Every day, one of my coworkers comes in with a black coffee maker, two containers of sugar and a bottle of milk, and another container of fragrant coffee. And he makes java twice while we’re working-one for when we first get there, and a fresh pot for 2nd break. It’s good coffee, somehow better than I could ever do, even though it’s just ordinary. Sometimes another coworker offers a flavoured coffee to use instead of the normal grounds. Then the scent of vanilla or hazelnut wafts over us as we work.

It’s become a little treat-one small thing to look forward to on shift, and we really miss it when my coworker doesn’t show up. We complain and grumble at the lack of the fresh hot coffee, when he’s not there, more so than the fact that we now also have to do his workload. It’s the java we miss, the caffeine fix, the ritual of finding a mug that fits our hand, or our mood, or using the only blue glass mug, which looks like a photograph all the time and is really such an art piece even though it’s only unadorned, coloured glass.

It makes the shift a little more manageable, a little more fragrant, after all.

The days have been odd – a weird mix of restlessness and not wanting to do much. So we sit and relax. A day for reading and writing it seems.

To me, the weather seems to accentuate this. It is sunny out, but there also lies a chill wind. It is hard to believe sometimes that the ocean air can reach this far in. We lie a good four kilometers from the ocean.The scent of the the ocean still reaches us though.

It would be nice to have some rain to wander through. We don’t see as much rain as we would like, seems Victoria does not see near as much as the mainland can. Almost like we have a little shelter. It stays temperate though. rain or shine it stays warm, quite the change from the prairies.

We still need to explore this area. We know downtown, and the area we live, but have yet to really explore the city.

The city is small. We almost want to laugh  when people give disdain about driving to Victoria from Sooke. It is a half hour drive during busy hours, but everyone here seems so used to the short distances. Two of the major roads are only a block apart, and the blocks are much smaller than they are out east.

We will most likely be wandering later today.

The hummingbird we saw keeps coming back to my mind. We saw it one of the first few days we got here-it was drinking nectar from one of the many vivid clumps of flowers around the Inner Harbour, and at first I thought it was a bee or a dragonfly, or even another flower bobbing in the breeze. But then it turned towards us, and hovered vertically in the air. It could have been posing for a picture, it was in one spot so long. It had bright black eyes, large for its size, and it was wings were a blur they were moving so fast. It didn’t look like it had any feet either. Its back was bright jewel green-dragon’s green, emerald iridescence. Since we didn’t have a camera, or even a sketchpad, we just looked at it as it watched us, and then it lost interest in us and zipped away for another flower. Made my day.

Played GO in a Starbucks in the mall today-beautiful day. Great game. The final “shape” after we’d counted it all looked kind of like a (black and white) pinwheel. Remember pinwheels from summer holidays? Made of bright tinfoil, with four fat arms, and it’s on a stick and it spins in the wind or when you blow it.

I like how GO is organic-every game looks different and you can never play the same game twice.

Three people asked us about the game, which never happened before in Alberta, and it was so refreshing to have people curious about it. One woman showed a lot of interest-said her husband’s really into it, made his own GO board, plays online all the time, and she gave us his number to contact him.

Maybe we can start a GO club-meet every Saturday in a coffee shop somewhere or in a park, or on the beach.

Cherries are the rubies of summer. We bought a bag today because they’re cheaper in June than in May, and sweeter too.  They always remind me of picnics and bright plastic beach balls and salty driftwood and pebbly shores, and traveling. I was expecting the Safeway to sell BC cherries, seeing as we’re in BC, but no, they sell cherries from Washington. These are not the golden-blush cherries they sell in little bundles as a treat, these are the blood red scarlet cherries where you bite into them and the juice dribbles down your chin.

I find it ironic that in Alberta you can find BC cherries as an early summer staple, but in BC they come from further south. It’s like they export all they grow and save none for themselves-I wonder at the value of doing that. Can you imagine the flavour of cherries locally grown?

The very thought reminds me of when I went to the Farmer’s Market in Old Strathcona and bought a basket of fresh peaches. They were huge-as big as my two palms together, grown at a farm somewhere just outside of Edmonton, and thoroughly delicious.

