Walnut Street
Midnight. The twelve hundred block of Walnut Street. Not my usual time to be out and about. But this is a once in a lifetime event and not to be missed. A surprise ending. A fitting start.
I’m sitting on the stone wall across from the cottage at 1264 Walnut. Four years ago I bought this house, accepted stewardship of it, planned to live here always. Two years later, responding to the need to be, not in a hollow but, once again on a hill, I sold her. But, as with all places where I have lived (and lord, there have been many) part of me continued to inhabit this house and I have kept watch over her. (Her name is Orchard Cottage, by the way.)
A month or so ago a man, with a camera, standing in front of the house, caused me to brake my bike and swerve back to ask if it was up for sale again. Turned out he wasn’t a realtor but the architect involved in her relocating. To Pender Island. “………where it will have a view.” When he told me this I got shivers and tears and realized how much I felt I had abandoned her to the ‘hollow’ while I had gone on to ‘a hill’.
A week ago when I had gone by, before any real change had occurred, I saw that one window blind was partly raised and a robin was belting out a joyous song on the roof. The house was winking at me!
Tonight she is going to be moved.
I’ve said my private goodbyes on previous goodbye visits. Walked around her and touched all four corners. Expressed gratitude for the shelter and nurturing and all that I learned here. Dug up bushes and ferns and flowers that I had planted and carried them away to my present house on a hill. Swooped down and scooped up and devoured cherries from the bountiful tree in the back garden, this time with a delightful daughter-in-law. Remembered the genuine pulpit that had been acquired at a church sale and placed, reverently, under this cherry tree for the sermons the tree may have wished to share. Remembered the clerical black-and-white cat who used to come by and sit on the pulpit and survey his congregation. The depth of pleasure of memory seems to correspond directly to how much the original moment was experienced. I must have experienced wholeheartedly.
Tonight is a celebration. Despite the hour, the neighbors have gathered. Curious cats are coaxed back indoors, Yoda by Jay to the safe outlook of the second-floor flat next door; Seymour obligingly follows his neighbor Brenda’s pointing finger as she walks him homeward, but his tail is twitching.
We reminisce about changes on the block, exchange introductions with the newcomers, speculate on the cost of moving an entire house, decide that, with aforethought, we could have planned a neighborhood party around this event.
I mention that I am grateful someone earlier pointed out to me that the signs warning not to park on this block referred to AM not PM or I would have missed it all. Midnight! Not noon!
A police car arrives and two officers wish us all, “Good morning.” It is, I guess, for them. “I phoned and reported a house being stolen,” one of the neighbors jokes.
A traffic commissionaire ghosts by on his scooter. At this hour? Why?
It is quite surreal.
Much preparation has gone into this move. The chimney was dismantled and the lovely old bricks carefully cleaned and stacked and taken away. I wonder where they are now and what purpose they are serving. Something decorative I would imagine, a garden walk or wall. The front porch was removed; its absence gave the house a look of surprise, if not astonishment, the way people can look when their bangs are newly, and too-shortly, cut.
The house was jacked up and put on steel beams; wheels were put underneath. I missed all this – darn! – but perhaps it would have been too nerve-wracking for us (house and me!) both.
Much preparation went into this move but tonight is not at all anti-climactic!
I arrived at ten-thirty, not wanting to miss anything, and sat in the car, in the dark, in the silence, staring at the house staring back at me. Sat, and sat, and thought that I could have brought my knitting and knit some of this adventure into a garment.
Suddenly things begin to happen.
A truck – a huge truck! – turns along Walnut from Fernwood and opens a seam into the darkness and the silence. Hard-hatted men in orange overalls turn the pending drama into action. They have obviously done this before!
The truck is hooked up to the ‘trailer’ underneath Orchard Cottage and begins to pull her off the site on which she has sat for sixty years. Pull her slowly in stages while the men – actually underneath the house! – watch the progress of the wheels over the great beams placed on the ground.
The brown and gold house is lit from below with strings of lights so that the men can see what is happening.
“And you didn’t take pictures?!” one of my sons will ask in some amazement when I later tell him about this. Oh lord, it never occurs to me: I don’t have night photography skills, for one thing. For another, I am in overwhelm at just focusing my eyes!
Finally the house is on the road behind the truck. Finally Orchard Cottage does what most houses never do. She goes on a journey. There is a full moon rising.
