BTDU

This morning we were greeted by the mercury falling to Zero C, accompanied by blue skies, making the view from the deck PDG🗻😉

With Leith – the Director of Scottish Studies at the local Simon Fraser University – having a full day lecturing, Rob, a keen Nordic skier, drove us across to his favoured resort…with some “teasing” views of what was to come, despite the unusually low levels of snow for this time of year…

Our destination was Cypress Mountain…a resort catering for multiple winter disciplines…

Whilst the current snow levels were bordering on non existent, the forecast was predicting some of the “white stuff” falling over the next few days…cue collective finger crossing…😉🫰🏽

Following this recce we came back down the mountain and Rob, on the recommendation of their first-born, drove us the  26 km to Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver…

This area has a very interesting backstory, being recently re- developed, very stylishly, around the site of adjacent shipyards with a large dry dock which played a large part in building cargo ships during WW2…

In addition to fancy apartments, hotels, a huge 3 tier shopping mall and a wide variety of eateries, it also houses a covered, open-air “Skate Plaza” run by North Vancouver City itself, so, no doubt, heavily subsidized…

…with some admirable attention to detail…

All this stimulus required a quick coffee before we explored what both the Sea Bus (catamarans actually) Terminal and quay pier had to offer…

Our last look around took us into the very chic shopping mall where the 3 of us spent …. absolutely nothing😊

…as Julie excercised considerable self-restraint by not adding to her hat collection…😉

With it now approaching rush hour we headed home San Francisco style…

And when we got back this was the clear view that welcomed us from their front porch…🗻😊

After dining Julie and I had yet another novel experience on this trip of  “firsts” when we were introduced to the board game Balderdash…

Whereupon, when asked to give her definition of the movie “For Your Height Only…” anonymously submitted to me, who was “The Dasher” for a round at this point, the following text…which I was supposed to read out straight-faced despite recognizing her hand-writing…

…never has the acronym LMAO been more appropriate…and I was still chuckling as I checked out the mountains on the North Shore…