Sometimes the weather gods decide to give you a big, fat break and that’s exactly what happened to us last week in our tiny corner of the world.
 
Here on the Saanich Peninsula (north of Victoria) we enjoy about 30% less rain than Vancouver. So let me dispense with the “wet coast” stereotype just a little bit. Okay, with autumn’s arrival, the rainy season starts to move in: yesterday it rained. Sunday it poured. But last week from Wednesday through to Saturday, when my dad and younger sister were visiting from Kelowna in the BC interior, the sun shone brightly and we got up to 25 degrees, if the car’s temperature reading was to be believed.
 
It was the best convertible weather we could have asked for – if only all four of us had fit into the MINI! But even though having them with us made the convertible impossibly impractical, we were happy to suck it up and take the “grown up” car for some wonderful outings.
 
One of them was up island about 45 minutes to a place called the Villa Eyrie in Malahat. In case it sounds familiar, the Malahat is also the name for the one-way-up and one-way-down highway that is often closed due to vehicle rollovers, bringing island traffic to a standstill for hours on end. It seems to happen at least twice a month. On this glorious early fall day, though, we stopped off in a provincial park for a short walk and then made our way to the villa, a resort that features a beautiful restaurant called – appropriately – the Summit.
 
A weekday afforded us the luxury of having an outdoor deck all to ourselves and, under the shade of two umbrellas, we enjoyed a spectacular, slow-paced lunch as we all took in the view of the south end of the Saanich Inlet (listed in some places as a fjord) from 1880 feet above sea level.
 

 
A stroll around the grounds later afforded us a chance to get a few pictures together. 
 

 
And, of course, Dad was clowning around for the camera….
 

 
But he finally behaved himself! The weather, as I say, couldn’t have been better for their visit. And nowhere was that more clearly illustrated than on Wednesday, when we were out to dinner for my birthday at a place called The Chalet at Deep Cove. As wonderful as our meal and server were, little could compare with the picture that was developing right outside our window.
 

 
I swear to you, there are no filters or photo tricks at play here. I only wish that later, as we sat at home watching an orange harvest moon rise behind majestic Mount Baker, I could have captured the magic. You’ll just have to take my word for it – it was, just as the ads say, Super Natural British Columbia at its very best.
 
Tomorrow, a darker side to our visit as #metoo came home.