Friday 1 March 24

Having left on this adventure on 17 Dec 23 – 75 days ago – moving into March triggered the thought that we only had 5 days left of what has been, especially for me, a lifetime’s ambition that has exceeded all expectations…☺️

Knowing that we would be going to a house concert this evening where Rob was playing, that became the prime focus of our day….🎶

With that firmly in mind – and heavy “Vancouver Style” rain falling – Julie and I reprised our visit to Hastings Street (location of the Admiral pub where we had enjoyed a live blues band the night before…)

En route we couldn’t help but notice that the snow was beginning to build up nicely on the North Shore Mountains…fingers crossed we might manage to ski there shortly…🫰🏽⛷️

There has been a lot of new builds in this part of Burnaby, and who could blame them with those spectacular views…

…but this one seems to be “on ice” just now as there has been no sign of any recent progress…🤔

But, of all the newly completed houses there, we agreed that this was among our favourites…

Although we had to pass right by The Admiral, midday was a bit early – even for us😉 – to drop in there again, so we sought shelter in several of the many shops that border this 6 lane main road before hunger called…

Working on the premise that you can’t go wrong if you find the busiest eatery, we definitely lucked out when we found Anton’s Pasta place…

This is very popular with the locals, especially the student population, since the portion sizes are huge – even the “small” ones…

…so most folk leave with a “doggy bag” with enough for another complete meal!

On leaving we called in first to a musical instrument shop to enquire – having heard first hand the night before how very loud they are – whether it was possible to get a trumpet-like mute for saxophones….

Regrettably, the answer was negative…

At our next stop, a specialist purveyor of nuts, dried fruits and veg based crisps, we topped up the drinks’ snacks supplies…

Further along the parade we saw that a sheepskin shop was having a closing down sale; the owner was a kind faced Fijian man, so it took at least 30 seconds for the conversation to turn to Rugby 7s 🏉😉 …. during which Julie found her deeply discounted, irresistible bargain…

With the rainfall intensifying we inevitably headed for another coffee shop, this time an Aussie Bakery Café – just like we had experienced in NZ beforehand – drew us in…

…with an interesting backstory of how it came to exist there, but just excuse the copywriter’s schmaltzy language…

… however, the pies on offer did look very tempting indeed, but there was “no room at the Inn” given our pasta dose, so just 2 coffees for us …

…as we wondered if we could get a shipment of these for Calum…

All that remained, before we headed back, was to pick up some fruit and milk in the grocery, where – take note UK – only paper based bags are available…

…which are fine until you are crossing the very busy 6 lane Hastings Street in heavy rain and the limitations of paper come to the fore…

Whilst Julie chased blueberries down the “sidewalk” I found a bag my Mother would have been proud of in a “Thrift Store” across a side street…

…and we duly made it home, with most of the blueberries saved from an ignominious end!

Since the heavens continued to drop copious amounts of H2O on us, first task on arriving back to Basecamp was to seek out the tumble dryer…

An hour or so later we set off for the House Concert, as Rob and his other 2 band members needed to be at the venue by 6 pm as the PA sound system needed to be checked etc…

The hosts for the evening, Dave & Lucy, both musicians themselves, host regular live music events from their beautiful 1910 traditional Heritage home…

So, with the event a sell out (all 40 places sold) and all musicians there on time, what could possibly go wrong..?

Dave, the host, had a sophisticated sound system set up, but when he flicked the master switch to power it all up ….. Nothing, completely dead…

Some fundamental pushing of plugs and twisting of leads and cables yielded no answers so the call went out to the community of musicians to see if anyone in the area could provide a replacement “soundboard” at very short notice…

Fortunately there was, but it was a toss up whether it could be delivered on time, given the distance and adverse traffic conditions…

Both bands seemed relaxed, given the compact nature of the venue, about the prospect of playing acoustically, but subsequent soundchecks proved that a decent PA would definitely help…

So they tuned up, exercised their vocal chords and prepared to get started when…

…the replacement “soundboard” duly turned up☺️

After some frantic re-assembly by the impromptu stage hands a fully functional PA was now in place…

Running less than 10 minutes behind schedule, Rob’s guitarist, another Dave, kicked off the evening with Andrea, his partner in Just Duets (eat your heart out Nike…) with a set of close harmony songs including “When I grow too old to Dream”, from the 1935 MGM film “The Night is Young” and other similar songs; our personal favourite was an Ian Tyson song, “Own Heart’s Delight” about a married couple that had never lost their love for dancin’…

After a brief interval for some “pot luck supper” we re-assembled to listen to Rob, together with his bass player Kitty and guitarist Dave – now in a different mode – perform as “The Little Mountain Trio”.

These 3 started playing in 1986, originally as a 4 piece, with a banjo player, mainly as a Bluegrass band and stopped around 1989 when the banjoist left and children came along…

…until, 18 years later, Rob got a call in 2007 enquiring if they were still playing and up for a gig….and they have been playing together ever since with all 3 of them singing in harmony and all writing their own tunes and songs….and that longevity and friendship shows in their playing as we were treated to an hour long performance of an array of musical genres, from Bluegrass to Jazz to Old Tyme to Swing and even Calypso for good measure…a real privilege ☺️🇨🇦🎶