This is both a reference to my last blog and a message telling you, it is my last blog. Remember that email I received from BBC? Wanting to interview me about my book River Tales? The one I thought was scam? IT WAS SCAM! I so wanted it to be real. I was careful, researched the BBC website. The woman who contacted me does work for BBC and she heads the Cultural Frontline radio program. I cautiously wrote back, never committing myself. I did more detailed research and found out that the Cultural Frontline program which was a thing, had shut down three years ago.!
I was glad I had never agreed to being interviewed. Obviously my eyes were clouded with fame and glory because i had failed to notice that although her email address said bbc.uk it was her name bbc.uk@gmail.com. A whole different thing.
Grant watched a program last night on PBS about how AI scams are targeting the elderly. I always thought i was smart enough to not be caught. You know what they say about pride. However, the mistake i made was in carrying on an email conversation with her and I wonder if that gave these scammers time to dig into my online life.
Last night my friend Bunny emailed me to say she had a suspicious email from me…my name but a different email address. She didn’t open it. Was it a coincidence? Or is there someone out there pretending to be me? Do I need to change my email address?
I am feeling vulnerable and have decided to cut back on social media, stop writing my blog, which is hard as i love writing, and just focus on finishing my third memoir.
I’m going to keep a lower profile. I will miss you… here’s a shout out to one of my loyal readers, Vonda. Happy Birthday Vonda!!!
A writer’s life is a lonely life. I spend long solitary hours at my computer, writing, re writing, and playing FreeCell. Ah yes…full disclosure here. Morning after morning I sit at my desk, still in my pajamas, hair unbrushed (and you thought writing was a glamorous profession), sipping coffee long gone cold, ignoring phone calls because “I’m on to an idea.”
There’s clutter around me; stacks of file folders filled with ‘great’ ideas and half-finished manuscripts. In my window a shrivelled spider plant gasps for water. I fortify myself with crackers and cheese, apples and cheese and handfuls of dry granola from Hanks Bakery. Writing is brain work and my body craves food. My new Fitbit reminds me I am sadly lacking in steps.
On one of those days when I am angst-ing over whether I am a good writer or just a good enough writer, this lands in my inbox.
Dear Liz,
“I’m a producer with The Cultural Frontline on BBC World Service. I’m reaching out to see if you might be open to joining us for a conversation about your memoir, River Tales: Stories from My Cowichan Years……”
“What immediately stood out to me was the rich sense of place that shapes the narrative, particularly the presence of the Cowichan River as both a physical and symbolic anchor throughout your experiences ….”
“The backdrop of the back-to-the-land movement in the 1970s provides a fascinating historical and cultural context, grounding your personal stories within a broader moment of social change…”
“I was also especially drawn to the candid and reflective nature of the storytelling capturing not only the adventure but also the misadventures that come with building a life in a rural setting. The balance between resilience, community, and the unpredictability of such a lifestyle gives the memoir a warmth and authenticity that feels both intimate and relatable….”
And it went on. They want to interview me for their global audience and much more. BBC wow! This is big time.
It was of course a scam. A more sophisticated one than most that have been filling my inbox. For a moment I let myself dream. There’s always that doubt, maybe it is for real instead of a slick AI created letter. I didn’t reply.
Cowichan River in the fall
But there’s always a sunny side…there was another email request that day and this time it was from my writer friend Larry Amstutz who wanted to buy a couple more copies of River Tales. We met when he was here on the island selling his memoir Finding My Groove in his hometown of Lake Cowichan. We shared a table and bought each others’ books as one does.
This email was real and meaningful. I felt an uplift of happiness because he’d read my book and wanted to buy more for gifts. That’s better than any seductive AI letter promising the moon.
The act of writing itself is worthwhile. I love writing. I don’t need accolades or fanciful promises to enjoy the pleasure I gain from the art of creating story. But a few notes of appreciation always help. Thanks Larry and all the friends and family who have bought my books. You keep me going.
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I am a compulsive list writer. It’s in my blood. It all started when we lived on Victoria Avenue in Oak Bay. On Saturday morning breakfast would be on the table, my Peter Rabbit egg cup holding my soft-boiled egg, toast fingers surrounding the egg cup and along side my plate, The List. The list of Saturday morning chores, one for me, one for my stepfather both written in my mother’s flowing and unreadable hand. (For some reason my little sister didn’t get one. Although she may have as she grew older.)
