The Three-Ring Night Circus

Falling so in love with The Night Circus means that it deserves to be a hardcover addition to my library. I dropped the hint for my birthday in 2014 and no one picked it up. Then I forgot about it until Christmas, when I re-read the paperback. I dropped the hardcover hint again and, again, no one picked it up. I suspect this was because my presents had already been procured. I got some neat books in lieu and forgot once more about TNC in hardcover.

Earlier this year, I searched online and discovered that new hardcovers no longer exist. Used ones, however, are available from various sellers in various conditions for various prices. I didn’t order one because online options can be boggling and I still have my paperback. A hardcover is a nice to have, but certainly not mandatory.

My tea fairy, Treena, usually coordinates her birthday/Christmas prezzie shopping with Ter; they compare notes and such to ensure that no duplications occur. Only this year, they didn’t consult on my birthday until it was too late. Each of them had remembered my request, and each of them had gone ahead on the assumption that the other would never think of it. Once they consulted, they realized that, uh oh, a duplication was in progress. Ter’s had already arrived when Treena came by for tea—a celebration which included my acquiring season three of Orphan Black, thanks to Treena, who shares my hope that one day Ter will become equally addicted to the series and we can all be addicts together. Ter certainly knows the series’ premise, well enough to coin a clone joke when referring to the duplicate prezzie gaffe. She and Treena decided to give me both “clones” of the gift and let me choose which one to keep.

Meanwhile, bearing in mind that I had no idea what they were up to, I quietly decided to pursue my own hardcover edition of TNC. There’s a great used bookshop on SSI called Black Sheep Books, and if there was a hardcover edition to be had, surely it would be had there. Ter dropped me after lunch one day and I went over the store from floor to ceiling in search of my treasure.

No luck.

No luck at Salt Spring Books, either—though I did score a copy of Plague by CC Humphreys (murder and mayhem in Restoration England).

When we got home, Treena’s clone had arrived, so she and Ter contrived to present me with two wrapped packages on Sunday afternoon. I was a little concerned about them being wrapped. Since they were the same item, where was the element of surprise on the second package? Oh, the thing about clones, I was reminded, is that they aren’t exactly identical.

True enough. The book pictured on the right is the North American release, courtesy of Ter, and the book on the left is the UK release, by way of Treena. They’re each so beautiful that I’m keeping them both.

And I’m keeping the books, too.

A Tight Fit

Home from the holidays. Blerg. How does a spirit that’s flown free, and even spent a few days disembodied, cram itself back into the daily grind?

Not easily.

I’m all about attitude, and I know that I have the power to make every situation a positive one no matter how challenging the circumstances, but I could use another week of vacation. On the other hand, my resolve to change my work situation has not wavered. I even got a little astrological advice on SSI. At the café by the beach, I was sipping my chai and Ter was flipping through a local publication when she found the horoscope pictured above. I read mine, burst out laughing, and attracted the attention of the guy behind the counter, who sauntered over and observed that people don’t usually laugh at their horoscope. “We take those things seriously,” he said, faking a reproving frown.

“No kidding,” I replied cheerfully, handing over the magazine. “I’m a Virgo and having problems at work. Is this a hint, or what?”

A copy of the Chinese Horoscope for 2015 was lying on the table in the Stonehouse living room. On the morning of our departure, Ter was taking pictures and caught one of me perusing the book. I love these things. Without taking them too seriously, I find them interesting. I was born in 1961, the Year of the Ox. My element is metal. 2015 is the Year of the Goat, and if I had read the predictions before they became a semi-annual report, I might have stopped the world and gotten off for good. Changes abound. Frustrations lie ahead. I want to change my job but opportunities will be rare. Disruption is everywhere. The Goat is a mercurial critter, throwing things in the air just to see where the pieces land.

Gee, you think?

As with all things, the cycle will come full circle. The chaos that is life right now will find its balance and smooth out. The elevator at home will be installed and construction ended. Our downstairs neighbours will settle in after October 1. I’ll either find a new job or the one I have will change, whichever is in my best interest. Patience and perseverance are probably my best weapons at this point. They’re certainly less likely to land me in jail.

Paradise Found

How do I even begin to describe our Salt Spring retreat? First, I’ll say that my fifty-fourth birthday was absolutely painless, and blessed with a thunderstorm that seems to be an annual event given that the same thing occurred in 2014, when I was awakened from my birthday nap by a flicker of lightning and subsequent boom! This year, the sun showed its face at dawn, then promptly ducked behind a glowering thunderhead. The sky was a more ominous colour each time I looked at it, and then came the rain. Ter and I stood on our little patio with our Motos set to “video” and each recorded a full minute of solid rain. Nature at its finest. Beautiful, majestic and inspiring.