Like most fruit, cherries put me in a summer mood, and I find myself thinking impossible things again and my mind starts to drift and dream under the hot golden sun.

Bought ourselves bikes, very cool bikes actually,…and lights and helmets and backpacks and locks…no PST on them because it’s considered a form of transportation, yay. Thinking we’re going to get a lot of use out of them, thinking we’ll use them to get to work and back, for the many trails that snake all over the island. Took the Goose into downtown to test them out, and oh, it felt good to glide again. Stunning view of the Gorge against the setting sun.

We’re all set to bike into work the next day, and we do get halfway there. Sweat is just pouring off us, it’s a bright, blazing day, and I have a stiff, burning ache in my legs and a dull ache in tender places that are not used to the feel of a bike. Dev’s pedal suddenly goes clattering off as we’re on the trail, we need a wrench to fix it, and, hey, we didn’t bring one. So we end up walking the rest of the way to work, we get there drenched with sweat, and walking home again in the deep dark. But it was a very mild, very warm evening (still 28 degrees when we got off work) so that helped. We had ice cream when we got back, and then I went and crashed.

I think these bikes will work out just fine.

Just got off work and we walk past the light-limned Lege on the Inner Harbour. The dark water is gleaming like a mirror, throwing back a wavering reflection of the Lege and the proud buildings and grand hotels standing on the banks. The fragrance of seaweed and salt wafts over our noses on the night breeze as we wander back to our fiery Kia.

Decided to go for a drive.

We drive up to Shwartz Bay, where we came though on the ferries, recharging and grooving to music and the atmosphere of the night. We swing back around the bay, taking the sightseeing route towards the sea and Ogden Point, where the majestic cruise ships, like cities on the water, wait for passengers, promising adventure and luxurious enjoyment.

We’re watching the line of the sea, and the lacy breakers roll and sussuruss on the shore; we’re watching the point where the dark line of the mountains glides into the water, the buoys and boats and lights bobbing on the waves. The sky dips down to kiss the sea, scattered with poets’ stars and the faint cry of forever hungry gulls.

Dawn is breaking. A faint flush of pale green brightens the trees and sleeping houses; an edge of light to sketch the world in rich blacks and deep gold and new aqua.

We drive on, following the line of beach and driftwood and unfurling sky. The world is unfolding in stunning colour. The water is a brilliant turquoise, the lights on the shore are shining copper and bright gold. We are in some fairytale, some beach in Greece, and the world looks like a shimmering exotic jewel.

As the city wakes up, the sea and the sky meld into a striking liquid azure, water and sky fusing into one gorgeous blue blue ball. It’s like it’s the surf’s way of singing a dawn chorus, changing from muted deep lapis lazuli blue-silver-grey to a burning aquamarine limned with hot liquid gold. The power of the star.

There are a few hidden harbours, where sailing boats still slumber in the new day, rocking with waves created by coast guard cruisers and the occasional early fishing trawler. The music we’re listening to is renewing us as much as the view. We sing as we drive, we resonate with the sounds of sea and the harmonies we share.

We smooth through a forest tunnel where the light is a deep lush green, and the sea we can glimpse through the leaves and needles, is turning into a pool of pale illumination, dotted with islands that are thickly clotted with dark mysterious evergreen.

At the last turn on our way home, we see a young deer, nonchalantly standing by the side of the road, not 10 feet from us, breakfasting on low hanging leaves. It doesn’t care we are here, it just wants its nosh.

We arrive back at Mountain View at 5 or so in the morning, and the world is yawning and stretching and preparing to trundle off to work as we are falling asleep to the rhythms of the seas and the music in our heads.

Dragons could live in these mountains. The peaks are caped in skirling, moody mist, trees clot thickly on the lower slopes. The foliage is new fresh green, layered and lacy and lush.

I don’t miss the prairies. I don’t miss the flat dry scrubby grey and brown flat lines, the blank horizon, the blank listless people.

Going to BC, moving to the coast. Here we are in the mountains, where I can hear the song of the stone, and where little mysteries wander through the mist, and the weather is mercurial and revitalizing.

It feels so much more alive.