Hi again
Yes, great meetup, great pub. I am in awe of the food attitudes on the island - I haven't seen so much wonderful food since I left Quebec (sorry Ontario). I have now tasted bigleaf maple syrup and maple honey (honey from nectar collected just from maple flowers, not something we can do here). And 2% sugar instead of 4% in the sap, no wonder the syrup is so expensive, that is a major boil. And no snow -> no taffy on snow, big loss.
I was sorry not to be able to do the Victoria meetup, but on the ferry I found out there was a mix-up in my Sunday night reservations, and I was really glad to be early-ish and sober to deal with the mess. ;-( Then Monday morning I found out my flight was rerouted, I spent forever in Calgary airport (time for a meetup if we had known ahead of time!) and got home at 2 AM (counting the car ride) instead of 9:30 PM, which also meant the snow had started. And, yes, my driveway is literally a skating rink, the ice was gleaming in the car headlights. As I stood freezing outside the terminal waiting for my ride I kept wondering - "why am I living here? Oh right, I can move." And then my ride kept talking about all the people he knows who had moved to Vancouver Island and Vancouver and hated it, or were not welcomed by locals and were made to feel like outsiders, and I kept thinking - "How can this be the same place I had so much fun in and was so welcomed?" Very weird.