I live 7 blocks from Kitsilano Beach.
I love it.
I never ever get tired of strolling down to the beach, looking out at English Bay and counting the number of freighters that are moored out there, waiting their turn to pick up their grain, canola oil, wood, sulphur or any other of the cargos that make up the $53 Billion in goods that trade out of Canada’s busiest port every year. That’s ALOT of canola oil.
Tonight I counted 10 freighters. About average for a Friday night. There were lots of other smaller sailboats scattered about, all in town for the Celebration of Light. It’s fun watching the sail boats arrive throughout the day, all jockeying for the perfect view of the barge that they set the fireworks off of. There are marine buoys that mark off a perimeter which is set to keep particulate that is still alight from falling onto boats that are too close and subsequently sending them down in flames. English Bay sees an influx of 1000 boats every night of the show and the beach and park become packed as everyone from Surrey and Burnaby come pouring into my little quiet neighborhood to catch this giant pyrotechnic event.
That is why I went to the beach tonight instead. I hate crowds, especially drunken ones, and I avoid them when I can. Last Wednesday I listened to the fireworks from my bed and was asleep before they finished. I was safe and snug inside my cozy little atelier, with a fresh breeze flowing through my bedroom and the sound of my white noise machine reducing the explosions of the show to dull and distant thuds. Bliss.
Tonight I toted my bocce set down to the sublimely less than packed beach where I met my friends Jill, Beverly and Robert and we had a very civilized picnic and game of bocce. It was lovely. There were a number of other parties out on the Grassy Knoll with us and I sensed a lovely spirit in the air – one of knowing that we all share this amazing city and one of being grateful for it. The air was filled with laughter, music and the gorgeous smell of bbq and ocean air. It was magic. Jill produced a bottle of wine which her and I drank out of real glass flutes (The Saucy Milliner does not do red plastic cups) and a beautiful cheese which I really must remember to ask her what it was. It was delicious and perfect.
Jill is a very talented musician and a fellow Hat Revivalist and she really evokes the similar spirit of The Saucy Milliner’s style and aesthetic in her own craft. I adore her. Tonight I gave her a delectable petit chapeaux that I had finished earlier in the evening. I didn’t know, until I had sewn the last feather onto this delightful little number that it would be for her, but as the last striped badger hackle was fastened into place, I realized that she had to have it. I am so thrilled that she loves it and I can’t wait to make more for her. I do believe I have found my millinery muse. It’s so much easier to design a hat when one is inspired by the potential wearer and she really quite embodies a certain romance, joie de vivre and era gone by that inspires me on a day to day basis and that I try to channel in my work.
As for the bocce game – well…I really am not a strong player. In fact, I am terrible. Jill and I lost to Beverly and Robert and I can’t be mad at them for winning because they are two of the kindest souls I think I shall ever meet and God made them super good looking, and it’s hard to be upset with pretty faces like that. Also: they are both Hat Revivalists as well, which make them indefinitely impervious to any sort of spite from me for creaming me at my own game. Hee hee.
Tomorrow night is the next round of Fireworks, I believe it is Spain.
Maybe I will challenge my crowd-phobia and wade down through the throngs and try to claim a little piece of beach real-estate before the main event.
Or maybe I’ll just listen to it from my comfy bed.