That pretty well describes our short visit to the Island, too. I spent three whole days disinclined to do much more than explore the local bookshops and wait for the deer to show up every evening. Though I’d brought my blog log, I wrote not a word. I’d brought a novel, yet read nothing more than the Stonehouse welcome brochure. I’d packed my pencils and sketchbook, and they remained packed the whole time. The cameras got a lot of use, though—Mr. Moto on the road to/from, and the Canon for day trips. If not for the pictures, I might have dreamed the whole experience.

There’s not much to report on the outside, beyond trying to relate the grandeur of living in a palatial home overlooking Ganges Harbour and the smaller Gulf Islands. Honestly, the Stonehouse looks like a movie set, but it never felt cold or aloof. We arrived to find our host, Michael, in the midst of prepping for afternoon tea. The scent of baking shortbread met us at the door, and a citrus almond torte awaited to accommodate my gluten sensitivity. While Ter dealt with the formalities, I walked into the vaulted living room, hauled my jaw up off the floor, and thought, Julian would own a place like this (and probably does).

I realize now that any trouble I had relaxing into it was all my own doing. Not having been there before, neither Ter nor I had any idea what to expect or how to behave. It felt naughty to sneak out and use the kettle, as if we were breaking the rules and trespassing beyond the threshold of our room. By the end of our stay, however, we had surrendered to the house’s embrace and were roaming both house and grounds with impunity. I felt truly liberated for the first time in maybe forever. The routine was simple: wake up, make tea, watch the sun, get dressed, eat breakfast, watch the rain, go exploring, return for tea, go for dinner, watch the deer, take a bath, have tea, go to bed. No TV, no radio. The house is rigged for ambient music in every room, so we had tuneage, but no media except for updating our FB pages courtesy of free WiFi. There is a TV in the living room, but we didn’t bother.

Our daily outings took us to the northern tip of the island one day, and across it on another day (the lateral trip took maybe a half hour). Best word to apply to Salt Spring is “funky”. The bookshops are great, though – I actually bought myself a birthday present by a local author (local in that he’s from Toronto but lives on SSI) at Salt Spring Books, and had hoped to score a specific rarity at Black Sheep Books; otherwise my highlight of our exploration was discovery of a little café at the north end of the island. We walked the beach, collected a couple of oyster shells, then dropped in for tea and a phenomenally good slice of chocolate-orange olive oil cake. Maybe half a dozen other folks were sprinkled around the room, but a conversation in progress involved a heated debate between two locals on the grammatical breakdown of a single sentence: “Sean is passionately in love with Katherine.” Ter had to drag me away before I threw in my two cents. I may lead a sheltered life, for nowhere else have I encountered an argument on where the verb belongs.

Now that we’ve done it once, I think we’ve found our home away from home. Gone are the days when Vancouver revived us; the energy there is waaaaaaaay too crazy. It’s a little nutty in Ganges village, too, but for a different reason: we drove SSI from tip to tail and never met a traffic light!

Saltspring Swag

I went with a mission: to find matching earrings for my chakra pendant. Mission accomplished—twice! I also found a silk scarf to accent my new faux leather (you don’t dare wear real leather to Saltspring Island) jacket. Looks like burgundy figures in my winter wardrobe palette this year.

With nothing much else to attract us in the little town of Ganges, Ter and I shopped. The earrings were my prime directive and neither of us was confident enough to stray off the beaten path on our first visit. It was a lot like driving the Saanich Peninsula or north of the Malahat. Silly me. If you squish Vancouver Island and all the Gulf Islands together, you’ll get one big rainforest island. The native flora doesn’t change from rock to rock. Only the fauna does, and the vibe we got from the locals was pleasant enough but I live in a tourist town. I know what the natives think when a stranger shows up in September, and we were most definitely strangers.

The ferry trip was fun; pausing for breakfast was delicious (doesn’t look it, but my toast was GF!); poking around the shops was fruitful, though I wish I’d pulled out the Canon at Black Sheep Books, a shop plucked straight out of Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter stories. Didn’t buy anything, but there is no better place to hang out anywhere than a vintage book store.

Best of all, on returning home, we agreed that Vancouver is too big, Ganges is too small, and that makes Victoria juuuuuust right!

For now.

The trip in pictures:

Ter and Tig in lane 31

the boat we're on

the boat we're usually on

the boat I'd have liked to be on

a perfect day to be on any boat

the wee kirk on the water

pulling in to Fulford Harbour

brekkie at ...

the Tree House proprietor

a tight fit through the front door

the view gets no better than this