* * *
This 1200 block of Walnut Street, with my direct experience of it, permits me to say that it wonderfully exemplifies an intense pocket of history and the community aspect of Fernwood.
I don’t know what exactly you will be looking at now if you are in front of 1264 Walnut. It will likely be 1264 A and 1264 B. I hope it will be an easy, complementary ‘fit’, whatever settles in the place of Orchard Cottage; that the new inhabitants are well and content, feel the love of the land as I did and do.
Look to the left. The house set back in the trees was once the apple barn for the house to the left of it and, for some reason, reminds me of a ship. This was once all orchard and there are still cherry and apple and pear trees in the gardens. The crows and I ate heartily from the cherry tree at 1264 and the TALL pear tree on the opposite side of the yard would hail down ripened fruit and considerably startle anyone in the cabin studio.
The ‘storefront’ projection on 1256 may signify that produce was sold from that house at one time. I don’t know.
I do know that the lady who lived in ‘my’ house at 1264 when it was first built back in the Forties moved with her husband after a few years to 1256 Walnut which had more space. Later they divorced. Some time after that Mary took an apple pie to the gentleman living at 1276 Walnut when his wife died. After awhile they married and were together in that house for the next thirty-six years. Heather, across the street, remembers Mary and Harry going to Oak Bay to ice skate when they were in their seventies. Heather and Frank have been in their house for thirty-five years and are a wealth of neighborhood history. Heather remembers moving plants from the houses on Bay Street which were demolished to make room for the apartments in the early Seventies; the ‘adopted’ clematis has been blooming in her charming garden ever since.
Having lived in Victoria for more than fourteen years, (all but two in Fernwood), I can recall the small house on the corner of Walnut and Spring that occupied the site before the collection of houses that are there now.
Clementine LeSoeur (now isn’t that the most evocative of names: I have no idea what she looked like so don’t know if she at all resembled how I imagine a lady with such a name would appear) lived for all of her life at 1272 Walnut and Mickey and Hal, the present owners, have lovingly restored this home, as well as Mary’s and Harry’s next door; both houses now have heritage-designated status.
The two houses now across from 1264 grew from another small cottage lived in by one man for many years. Jim was a nice neighbor who told me 1264 had sold “every two years for some reason” for the past twenty-two years!
“Well, I’m here to stay,” I had replied and put my heart and soul into rescuing what had been a rather abused rental. (When I took down the tub surround and saw what water had done to the walls over time I walked out of the bathroom, closed the door, sat down in the living room and cried. A few months later I was glad I had been forced to a major, if unexpected and unplanned, reconstruction because I came up with the best bathtub I’ve ever had. Got it from the catalogue at the Do It Center, bought it sight unseen, was allowed to sit in it and test the comfort when it arrived.)
I remembered Jim’s words about the ‘many moves’ at 1264 when I left her after two years, seeking my ‘house with a view’. And I remembered his words again, with a more satisfying set of emotions, as I watched her moving along the road on the way to her ‘place with a view’. I have been promised a picture of the house when it is established on Pender Island. I wonder if I would know her were I to drive by her.
Let’s walk back along Walnut toward Fernwood. On the sidewalk in front of 1296 someone has painted DON’T LET SKOOL RUIN YOUR EDUCATION.
It’s done in block letters, blue paint, so there is not much clue as to the writer. And I would very much like to know the age and gender of the philosopher. Then I feel I could ‘read’ the message behind the words. Is it a reflection of Paul Simon’s “lack of education” expressed in his song, “Kodachrome”? Is it an updated ‘digital’ image of modern day schooling? Was it perhaps an idle doodling by the students producing the mural across the street on the side wall of Fernwood Auto?
Stand and gaze at that mural. It ‘rocks’! And by this I mean, (I hope!) that it brings a vibrancy to the corner, a smile in the ‘here and now’ as it depicts the ‘there and then’. Funny how historic renderings can (should!) do that; how they can span time. What actually ‘travels’ is our perception, whatever that entails.
This mural is the result of talks between Robb Warren, Fernwood Auto’s owner, and Cathy Lane, an art teacher at Vic High (just up the street). One of Cathy’s art classes researched, designed and produced it. The old gas pump, old autos, lady with feathered hat in a long dress, the kitten – fun! GAS 15cents/gal sure speaks to a bygone era. The blue car (and how a few strokes can make a car) has a license that says SAGE. The yellow car’s says CHEAT. Hmmmm?. The colors of the mural are bright but misty; a hue’d sepia.
