Was it foolish to head out on our Sister Weekend on April fools?

 

Who can predict the weather and seasons? Not us humans for sure. Whatever the weather the time was right. After we docked in Victoria and convinced the local authorities that they could trust us in their country we jumped on a tour bus that would give us a little background on the city on our way to Butchart Gardens.

 

The gardens provide these great see through Bumbershoots for rainy days.

 

The great thing about being at the gardens on a day like Friday was having the gardens to ourselves.

 

The phrase of the day was “everything is 2 weeks behind this year”.

 

We saw a lot of great pruning jobs and a lot of blossoms promising to show their glory soon.

 

 

Photo taking was a little difficult as you had to hold the brolly with one hand and focus your camera with the other.

 

There was lots of beautiful color to enjoy throughout the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I learned some new names for umbrellas today. We are very familiar with Bumbershoot in Seattle because of our Bumbershoot Music festival on Labor Day weekend. Bumbershoot: Take the umbre from umbrella, and the chute from parachute. Combine them and give it a more phonetic spelling, and you’ve got the name Bumbershoot! Bumbershoot is an American slang word. Then there is Brolly, Brollies: used in the UK and Australia and New Zealand. Gamp: British slang for a large baggy umbrella.  A Hanway: An 18th century term used by English gentlemen. The name comes from Jonas Hanway, a Persian writer who carried an Umbrella and is said to have made the accessory acceptable for men to carry. Sadly we would not be needing a Parasol this weekend. This term comes from the Italian parasole, from parare, meaning “to shield” and sole meaning “sun.”

 

 

We ended our time at the garden with some nice hot cups of tea and coffee.

 

 

The tour bus took us back to our hotel in Victoria just in time for our check-in. I’ll show you the Beaconsfield Inn in my next post.

Happy Tuesday to you!

Acts 14:16-17

In times past, God let each nation go its own way. But he showed that he was there by the good things he did. God sends rain from heaven and makes your crops grow. He gives food to you and makes your hearts glad.

Photobucket replaced all my photos with these blurred out versions and they are holding my photos hostage until I pay them lots of money. I’m slowly going through all my posts and trying to clean them up and replacing some photos. Such a bother.