And so, when I grew up and had three children of my own and was working, I would leave them with their Saturday morning list. Unlike my mother, I never had the temerity to leave one for my husband. My writing was even more indecipherable than my mother’s which gave my children an easy excuse for not doing the chores. Although my younger son, who makes his living deciphering archival information, credits me for honing his ability to read poorly written script.
And I still write lists. Lists for myself. I start the morning with a list of what I hope to achieve that day. I have lists for household chores, phone calls to be made, writing to be done, things to buy and I highlight some with pink or yellow highlighters, depending on my current colour choice and I dutifully tick each one off as they are completed. I carry some through to the next day if they’re not done. This keeps me organized and accountable and offers a boost of satisfaction as I tick each one off. It’s like getting clicks of like or love on Facebook posts, feeding ones self worth. It also creates a certain amount of anxiety and self judgement when the tasks are not ticked off. This feeling of failure blossomed recently when other life events were sucking up my energy, and I couldn’t live up to my ideal self.
a rainy day outing
Then this happened.
I stopped making lists and suddenly I was free! I was free to do whatever I wanted with no judgement. If the sun was shining and Grant and I felt like going for drive, or to the ocean or out for lunch, we would go. I had nothing on my agenda holding me back. And if I felt like cozying up on the sofa with the fire going and nestling down with a book, I did that without feeling guilty. I even did a little gardening on the sunny days because I wanted to get my hands in the earth. I did whatever I wanted to do, binge-watched Shetland and other British series and enjoyed every minute. Pure self indulgence. This is how I expected retirement to be.
Ah but La-La land doesn’t last forever. It was a great sabbatical, but reality slithered in. I have a third memoir to finish, the one that’s sometimes called And theDog Came Too and sometimes Under a Salish Moon. You know the one. I’ve been banging on about it forever. I’m embarrassed about how long I am taking. However, I just finished reading a recently published memoir by a ninety-eight-year-old woman; it took her twelve years to finish it. And she’s working on another. I have hope.
And I am back to writing lists. Wish me luck.
If you enjoyed this and are curious about more content from an Island Crone, please subscribe from my web page/blog sidebar. I promise to post at least once a month and sometimes more. But not often enough to bore.
Has anyone else noticed the proliferation of older women on Facebook these days? Older women posting videos of their lives? Or are these just my algorithms? I follow a couple of these elder video blogs (or vlogs) and I think how brave, how entertaining but why? Is it for fun, or showing off, or because they can?
We are healthier and living longer, however many of us complain about feeling invisible, not taken seriously. Perhaps this is what’s motivating this emergence of videos portraying older women with their ‘look at me I still have it’ costumes. These outrageous women adorn their often-wrinkled bodies with heavy jewellery, scarfs, furs and lace as they girlishly prance in their stilettos. They’re not going to be invisible!
The vlogs I enjoy are of (not so ordinary) ordinary women. Women I would like to know, such as Barbara Shaw (Art in Textiles) from somewhere in Herefordshire UK as she shows off her clothing choice for the day, dons the wool sweater that she just finished knitting, tops it with a jacket she repurposed from an old blanket and then pulls on a hat and her matching gloves, comments on the weather and then with a twirl goes out into the British countryside for a walk. I love her, I am entranced, she does art as well, paintings and fabric art and her sweet smile makes me happy. Somebody films her obviously, but what is the purpose? Sharing her life with the world? Does she sell her knitting and paintings? Why has she chosen to do this?
Would anyone care if I had Grant video me as I got dressed? Done in good taste, of course. Let me see, what is my look for today…ah French Dressing jeans will do, with the butterfly patterned sox my daughter bought me last birthday, then picking up the mauve hues of the sox, I’ll pull on a purple fair traded ethically sourced organic cotton top and off I’ll go with a little twirl and girlish toss of my head to sit at my computer and write. Ah, maybe not.
There must be money in it. Somewhere. But how? Or am I missing the sheer creativity of it, a new art form?