These same students are to talk to me about producing a mural to hang on my house (on the hill) and honor its ‘hidden heritage’. Built in 1912, it was renovated in the 50’s with the exterior completely covered in pebble stucco, which means the 1912 aspects are hidden. I have no desire to strip off all that stucco, which gives fantastic insulating qualities, but would like it to be known what is underneath. Thus the plan to produce a mural showing the original glory.
Robb has owned and operated Fernwood Auto since 1996. He said there used to be a blacksmith shop and livery stable on the site but it burned down and was rebuilt many years ago with the shorter building as it now exists. The original structure used to extend to Fernwood and the foundation can still be seen by the fence along Walnut.
Walk along Fernwood left to Bay Street. Rush hour traffic occurs here in the morning and at night. Anyone in the neighborhood missing ‘city’ can come and sit on the bus stop bench and suck in some fumes if they so wish.
Wall’s has been a Grocery Store for at least four decades and under the present ownership since 1988. It’s more than just a corner store. Check out the memorabilia on the walls.
The mural along the side of Walls was completed in June 2002 and was the forerunner if not the catalyst for the ongoing ones that continue to appear in Fernwood. A young Victorian woman (Ani, according to the signature on the mural) completed her art studies in Vancouver and was looking for a large canvas for her first work. The 150-foot wall provided just that!
Done in two stages with help from fellow artists, the mural is a brilliant rendition of trees and mountains, flowers, mushrooms, ground cover, a waterfall, totem pole and a cougar. A live cougar was sighted in Fernwood just after the mural was completed. Art………life.
We can pick up a coffee at Wall’s to sip as we stroll west along Bay (that’s to the left if you’re standing in front of Wall’s facing the road.)
The nursery next door has been an on-again, off-again endeavor, presently in its ‘off’ state. It has produced some lovely plants (and kittens!) which have found their way into local (and distant) gardens and homes.
* Strelitzia Floral and Garden Design : Exotic Plants, Cut Flowers says the sign now.
Next is the block-long, three-storey apartment building that went up in the Seventies. Its name, Bay Manor, is Fernwood-grand and would conjure a different image in Oak Bay or Fairfield or Vic West. In Fernwood it’s a bit funky, definitely functional, cock-a-hoop fashionable.
One of my sons lived here and the first time I stood and waited for him to answer the buzzer I was surprised to catch sight of the indoor swimming pool by the front entrance. It’s unexpected and there is a definite charm in its location, starkness, purpose. This is true in all seasons.
And I am torn as to my preference for low multi-resident buildings that sprawl grandly or high multi-resident buildings that get it all over with on less land but dominate the landscape from above. I think I lean toward the former.
It’s a bit tricky to cross the street here so I suggest we walk back to Fernwood and cross at the lights and view the Nursery and the Manor from across the road.
There’s quite a different perspective from this distance, tall trees in the background, surprising expanse of sky.
* Directly across from the Nursery, where we are now standing, is a pleasantly colored house, green mottled roof, ice green horizontal wooden siding, darker green trim, yellow stucco, magenta door and window trim. What adds muchly at the moment are the bright petunias in several containers by the front door which both mimic the house colors but also toss out a sharp contrast with purple/blue blooms.A boardwalk sweeping to the front door is attractive. A glimpse down the driveway to the back garden sees an arch made from old tree branches like steepled fingers.
* The house next door has a mobile on the front gate of tree cutouts and a connect-the-dots star that says Believe in Yourself. One tree says Brave. They blow in the wind, shine in the sun; the gate swings in rhythmical accompaniment.
Now you must experience the most poignant of sidewalk messages (graffiti, according to the dictionary, applies only to walls, or vertical surfaces). Walk along Bay westward about a block to the telephone pole nearly at Cedar Hill Road. In the cement is written KEVIN P IS LON LY I don’t wish to be disillusioned by facts if someone knows the identity of the author. I can ‘see’ Kevin clearly. Can’t you? And, no, I do not intend to influence your portrayal by offering mine. This is for individual ownership.
Go back toward Fernwood. Cast a glance at Bay Street Manor from this side of the street as you go. What an ambiance trees give to a long, plain building of apartments. The trees are varied in height and in kind which is an added feature.
