More Adventures in Victoria

The photos arrived in back-assward mode here,as I have to use a rather awkward system to upload them, so pardon the random confused mess.
Last night started off fairly normal, until Annette noticed a small patch of wet on her bedroom rug. Yes, it was pouring rain out,and yes, it was windy as ever, but who would have thought after all of these dry years in this house, that the tiny wet spot was the result of water pouring into Annette's bedroom from under the wall. The only option was to rip out the carpetting to see where it was originating from. Under the carpet was the underlay...soaking up the water like a huge sponge. Out it came in pieces and straight to a garbage bag.

The water was streaming in from under the baseboard. Sonia brought down towels and a mop and Steve brought in the shop vac. We cleared all of the bedroom out, that Annette had so nicely set up only days ago. She was clearly upset, given that it has taken weeks to get everything out of boxes. Her bed ended up in the rec room, along with the majority of everything in her bedroom.

Steve headed outdoors in the downpour to see what was what with the drains. The problem was that they were filled with mud and overflowing with water. When he stuck his hand down the drain,all he could feel was roots from the nearby ceders and shrubs.
Fortunately, he cleared the drain enuf to get it to take water again,and at about the same time,the rain stopped. Within another hour or two, we had no more water to mop. Meanwhile Sonia had called all of the Roto-rooter guys in town,and they were so swamped with calls, they said it would be next week until they could come out.

Steve did the job himself this morning,when he dug up all of the weeping tiles alongside the house and pulled out what seemed to be one large tangle of roots and muck ( the sideways photo). By the end of today, he had replaced all of the old tiles with new drainage pipe. The bedroom has a fan going in it to dry it out,and Annette is camping in the rec room.

Emil and I took our grandaughters up to Eileen and Austin's for a little post Christmas visit. It was great to see them again. Eileen called up her son to bring her grandkids over so they could all have a visit. Robin and Michael came upstairs for a hello...hadn't seen them in an age also. Eileen put out all kinds of appies and best of all was a lovely cheese ball, essentially made from a carton of Imperial cheese, a large package of cream cheese and a half cup of real butter...all mixed together with a dash of Worchester sauce.You line a bowl with saran wrap, turn the cheese mixture into the bowl and let it set overnight, then turn it out of the bowl when rready to use,and decorate it with slivered almonds. Serve with crackers. Other herbs or smoked salmon could be added to the cheese mixture, but this was delicious as is. I had to have several helpings! Thanks to Eileen and Robin for the recipe!

We returned home just as Steve's load of gravel arrived and then the phone rang. It was Nadine to say that her and Dick were in the neighbourhood and would pop in with little Georgia before they went out for dinner to his sister's. The timing was perfect and little Georgia was a sweetie, chasing the "Ruff-Ruff" and playing the piano with Maddie. We had a short but sweet visit...again it was nice they made the effort and gave us all a chance to see their little cutie.

After they left, we returned to our plans to go out for dinner at Jason and Richard's new Fish and Chip restaurant out in Langford... YUMMMMMMEEEY!!!!! Emil and I had the captain's plate with scallops and oysters and shrimp and halibut done to perfection! Everyone else had variations on the halibut theme and we all came away totally in fishy heaven!

The night wasn't over until we engaged the kids in a wild game of Train. Maddie has to be commended for her wits as she ended the game by lying down her whole deal of tiles and made the rest of us count up a bunch. Lets just say , I was in the losing end of the game points...
Tomorrow, Sonia is off to day shift and Emil and I are off to the States. We'll try to catch the Coho which will take us to Port Angeles. From there we hope to go to Astoria, then toodle up to Long Beach Washington the next day for a few nights. They were under a severe weather watch that we hope will be over by the time we arrive.

So that will be about all the blogging I can do until we return home at the end of the week....unless I happen upon a computer!
In the meantime, we are having the time of our life...so much fun with our grandkids and so nice to see Sonia and Steve and Annette...all under one roof. Silky hates little Spike, so we keep them separated. Like Co-Co, Spike wants to be a close friend to old Silky, and she wants nothing to do with him. Snappy old B*tch!

"The Creator"