Another video I watch is Bealtaine Cottage, in Ireland. Colette O’Neill is the creator. She has transformed her barren 3 acres of land and created a lush habitat, her videos follow the progress of her gardens, others show how she has artfully transformed her home. This charming Celtic mystic is also a Druidess, a writer, and a successful middle-aged woman living her dream life. A woman who has chosen to wear what ever she likes, mixing vintage and new and relishing in it.
I recently ordered Collette’s e-book Imbolc. Imbolc is a sacred festival celebrating the beginning of Spring and the Goddess Brigid in the Celtic calendar. Also called Saint Brigid’s Day. I have a cross of St Brigid, made of rushes hanging over my front door, brought to me by Grant’s granddaughter Sheena on her return from Ireland many years ago. I also wear a cross of St Brigid, a gift from Grant.
Imbolc falls on February 1st this year and we’ll be welcoming the subtle beginnings of Spring.
Sharon in her faux fur coat, never invisible
There are many middle-aged women out there in internet land, sharing their expertise, talents, creativity, some making a living out of it, others marketing their brand. The one thing they have in common apart from obviously enjoying themselves, is that they are not invisible! Take my dear friend Sharon pictured here in her faux fur coat, talking as always to a random stranger in a café. She’s dressed modestly on this day. Usually, she’s adorned with beads and scarves and layers and its always an adventure hanging out with her. She’s never invisible.
If you want to see other middle- aged women refusing to be invisible, you must watch Sally Wainwright’s new series, Riot Women on BritBox. (Sally Wainwright who gave us Last Tango in Halifax, HappyValley and more.) The acting is superb, the story line is poignant, tissue on hand recommended and it’s wildly funny, truly middle- aged women gone rogue.
So, my lovely women friends, wear what you like, laugh and celebrate friendships and don’t let yourselves slide into beige invisibility. Go a little rogue!
When I told Grant what I was writing about this month, he said. “What about old men? We become invisible too as we age.”
Something wonderful happened this October month. Something that helped me soar over everything else that was going on.
We were enjoying a family birthday lunch for my daughter Maureen at the Cowichan Bay Pub when a woman whom my eldest son knew came to our table. She was one of those slender fit beautiful silver-haired women in her 80’s and she wanted to tell me how important my memoir Growing Up Weird was for her.
“We’ve all had those experiences,” she said, “I’ve lent it to a friend. I am so glad to have met you.”
And then a few days later, my son Mickey, same son, was chatting to another Cowichan Bay resident, again a professional woman close to my age who thanked him for giving her a copy of my book. She hinted at growing up with a similar background and had lent it to a friend who also resonated with the story.
There’s magic in the number three and October ended with a text from my sister Kate, “I was at a friend’s 80th birthday party yesterday and her three sisters were all raving about your book.” They had also grown up in Oak Bay.
The book Kate was referring to is my memoir of Oak Bay in the 1940’s and 1950’s. It wasn’t meant to be published, after all it held family secrets and uncomfortable subjects. It grew from a writing prompt twenty something years ago with my Chemainus Writers group. Once I started writing (there were harsh memories, sexual abuse, and normal growing up adventures), I became immersed in the past, and I often wrote in a child voice. It was cathartic and healing.
my mother, step-father, sister, baby brother and me
At that point I still viewed it as a record for my family and for my two siblings who were six and sixteen years younger and grew up with a different father and had different experiences. However, with encouragement from my writers’ group and my family I published Growing Up Weird – A memoir of an Oak Bay childhood.
I hoped by writing this book, it would not only give a snapshot of Oak Bay in the 1940’s and 50’s it would serve as an honest depiction about the difficulties many girls faced including the sexual abuse that we didn’t talk about. I hoped my story would help someone else. Help them to know they weren’t at fault, and they weren’t the only one.
And the ‘everything else’ that’s going on that I mentioned in the beginning?
Apart from climate change, the unhoused, the world in general, I am having health problems that have temporarily slowed me down but haven’t stopped me from writing.
To hear that my writing makes a difference is all I need.
And that’s what’s given me joy this October month.
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I journal. I have a basket full of journals. Some are embarrassingly needy, fuel for a bonfire. My partner’s daughter Cheri burned her journals last spring. I thought that was a terrible loss but after perusing my older writings, I realized fire would be their best ending.
