and below it. Regular trails led off into the woods that sloped down to my left. At first I thought these were cruising / camping trails, but they appeared so regularly that finally I decided they were shortcuts to people's back yards.
I think this park is generally the preserve of the wealthy, judging by the density of down vests and the snippets of conversation about purebred dog breeders. ("You know, the one who threatened her life.") However, either there are other extra-neighborhood tourists or I discovered a pair of luxury condoms on a knoll covered in velvety green moss. Given that there were two condoms I'm going to fairly confidently identify this bit as a cruising ground. Much good that sort of information ever does me. The path eventually led me gently around to a side street and back onto my original turning.
This is maybe the best thing about living here, the way it is possible to become lost almost immediately, and yet always be able to locate yourself again by finding the sea, which can be sighted or stumbled upon in almost any direction (except true north.) I reached home after five and a half hours or so of walking, sore in the joints but much improved in almost every particular, including the matter of chocolate.
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The sun came out as I was walking towards Oak Bay, and followed me wherever I walked. The rest of the day was extraordinarily clear, with just a low bank of shadow on the northeastern horizon, until on the way home the blue gave way, the haze spread out from the distance, and the whole evening deepened into a violet mist, like the fadeout at the end of a black and white film. It's still foggy now, and it makes the day seem dreamlike.
The thing about living in Victoria is that -- since the municipal layout was planned by goblins and pixies -- it is perfectly possible to inhabit the city for, say, twenty years, wandering it on foot for hours at a time, and then discover one afternoon a completely unknown park, hidden between two ridges of houses like a sprig pressed in a book. Around two o'clock I turned at random alongside the golf course, then again onto one of those suddenly rural streets that show up in the midst of apparent suburbia, and suddenly I was in a park.
It was one of those lovely rock-riven moss-addled parks on a hilltop characteristic of this area. At first I thought it was fairly small -- maybe three hundred meters across. Then, clambering around its edges, I discovered that it extended into the trees along the bottom edge of the properties above me. Expecting fences, I found a trail and entered a long panhandle of brush with yards above and below it. Regular trails led off into the woods that sloped down to my left. At first I thought these were cruising / camping trails, but they appeared so regularly that finally I decided they were shortcuts to people's back yards.
I think this park is generally the preserve of the wealthy, judging by the density of down vests and the snippets of conversation about purebred dog breeders. ("You know, the one who threatened her life.") However, either there are other extra-neighborhood tourists or I discovered a pair of luxury condoms on a knoll covered in velvety green moss. Given that there were two condoms I'm going to fairly confidently identify this bit as a cruising ground. Much good that sort of information ever does me. The path eventually led me gently around to a side street and back onto my original turning.
This is maybe the best thing about living here, the way it is possible to become lost almost immediately, and yet always be able to locate yourself again by finding the sea, which can be sighted or stumbled upon in almost any direction (except true north.) I reached home after five and a half hours or so of walking, sore in the joints but much improved in almost every particular, including the matter of chocolate.
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