Victoria, the land of ice and snow

The weather has finally prompted me to do what no other experience in the last few months has managed to -- make a blog posting. The normal temperatures for Victoria are 7C for the high and 2C for the low. During the last week we've had temperatures down to about -10C at night and still below freezing during the day. The temperature has felt much colder on some days due to the wind, which blows quite regularly here.

Not only is it cold, but we're in the grip of a major winter event in Victoria: snow and ice that actually stays on the ground. Now don't get me wrong -- we're not surprised, shocked or appalled. Our many winters in Burns Lake, and before that, Yellowknife, have prepared us well for the white stuff that we have been experiencing. But I must admit that we're not driving our van right now, since we only have summer tires on it. This is a direct result of many years in the north which led us to buy separate sets of summer and winter tires -- and who's going to put winter tires on a vehicle in Victoria!

People who were born in Victoria all have a secret gleam in their eye when you ask them about the weather. Snow (that stays) is such an unusual event in Victoria that they all seem to really enjoy it. However, if you speak to anyone who has moved to Victoria from virtually anywhere else in Canada, they're seriously ticked off about the weather! The worst part for them at this time of year is heading back to where they came from (e.g., Edmonton, Saskatoon, etc.) for the annual Christmas visit. Not only are they heading into cold weather, but they're leaving the cold Victoria weather behind! This time they can't even brag about how warm it is here in the winter.

Surprisingly, the cats are really enjoying the snow: they go outside quite regularly during the day and get crazy in it (especially Aurora). Meghan is also thrilled. The one bad thing about Victoria for Meghan was the idea that there might be no snow in the winter. Perhaps in an effort to win her over and make her feel welcome, the city has provided a blanket of white for her to enjoy, and Meghan is making the most of it. She has been going outside at least twice a day to play in the snow and only comes in when her feet start freezing. Considering she only has rubber boots (another sign of our unpreparedness, having discarded the old winter boots when we left Burns Lake) she does quite well.

The Penthouse Suite

We spent the month of September in a condo just north of Beacon Hill Park. It was a nicely kept place, and well-decorated. It also gave us one more life experience -- I think it will be the only time in our lives that we will be able to say that we lived in a penthouse suite!

The best part about living at the condo was being right across from the park, but staying downtown on Douglas Street was a close second. We were just up the street from the Royal BC Museum, so we bought memberships and spent a few Saturday afternoons there, seeing the exhibits and watching IMAX films. Weekend mornings were a lot of fun for Mark and me. We would get up fairly early and go for a walk through Beacon Hill Park and down to the rocks at the ocean.


After checking to see which cruise ships were in, we would circle back through downtown to pick up a coffee for Mark. When we got back to the condo, the kids were sometimes just getting up.

Another advantage to living downtown was being able to walk to work. When I started working at the Queen's Printer building in the middle of September, I only had to walk five minutes to work, which meant that I was also able to come home for lunch if I wanted. Mark's office was a little farther, but he still only had a 15-minute walk. We were able to park the van for long stretches of time (one time nearly two weeks!) and feel good about lessening our "carbon footprint".

For most of the time that we were in the condo, we were waiting to take possession of our new house. That happened on September 27, but since we had paid for the condo for the month of October as well, we took some extra days to make the transition over to the house.

By the time we moved into our house, we had lived in two other areas of Victoria. That, combined with driving all over Victoria in search of a house to buy, meant that we have a good understanding of the geography of the area -- a good introduction to a new city!

Our new (old) house in Victoria

I'm pleased to say that we are well on our way to being homeowners in Victoria. We have purchased a house in the Lambrick Park area (actually in the municipality of Saanich), and we will be able to move in on September 27.

While we looked at many different types of houses, we found that the well-maintained "character" houses appealed to us the most. Some of these houses can be 80 to 100 years old; ours just happens to be a little older than that! It was built in 1900 (making it 108 years old this year), and several people told us that it was probably one of the original farmhouses in the area.



It's set back from the street on a plot of land known as a "panhandle", which is basically the back part of a long lot. One of the homeowners living on this large lot would have subdivided it, making two smaller ones. The records that we have for our lot seem to show that this was done around 1972.

The house looks small from the outside but is quite roomy inside. There are four bedrooms: two up -- the kids' rooms -- and two down, so guests, come on over! and two bathrooms, one of which is an ensuite off the master bedroom (yay!) The house has a fairly large living room/dining room combination, a shaded sun room off the back and a concrete patio. Those are the good things!




Things we have to or want to remedy: some galvanized metal piping downstairs, which must be replaced with copper or plastic; a gigantic fig tree in the back whose fruit must be cleaned off the ground regularly for fear of attracting wasps, and whose roots will eventually crack the concrete pad under the sun room; a minor damp spot in the main bathroom shower; a sagging floor in one of the bedrooms; lilac-coloured paint in the master bedroom (not to our taste); and the little matter of the small/cramped kitchen. (This last one might take a while to fix!)

Future project: kitchen remodel

The sun room is nice, but it's actually quite shaded due to the large fig tree just outside to the right of the picture. I think this picture must have been taken a few years ago!

The lilac-coloured paint has to go!

Our own bathroom!

Disclaimer: The photos of the house are not mine (they are the ones that were available on the realtor's web site).

How are things going for you? Did you or your kids go back to school this week? Drop us a line! christinateskey @ yahoo.ca or mvieweg @ gmail.com