Some journals are worth keeping such as the small diary with a brocade cover, a gift from my sister Kate in 1981. I used this as a travel journal for twenty-five years.
There are a few common threads in it, New Years’ resolutions, the usual stuff, however the rest of the diary is filled with stories of my solo trip to the UK in 1984. Vivid descriptions of walking tours in London, or visiting the Bronte house in Haworth, Yorkshire, travelling the rails on the Flying Scotsman, motorcycling on the Isle of Skye and having my passport and traveller’s cheques stolen in Paris.
Pages are filled with trips to San Francisco, where my eldest son lived, hanging out in Haight-Ashbury, exploring the Mission district, sipping coffee on the street in Noe Valley, hiking up the city’s many stairs and hidden pathways, visiting City Lights Bookstore and climbing up to the Coit Tower.
All these rich memories are nestled in my diary, ready to be used in a story or just enjoyed straight up.
basket of journals
I kept on journaling, recording most of the trips that Grant and I took, but in an assortment of books, often changing mid trip because I found a nicer journal, a more interesting colour, one that brought me more inspiration. These are the journals I used to write my latest book, my third book, the one that is still in the creating stage, now called Under a Salish Moon: Camping on the Coast.
I recently sent my ’finished’ manuscript to Michelle Barker, an editor with The Darling Axe editor group for a narrative assessment. In her detailed and extremely helpful, twelve-page assessment, she made positive comments:
“You add lots of local color with some good description.”
“You have a good ear for conversation and you’re able to catch people’s voices.”
“It was a pleasure to read this book. Your writing is vivid and made me wistful for the places you described…”
But.
There’s always a ‘but’.
There was this.
“The narrative often strays into feeling more like a journal (where you ate, who you saw, what you did).”
Well duh!
Clearly there’s a downside of relying on journals to add spice to my stories.
leather journal from Sheila, too nice to use
Never mind, I love writing and will be happily tweaking my Under a Salish Moon travel chronicles this winter. Spring release?
If you enjoyed this and are curious about more content from an Island Crone, please subscribe from my web page/blog sidebar. I promise to post at least once a month and sometimes more. But not often enough to bore.
I was doing a final round of the fruit aisle on my weekly grocery shopping trip when I ran into someone I hadn’t seen since last spring’s flu shot.
“Pam!” I said in surprise.
“Liz!” She replied.
We stood there and grinned at each other the way you do when it’s someone you like but you don’t know all that well.
“I’m enjoying your blog,” she said.
“Ah, thank you, I was thinking of skipping it this month. I haven’t missed one yet but…”
“No, you can’t!” she interjected. “I look forward to it. It’s the highlight of my month.”
“Even when I write about uncomfortable things?”
“Especially those things,” she replied laughing.
My step was lighter as I walked away. I love getting positive feedback, it inspires me to keep on writing. I am writing the kind of content that I want to read and as Pam is around my age, she is whom I write for.
I had planned on letting the blog go this month. I am immersed in revising and polishing my up coming book to send to my editor for a narrative review and the work has consumed all my creative energies. The book is important, but this blog is so much fun to write, I know I can squeeze out a little more!
So, Pam, this ones for you.
Have you ever thought how grocery shopping is like the long-ago days when the women gathered at the communal well? It was usually the women who walked with their children to the well and washed the clothes and talked and gossiped and kept that thread of community happening and knew who was okay and who wasn’t.
If that’s a stretch, think about the weekly village market, the social day of the week where women put on their best clothes, mingled with their friends and neighbours, bought vegetables and goods for their families and caught up on the latest town news.
I know, men shop too, of course they do, and our society is different than the old village days, but we are more the same than you think. When I shop, once a week, I dress a little better, still casual wear, and I always run into someone I know and have an uplifting conversation. Often it is someone whom I haven’t seen in ages, such as my old friend Connie, and we do the Liz? Connie? dance. At first not sure, and then the years fall away and we have a heart warming catch-up.