Turn left along Garden Street. The ‘fan’ picket fences on both corners are interesting and different, one more fan-like than the other.
Garden Street. The name may well refer to a time when this area was abloom with market gardens but at the moment the wealth of what must have been and what actually is now (quite a predominance of lawns) makes the name a bit of a misnomer. And disappointment.
* Having said that (more than a year ago), the lot on the east side that was a
garden of sorts has now ‘blossomed’ and dispels my disappointment. I think it’s a communal endeavor. It is! I ask around and learn that it has been an allotment garden since 1996 and is now managed by the Fernwood Community Association (FCA). Two coppery fish ‘swim’ on the garden shed. Bark chip paths wander between raised beds of corn and flowers and herbs and other vegetables. It is a delightful visual oasis for the passersby (us) and as I lean into the path to observe I am wishing someone were on site to give me an excuse to do an actual tour.
There are street trees along Garden. There are street trees along Garden. This repetition is not a typo error. It is on purpose to say that I wish every street was lined with trees. Most beneficial to nature, human and otherwise.
On the west side, mid-way along Garden, is a rather ‘habitat’ sort of garden, always worthwhile as well.
Let’s trot along to Haultain
Look left along Haultain and you can see where it starts at Cook Street several blocks to the west. Haultain does continue, across Cook, but in true Victoria eccentricity it becomes Blackwood St, which curves off to the right and, after a block, encounters a barrier (although Blackwood will continue up and over Hillside Avenue into another lovely neighborhood), turns right as Kings Road and then does another Right Turn Only which shoots you back onto Cook Street. I imagine the ends of Haultain and Blackwood chat together in the middle of the night and have a good laugh over all this complication; it is not simple to try and give someone directions!
On the south side of Haultain, just east of Cook, is Mary’s (famous!) Fish and Chips. People come from all over the city to her place and tourists also track her down. There really is a Mary. (Just like there really is a Barb at Barb’s Place Fish and Chips down at Fisherman’s Wharf).
But we are back at Haultain and Garden so let your eyes drift beyond the street level to the Sooty Sooke Hills. Don’t rush. Take time in the staring. They enchant in all seasons, all weather, and they are usually obligingly on view.
Look to the right and you can see all the way to Shelbourne many blocks away – that’s the distant stoplights. Okay – you may have to squint a little. Shelbourne is not the end of Haultain to the east but you will encounter a road barrier and have to go around an entire block (if you are in a car – on foot or on a bike is not a problem) to continue along Haultain and onward to the ocean. But, of course (and you were expecting this, were you not), Haultain curves and humps over (speed) bumps and changes name to Estevan – but it does eventually get to the sea. The ocean! Giving this curtsey to such a vast body of water (or a bow if that suits better) is always a worthy exchange because the sea answers back, if not in actual scent, then in memory. Try to think of the ocean without somehow experiencing it. I cannot.
But we are still at Haultain and Garden. Time to move along left to Cedar Hill Road and turn right. Start up the hill. I have a vague memory of someone telling me when I first moved onto this street thirteen years ago that the large house, now teal blue and maroon, on the left, with the long driveway, used to sell water and the wide driveway was for the water carts. The driveway is not wide now but could have been if it had been part of the one next door. I never managed to verify this but I do know that when I owned the house at 2632 the water that I collected in my sump pump was crystal clear and made beautiful soap.
The woman whose father built the house at 2632 and who lived there as a child told me that this area used to be all market gardens. I have to think a bit to mentally ‘erase’ all these houses and see the area as food-producing gardens – not fields, which would be quite different with a ‘massed harvest’ – but gardens, sort of one-on-one plantings.
This area has changed much across the past decade. I suppose I was a ‘start’ of sorts with my ‘rescue’ of 2632 back in the early Nineties. Since then there have been a number of renovations on this block, most of them involving a single house becoming two dwellings. Infills, they are called here. What personalizes the development on this block is having known the people whose houses were transformed (or removed!) to bring about the changes. So, on the one hand I adjust and accept the new; on the other hand I resent the change and long for the charm of the old. Cottage Unique retains and remains.
Continue on up Cedar Hill Road to Kings Road, turn left, and stroll along the crest. Views. Views. Views! But what else would you expect from streets called by such elevated names: Kings (of-the-castle); Mt. Stephen; Capital Heights.
