Ah, what a busy and lovely weekend we’ve had here. Our eldest daughter arrived Friday evening for a visit from the interior of BC. We’d last seen her at Christmas which we’d spent with her and her partner. For a change our weather was glorious, sunny and warm most of the weekend and thank goodness for that, as today it’s back to more cold and ‘liquid sunshine’ as we say in these parts!

Anita treated us to a visit on Saturday to the wonderful Queen Elizabeth Park gardens. Of course, the gardens are at their spring best with flowering magnolias, cherry trees, tulips, daffodils, heavenly scented hyacinths and many spring flowering perennials. We toured the smaller quarry gardens in the morning, then went into the Bloedel Conservatory with its tropical plants and trees, a waterfall and birds galore and the featured Orchid Show. Wonderful display and information, just wish I had the room to grow more of them but hopefully I will now take better care of the ones I do have.

Time for a break – a tasty lunch in the restaurant (you can see a corner of it in the second photo above). Then another stroll (who can walk fast here?), this time around the even more stunning larger quarry gardens. There is always at least one wedding party having photos taken here but this time there was actually a small intimate wedding being performed in a quiet area.

Unfortunately I forgot to recharge our camera batteries and ran out of juice in the middle of the orchids! Anita and Erika made up for it with their cameras, so I hope they will blog some of their photos. The above photo showing the conservatory on top of the hill is one of Anita’s. Thanks for a fantastic day, Anita!

Sunday had us out on a little tour of my very much more modest garden, selecting divisions of a few perennial flowers for her to take home to add to her still-developing garden.

After Anita left in the afternoon, we went to Roger Fidler’s exhibition opening at the Havana Gallery. Though I’ve seen about half of the works before, it was wonderful to see them with his unfamiliar-to-me works, attractively framed and hung around the room. The first piece that caught my eye as we entered was a photo collage of the gardens in the Bloedel Conservatory! Of course, all the work was new and very interesting for my husband. Congratulations, Roger!

This evening will be an anxious time for us as we await results of our federal election in front of the news reports. We hope a great number of voters are making their voices heard today. Polls close at 7 pm and the numbers from the east start coming in, moving across the country to the west, until all BC’s final poll counts come in. It’s predicted to be a nail biter!