As it happened, I ran into Connie the same day I ran into you Pam and it hit me… we underestimate the value of a grocery store. Not only does the store, in this case, our local Country Grocer, provide groceries, it also offers community, a feeling of belonging and of being known. It almost raises grocery shopping to a spiritual level, where our senses are stimulated by perfect piles of shiny red apples and we marvel at the bounty of food. We are all on a even playing field as we push our carts around piles of stock waiting to be shelved as we mumble at the rising costs.
The warm glow I feel after re connecting with friends, old and new softens the blow of the checkout total. My wish is that we all extend that warm feeling to the hard-working people in the store. A smile goes a long way.
Thank you, Pam for the inspiration!
Just so you know, this is a No Frills post as I am writing at the blog post deadline, due to my previously mentioned book manuscript that is awaiting in the wings. No Frills meaning I have no relevant photos to grace the blog. But you can visualize women blocking the aisles as they talk, and talk. Don’t you just love us?
love from your Island Crone.
If you enjoyed this and are curious about more content from an Island Crone, please subscribe from my web page/blog sidebar. I promise to post at least once a month and sometimes more. But not often enough to bore.
If you enjoyed this and are curious about more content from an Island Crone, please subscribe from my web page/blog sidebar. I promise to post at least once a month and sometimes more. But not often enough to bore.
~ Island Crone by Liz Maxwell Forbes
The Jazz Players
I know an artist who regrets each piece of art he sells. Years ago, when he belonged to a Chemainus Artist Group and was displaying his work, he sold his ‘Jazz Players’ to a woman from Calgary. Letting that painting go, was painful. He painted another, slightly different and it still hangs in our living room.
Yes. The artist is my partner, Grant.
Then there was the painting of the well loved Chemainus hermit, Charlie Abbott, shown walking along the railway tracks with the iconic Chemainus theatre in the background. Sold also to a woman from Alberta. Also greatly missed.
And his Arizona paintings, thirty- five small studies in oil of the churches, shrines and ancient symbols of the desert done over a winter in Arizona. We had an art show at the old Hummingbird Café in Chemainus when we returned, slapped a high price on them to discourage sales, which didn’t work, as he bid a sad farewell to some of his favourites, including his “Hoochie Coochie Girls.” He still talks about that one.
I know how that feels as I once wanted to be an artist. I studied at the local college, painted in oil because I loved the smell and painted trees, because I loved trees. There was one painting, a big one, of my eight-year-old stepdaughter Sue, sitting against the trunk of an old fir on the bank of the river. I captured her perfectly and had thought of giving it to her.
But an acquaintance saw the painting and wanted to buy it. I was flattered. However, she had no money and offered to do a trade, a hand-woven shawl from Guatemala in exchange for my painting. I reluctantly agreed.
A couple of years later, she asked for her shawl back in return for the painting. I said no. I was annoyed that she didn’t value my painting more than her shawl. I was annoyed that I let myself be manipulated and I’ve regretted that decision ever since for shortly after, the woman’s house burned down with my painting inside. (She had already moved out, as the house was condemned.)
I still have the shawl, but I never wear it.
There’s a moral here, but I have no idea what it is.
All I know, is that painting and writing are creative art forms, both arising from somewhere deep within. I have lost myself in both pursuits, reaching that altered state where time has no meaning and the art is flowing, an artist high if there is such a thing. It’s a wonderful state of being.
However, I find writing to be simpler than painting. I can print copies of my writing on a sheet of paper or as a book and still have my original. And delete is quicker than painting over. (Painters can print giclees but it’s more involved.)
The difference between painting and writing for me as a memoir writer, is that once my writing is finished, it no longer belongs to me, it belongs to the reader who hears my words filtered through their own experiences. Even I, upon reading one of my books years after I write them, am not the same person; I have separated myself from the stories. I hear them differently; they are no longer mine.
Paintings, although infused with the artists emotions, feel more static. They capture a memory that is frozen in time and place. Maybe that is why many artists have difficulty selling their work. They’ll never be that person in that time again.
Writing and painting, both laying bare our innermost feelings, capturing fleeting moments, are we doing it for ourselves or for an audience?
And does it really matter?
In the end are these just idle early morning musings because my cat’s insisting that I wake up and I’m pretending I ‘m still asleep?