Capital Heights demands a stand and stare down it. The huge spreading tree on the right has chickadees chickadee’ing, a crow strutting and flapping on the ground in front of me, sparrows chirruping in a surprisingly springlike manner from the line of oaks behind me. You can see the Belfry Theatre steeple on the left, Vic High School and George Jay School ‘topping’ the other buildings, mostly houses. And much greenery. More greenery than structures. Lovely. The tips of one tree are just beginning to change color. Autumnpause.
Hopefully the Olympic Mountains are ‘out’ in full frontal visibility. Some reference to Mo(u)nty is twigging this statement but I am too absorbed (or embarrassed) in gazing to follow this thought.
In summer, like now, the vast greenery of Victoria is evident. Worth comparing is a ‘winter’ view - after November when the deciduous trees have given an “aw shucks” release of leaves and comes the awareness of just how green a city can be with holly and fir trees.
On this first day in September the oak trees are raining – literally – down acorns. Earlier one hit my bike helmet and I had a Stephen King/Anne Rice moment thinking I’d popped an eyeball. Now the acorns are a bit of a challenge underfoot while ‘strolling’. Earlier, again, my bike tire shot an acorn sideways and I thought of my golfer father and brother and nephew and shouted, “Fore!”
There’s a unique flavor along Kings Road in this area between Cedar Hill Road and Cook – sort of cottage country with permanent residents. It’s the lack of sidewalks, the undulating road, the large mossy rocks, the vistas and the infrequent but definite-at-times smell of the sea and sound of a foghorn.
The architecture is interesting in its variety: low-slung co-operative housing, heritage houses turned into flats, intelligent infills, charming singles, ultra-moderns, the occasional rancher, restored oldies.
Continue on to Cook Street and note the views from here.
Lean on the chain link fence; someone has bent the links out of the way at the top at this spot so we can rest our arms in comfort.
Gaze straight ahead down the swoop of Kings Road – past the must-veer-to-left-if-in-a-car barrier – but not a stoppage to travelers such as we. (This is grammatically correct but sounds strange: “travelers such as us” sounds better.) We can see to Blanshard Street and beyond, the soft hills as a backdrop.
To the right Cook Street climbs and disappears from sight; vehicles come and go over the rise, cushioned by trees in the background, cushioned by ones planted on the boulevard which still have a yearling look to them.
There are pockets of silence in the traffic flow. A man pushing a grocery cart with jangling bottles ambles past in one of these quiets.
Look to the left; I’ve saved the best until last.
There they are again, the Olympic Mountains, misty, but in view. Snow capped, in September; leftover snow. There’s a forgotten air, somehow, to snow on mountains in September.
Now back-track to Mt. Stephen. Pay attention on the re-trek. I am always amazed at how I see ‘new’ things when I walk back along a street I have just walked along. It’s the same with tables at church sales – go one way and see some things, go the other way and see different things. Is it purely a matter of directional perception?!
Glance up at the huge red brick building at the top of Empire. That’s the Cridge Centre, a former orphanage. I have fond memories of this place because when I lived on Cedar Hill Road I used to bike here once a week and buy vegetables from the back of a truck run by a pleasant person named Norman. A rather distinguished man in a suit and tie would also be buying vegetables and Norman told me he was a diplomat. This seemed a bit unusual – but, be darned, if I wasn’t in Ottawa many years later and saw him walking along the street, looking very much like a diplomat ‘in place’. I was too astonished to catch his attention and say hello.
At Mt. Stephen turn left and walk up to Acton. The stone gate fronts at 2710 Mt Stephen could likely tell some tales if they chose and we knew how to listen.
Turn right along Acton. There are two houses being built between 1234 and 1246 and I pause to try to remember what was there before. I can’t recall so my mind supplies, brightly, “empty lot.” Hah.
This is a block of ‘waving’ – the weeping branches of the willow, a squirrel’s plumey tail as it trots casually across the road, pampas grass fronds, a boy riding by on his bike who mistakes my smile for ‘oh-someone-I-must-know’ and gives me a wave: what had made me grin was the progression of small bubbles he was blowing as he rode along – one of my sons is able to do this also, without the aid of gum.
Just at Cedar Hill Road is the Jewish Cemetery on the left but give it only a casual look now as it is covered on another walk.
