FUNGUS GARGOYLES

Here are those gargoyle fungi I spied on my walk in John Dean Park with Rhona. Why will blogger refuse photos some times and then happily take them at others?

RIGGITY-JIG

Here I am, back in Toronto, but perhaps not entirely. The title to this post is supposed to summon to the reader’s mind that line from Mother Goose: “Home again, home again, riggity-jig” – but when I tried to check the spelling of “riggity” via Google, all I found was “jiggity-jig”… So, am I mis-remembering the rhyme, or did my mother use an unrecorded variant? No answer is available now she’s dead, though asking my siblings what they remember might constitute the next research step.

It’s high summer here and today (Friday) is lovely, bright sun and a breeze, not too hot and not too humid. I arrived back Tuesday evening. By now I’m unpacked and I’ve even gone through the mound of mail waiting for me. It released a stack of journals and books that I may never get through, as well as a handful of letters, including several from my friend Irene in Tasmania. So now my mind is full of memories of Tasmania and I'm tempted by my shelf of Tasmanian books.

But the question in my mind, if not in yours, is where will this blog go now? Perhaps it will become a site for remembering, and for further thinking about our/my experiences in Korea and Japan. For instance, when I walked through the University of Toronto campus this morning I caught sight of several groups of children in matching, brightly-coloured, T-shirts, participants in one or another of the summer day-camps operated out of the University. Those T-shirts conjured up images of the parties of day-care children Peter and I saw when we visited Namsangol Hanok Village in Seoul on one of our first days there. They were playing in the sand, having a picnic lunch under some trees, lined up to look at the traditional houses, and so charming we could have spent the morning watching them.

A WALK IN THE FOREST

On Saturday, July 24, my friend and fellow poet Rhona McAdam (see her wonderful blog at: http://iambiccafe.blogspot.com/) collected me from my Aunt’s and took me for a walk in John Dean Park (http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/explore/parkpgs/john_dean/). Like every day in Victoria for the time I was there it was sunny and clear, the sun hot, its heat offset by breeze and by the shade of the enormous trees we walked under.

We passed a lily pond (bullhead lilies, I think) where there were few flowers, but the leaves stood high out of the water on long stems, reminding me of the lotus ponds we’d seen in Korea, also without blooms. We noticed several different fungi, most growing on trees. My favourite was a series of three white ones that looked like small gargoyles set into a massive trunk.

That hike (some three hours or so) was my re-entry to the non-urban, and lovely it was to find myself walking on earth and duff, even if it meant an occasional stumble over tree roots or stones. (I was wearing borrowed shoes and blame them, rather than any clumsiness on my part.)

Winding along various trails, we more or less followed a route suggested by an enthusiastic walker we met in the parking lot. Being directionally challenged and a little dazed at being out in the woods, I quietly left the navigation to Rhona. She managed a fine trick, leading us on trails for nearly the whole walk that led down slopes rather than laboriously up them. Except when we took the advice of a trio of enthusiastic walkers at a fork in the path—the tine they recommended led down a steep and rough trail into a small canyon and then veered steeply up again. But it did culminate in a lovely view.

When we closed our circuit back at the parking lot I was tired but felt like I’d moved properly for the first time in weeks. And I wasn’t stiff the next day.

HERE ARE THE HYDRANGEAS ...

I photographed them on Oak Bay early Sunday morning, my first Sunday in Victoria. What a blue!

IN VICTORIA ON THE WAY HOME

Sunday, 18 July 2010 … though not posted until Thursday, 22 July …

I’m breaking my return trip home with a stop in Victoria, to visit my Aunt—who is in hospital. But I’m here for 10 days, and I trust she’ll be discharged* before I leave and we’ll be able to enjoy our usual conversations in her sun-filled dining room.

Yes, sun-filled. The weather here is extraordinarily gorgeous! It’s been sunny and clear since I arrived. The flowers are ravishingly brilliant. And the air—I’d forgotten the pleasure of air cool and fresh on your skin. Walking is a delight.

How lucky I didn’t go straight back to Toronto where the temperature and humidity are about a match for what we experienced in Korea and Japan. Only there it was part of the rainy season.

This morning I walked over to Oak Bay Village and back, early, before most shops were open. Photographed hydrangeas, some snail-shaped macaroons (or do I mean meringues?) in a window, and a china tea set that seemed quintessentially Victoria. (I remember staring at china in shop windows here when I was a small child.) I resisted the temptation to photograph signs, simply because I can read them …

*And yes, my Aunt is now home. It’s such a treat to be here with her! But where the hydrangea photograph went, I've no idea ...

LEAVING TOKYO, HEADING HOME ...

It's D for Departure Day ... or perhaps it's R for Return Day ... We're packed and will checkout of the hotel shortly. We take an airport limousine bus at noon for late afternoon flights from Narita.

We've had two rambles around Tokyo at night, with Blair; dinner with my mother's cousin's grandson and his family; explored two highend shopping and entertainment complexes, both within walking distance of our hotel; seen a beautiful exhibition of Noh costumes and masks, found a few gardens, a very fine park, stared down at the city from a tower, and stared out/up at it from a cruise on the Sumida River. In short, we've passed through ... have hardly glimpsed Tokyo, hardly have a sense of it. But it fills our heads and will resonate I'm sure over the next few months, as we look back through images that float into mind and photos, like these below.

On the Sumida River. (all photos mine)

300-year old pine, Hama-Rikyu Park

Sumida River bridge

Metro Hat, Roppongi Hills

THE MOON RISES HERE

My photograph, taken about 8:p.m., just outside Metro Hat, Roppongi Hills, Thursday, 15 July 2010. (Rosemary, is that bright spot to the right Venus?)