The hardest thing about editing is knowing what has to be left out/slashed/deleted. If it doesn’t belong, or move the story forward, it has to go. This story is one I had to drop as it isn’t about travelling on the coast. Yes it is on the coast of Vancouver Island, Lantzville to be precise, and it does include a dog, but it does not belong in my upcoming book. It is a story I love, a casual meeting on a summer day at the beach and I want to share it with you. It took place on a day in June 1995, thirty years ago.
I meet Violet Margaret Norback:
On one of those days swimming in the waters off Lantzville and throwing sticks for Bodhi, with Grant lounging on the beach with a book, I noticed an elderly woman sitting on a weathered log. She watched as I emerged from the sea and shook the salt water from my hair. I threw another stick in the ocean for Bodhi and walked across the sand to where the old woman was sitting.
“Lovely day for the beach,” I called with a smile.
She didn’t respond and I was taken aback by her closed expression as she pushed away the thick white hair that hung over her forehead. Her pale cloudy blue eyes considered me for a long moment, then she patted the log beside her and said, “Come, sit with me. Don’t be shy.”
I nudged my wet bottom on the rough log and asked, “Is that your house?” pointing to the faded green two-story house behind where we were sitting.
“Yes,” she said as she glanced back at the weathered building.
We sat quietly for a moment or so, I wondered if that was going to be the extent of our conversation, but then she began to speak in halting sentences with spaces in between.
“Fred and I built it fifty-five years ago. I dug the basement with a shovel. We just built it. No plan, no design. It’s a good house, lots of room. We didn’t have much but there was lots of firewood on the beach. I cut it with a seven-foot saw and bucked it up myself.”
Her name was Vi, and Fred, her husband, had died a few years back. I studied her face as she spoke. I was struck by the grief etched across her high cheekbones and elegant nose.
“I’m not used to talking,” Vi said. “Fred was the kind of man who did not talk much. Just two or three words a day. But I miss him. I’m lonely. There’s lots of men out there. They come around but I don’t want them. It’s different when they’ve fathered your children but as my mother said, ‘you don’t need to wash another man’s dirty socks.’ Some days I don’t see anyone,” she added. “I go two, three days without talking.”
It felt as though she had weeks of talking to do and I was more than happy to listen. I learned that Vi was born in Scotland, in the Orkney Islands and emigrated to Saskatchewan with her parents when she was young. I leaned back on my log and stretched my bare legs in the sun as she continued to tell her story.
“I used to trap. Had my own trapline, made money, mink and racoons. Fred set the traps. He didn’t like to do the rest. It’s a cruel business. My mother always said if you took on a job you had to do all parts of it. The good and the bad. I was good at it.”
“Where’d you trap?” I asked.
“Oh, around here,” she waved her arm vaguely toward Nanoose Bay. “Four miles. Sometimes I went further on ‘Indian’ land, but no one knew. It’s so long ago. It doesn’t matter now.”
“And I brought food home, used the shotgun for ducks and I caught fish. Out by Maude Island. Have you ever been there?” She asked, pointing across the water to a small island in the distance. “I used to row over there before sunup and catch ling cod,” she said, not waiting for an answer. “Sometimes I would put some bread dough up to rise first and come back with a catch of fish for lunch.”
I glanced at the sturdy wooden rowboat hauled up on the beach and marveled that she could row it across the water.
“You remind me of my Sottish grandmother,” I said. “She was adventuresome, and we always went to the beach together. You even look a little like her.”
“Was she lonely?” Vi asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t think so.”
“Ah maybe she didn’t say. Some women had it hard. It’s terrible being lonely. You take what life gives you and you don’t complain.”
Although I looked for Vi every time I walked by, I never saw her sitting on her beach log again, however I stopped by once and knocked on her back door. I couldn’t tell whether she was pleased to see me or whether I was an intrusion. She didn’t invite me in, and we had an awkward moment while we both looked at each other. Vi was wearing the same faded blue cotton house dress she was wearing on that day we talked on the beach. I wished I had brought her some cookies or muffins. An excuse for dropping by.
“We went out to Maude Island.” I said, breaking the silence. “In our canoe.”
“Did you fish?” she asked.
“No. No. We took a picnic and the dog, and I explored the island. It was beautiful and we had it all to ourselves. I want to go back.”