Turn left on Cedar Hill Road by Oaklands Chapel, the angled, sprawling gray/blue building. I usually see if the sentiment on the outdoor notice board agrees with my philosophy. At core it mostly does.
Take the time before moving along to note the house on the right, a butter-and- yolk yellow house with raspberry-red steps and white, purple and pink petunias massing up the stairs in eight box planters; more in the garden; more in two urns. Exuberant!!
Turn right at Ryan and cross over Fernwood; keep going to Roseberry.
Through the trees on your left a red roof is VISIBLE! The caps need no justifying if you are on site and viewing it. The red geranium in a planter box on the right, in spite of being sunlit and in full bloom are just barely giving that roof competition!
* First day of school. Three packs of kids pass by me on their way home from school, for lunch and likely possibly for the rest of the day on this first day. They all seem very talkative. I get that way after any length of confinement.
St. Alban’s Anglican Church is at the bottom of the hill; they organize a wonderfully cozy Fall Fair each year with a barbeque and corn on the cob – Deo (and weather!) volente. For all the Fairs I have attended over the years the weather has cooperated.
Also at the bottom of the hill and to the left along Belmont is the Oaklands Community Center, the prettiest of its kind in Victoria with its stained glass at the entrance and ‘family’ sculpture composed of angled bricks and rocks. Much occurs here and the sense of community is strong.
Turn right onto Roseberry – but do give a look to the left at the houses up and along Ivy. Impressive to think of how many people put their ideas into the variety of architecture we can see with one sweeping glance. Expand this thought to include the inhabitants of those said houses etching in their personal existence and I get quite overwhelmed.
There’s a raspberry-colored house on the right hand side of Roseberry that never fails to make me smile. It is unfailingly cheerful. Raspberry on Roseberry.
* The peaks of Craigdarroch Castle are black against a gray/blue sky in the far distance. Seeming to float. No, that’s not right – more like the summit of a mountain of green.
On the left there is a boardwalk to a house, nicely done with bricks and boards.
On the corner of Roseberry and Kings is The Native Plant Demonstration Garden conceived in 1996 by Pat Johnston, involving many people, expanding over the years. Take awhile to wander the paths and see what grows indigenously. There are information and guide sheets available on site with a map and list of native plants.
Oh – you have been now halted in your tracks by the view down Roseberry, have you not. Craigdarroch Castle is center stage, more startling than the view from the previous block. And yes, I am in the middle of the road to see it thusly. I’m sure it takes a modest bow when viewed with such appreciation but I have yet to catch it in the act.
Dry leaves scratch their way along the pavement.
There is a different flavor to this section of Fernwood (aka Oaklands). I am intrigued by how entire blocks can have quite different characters. It’s more vibrant to the west of Fernwood Road. Here it is more staid. Yet each influences each.
There are many gorgeous houses along this block before we get to Haultain.
I spent the most impressive years of ages three to seven on Rosebery Place (I don’t know why only one r) in a small town in Southern Ontario – St. Thomas, to be exact – so a street named Roseberry has added meaning for me. But a hill was not part of my childhood Rosebery. Here there is a hill! Going up or going down calls for leg muscles not usually evoked in strolling and I find I turn my toes out as I walk down and have to brace against the weight of the bike.
Near Haultain there’s a bicycle with flowers in wicker front and rear baskets and a lovely sun hut on the side. I love such expressions of beauty and joy!
Cross over Haultain (you’re now ‘officially’ in Fernwood again) and the aura alters once more. Hard to explain. Getting ready for ‘busy’ Bay Street, perhaps. More workaday houses needed.
Just by Bay there are often vintage cars parked in the driveway of a house. I hope you see them. They are handsome.
The blue sky has turned gray! Good lord – the clouds are sodden with water and it suddenly pours down, Vancouver fashion! In Victoria it rains a lot but there is not much rain.
Turn right along Bay and in a block you are back at Fernwood with Walnut a block on your left, back where we started.
I ride home in a splendid downpour, get soaked to the skin. There is a rain cape in my saddlebag but I decide not to take the time to dig it out and put it on – some notion of riding between raindrops, I guess. The onrush of water is collecting the fallen acorns in grouped patterns on the street and I have to stop and admire this. As soon as I get home the rain stops.
I hang all my dripping clothes – and sandals – on the line to dry. They do so in a short time. Then it rains again. But not much. Then sun and wind. “Wait twenty minutes…” as they say in Victoria about the weather.
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