As usual here on the ‘wetcoast’, November has been very rainy and often very windy, with above average precipitation but maybe not quite record-breaking except for early snow on the mountains. Some days the darkness has felt a bit heavy but one just has to keep busy, as I have with printmaking and holiday cards. Later, after all the Christmas preparations and the big days are over, I’ll have to start documenting and posting some of the work here to show you all.

Yesterday we had our first taste of the coming holiday season. Erika, husband and I went out to the annual Christmas craft fair put on by the Finns at the Scandinavian Centre. We went early to join the line-up to buy some home-made karjalanpiirakkas and braided loaves of pulla (both almost as good as my mother’s!). I resisted buying any more Christmas decorations after so many years of collecting but found a few good books for the granddaughters, plus some Danish marzipan that I always use when I bake the stollen. One of the books was written by an old friend and former neighbour, a Norwegian, who had a table there – it was a very pleasant surprise to see him there!

As we often do when we are in the area, we stopped afterwards at the Burnaby Art Gallery to see Robert Young’s exhibition** on it’s last day (naughty me). I’ve seen much of his work before but it was still great to see it all together in this lovely old building. I’ve written about Young here before and here’s a review of the exhibition.

As it was not raining for a change we went for a stroll around the gallery’s lovely gardens… yes, lovely even in November. I love the shapes of the bare old trees, some covered in moss, the pond with all it’s subtle colours and reflections and the soft pale mist over the lake beyond. I’m glad I remembered to take the camera, though I forgot to use it at the craft fair.

Since we were more than halfway there, we then went to that famous Swedish home furnishings store where Erika and I picked up some frames for some of our artworks. So you can say we had our Scandinavian fix mixed with some art and gardens, followed by delicious goodies with our afternoon coffee back at home.

Today the sun came out for a while after the morning showers. The forecast calls for more of that pale yellow ball in the sky this week along with colder temperatures. I can see an almost full moon out there too! I hope we’ll have a dry day next weekend to put up our outside LED Christmas lights. Some of the neighbours got theirs out yesterday and today so it’s slowly becoming festive and bright outdoors to chase away some of those Scandinavian Christmas trolls hiding in the dark!

** Edited March 2nd, 2013: Link has expired and has been removed.