Vi stood with one hand resting on the door jam and nodded her head slightly. That was all. I walked down her stairs, turned at the bottom and gave a small wave goodbye. Vi watched. It was the last time I saw her.
Her two-acre waterfront property on Sebastion Road went up for sale a couple of years later. The town of Lantzville wanted to buy it for a park. The people voted against it. I was disappointed we weren’t having a park in Vi’s name but then I remembered Maude Island. There was more than fishing for Vi at Maude Island.
That day on the beach, when Vi had so much talking to let out, she added in a soft voice, her faded eyes gazing off in the distance, “I really went to Maude Island to get away, to be alone. But I was never completely alone,” she said, “there were spirits there too.”
I know, I felt them on the day Grant and I paddled to the island.
Violet Margaret Norback 1909-2000
Lantzville Beach
If you enjoyed this and are curious about more content from an Island Crone, please subscribe from my web page/blog sidebar. I promise to post at least once a month and sometimes more. But not often enough to bore.
~ Island Crone by Liz Maxwell Forbes
*Photo of my daughter Maureen and me was taken in 1997 on Lantzville Beach…I believe the small round looking island in the distance is Maude Island. The other photo is a stranger walking her dogs 1997, same beach. Best swimming beach ever!!!!
My neighbour has created a bee and butterfly garden, and it’s a lovely sight. She has terrible soil, we all do in our area, our homes are built on the old smelter grounds and as the story goes, the former toxic site was capped with clay and our small strata development was built atop the clay. I can attest to the clay!
But Sue has done magical things with her hard dried garden. A few years ago, she researched and built a ‘lasagna’ garden in front of her house. She piled layers of newspapers, soil, cardboard and compost on the unforgiving ground and now has a spectacular garden with Aubretia spilling over the rocks, small shrubs and Rhododendrons, spring bulbs and Euphorbia providing bloom all year round.
However, there was a strip of grass along her drive that never grew properly. She reseeded, fertilized, watered and yet the strange brown patches remained. One day she dug it up and announced she was creating a bee and butterfly garden. A pollinator garden with a mix of cat nip, California poppies, red poppies and Foxglove that maybe drifted over from my garden, blue Lupins, orange Wallflowers; a wild cacophony of colour, all in the sun and buzzing with bees.
My garden is across the road from Sue’s and is mostly in shade from the Katsura tree and the towering black bamboo. I also have a mix of perennials, shade loving plants such as Lady’s Mantel, Leopards’ Bane, Rose Campion, Foxglove, Japanese Windflowers, and tucked among the ferns I have water dishes for the snakes (yes, I like snakes), and fat bumblebees. My garden is not as structured as Sue’s, it’s even slatternly, but has its own charm. The Euphorbia wandered over from her garden and found niches to flourish and the poppies tossed their seed with wild abandon.
Leopards Bane
Its not everybody’s cup of tea, however we have two artists and one master gardener who live in our cluster of homes, and they love our gardening style. In fact, one artist, Beckie, gave me a painting she had done of my garden because it gave her such joy every time she walked by.
And what has all this got to do with “getting in shape”? Last month I told you I had joined a Choose to Move program via Zoom put on by Island Health and I would give you a progress report. I had ambitious exercise plans but then I had hand surgery, so no rowing machine or floor yoga, and a small health blip, so no hill climbing, however I could garden, and gardening counts for exercise! Yeah! To be honest I would rather be weeding and planting and designing hidden vignettes for cats to lounge than sweating over a hard metal exercise machine.
So, join me and don your garden gloves and hats and get down and dirty and move! It’s a win, win, all the way!
If you enjoyed this and are curious about more content from an Island Crone, please subscribe from my web page/blog sidebar. I promise to post at least once a month and sometimes more. But not often enough to bore. ~ Island Crone by Liz Maxwell Forbes
A writer’s life is a lonely life. I spend long solitary hours at my computer, writing, re writing, and playing FreeCell. Ah yes…full disclosure here. Morning after morning I sit at my desk, still in my pajamas, hair unbrushed (and you thought writing was a glamorous profession), sipping coffee long gone cold, ignoring phone calls because “I’m on to an idea.”
