Circle tour

I have a theory - in the totally non-scientific use of the word, meaning a guess about evidence badly infected with confirmation bias - that the harder it rains, the sooner it will quit. After all, raining hard will drain out all the water up there sooner, won't it? And when it does, it can't rain any more, can it?

Laurie laughs at me, but I have one more bit of "proof"; Saturday afternoon, it rained so hard that I missed my regular exit off the freeway because I couldn't see it. And a mere two hours later, the sun was shining. See?

So Sunday, the sun shone all day, from early morning till dusk. Not a cloud in the sky above us; summer blues. Beautiful!

And, of course, we went to the beach. Boundary Bay, parking in Centennial Park, and walking south on the sand, then back to the car through the streets of Beach Grove. The tide was 'way out, and the walking was easy, but the wind was vicious; in spite of the sunshine, we were bundled up to the ears.

Laurie took this directly into the sun, so it turned out like a moonlight photo.  We both loved those ripples in the sand.

Sand ripples merge into water kicked up by the wind.

There wasn't much else to see out there; seaweed, sand, blue sky, and far in the distance, the bay. Glorious, but boring, from the cameras' point of view. Four or five eagles were sitting out on the furthest sandbars, just black dots with white tops at that distance. We found more camera fodder once we returned to shore.

Heather, primulas, pansies, and tiny daffodils.

Chickweed, a couple of inches high.

Paper-white crocuses.

We were surprised to see azalea so early.

More crocuses, my favourites; purple and white striped.

The first ladybug of the year, under the watchful eye of an old log.

This bee, Bombus melanopygus, I think, was working a heather patch. I chased him down until I got one fuzzy photo. Then he disappeared. Look at that nice new paint job!  The orange belly almost looks metallic.

Laurie found this old telephone pole with a crown of old man's beard reflected in the trunk of a car.

And back to the parking lot, looking out towards the bay. It's almost supper time; the  shadows are stretching. The clouds hide our circle of mountains.

Bare tree, with trash can. I do wish they wouldn't paint them in such intrusive colours!

Then off to Tim Horton's for a warming cuppa. Afterwards, we stopped in at the nursery to buy sea soil and manure. I got a bag of primulas, yellow and white. Spring is here; the garden beckons.