Early yesterday morning Joe and I left the girls and came far across the country west, to Kelowna. Our friends Albert and Robina live here, in a beautiful house that overlooks the Okanagan lake,

and we’ve had the loveliest time. A very grown-up good time, with cocktails and restaurants and all manner of tidy things. Yesterday we went down to the Canada Day Celebrations in the city and over in nearby Peachland, and Joe and Albert played camera.

(See the different colours of the two hills behind Albert? One is green (trees) and the other side is brown after being cleared of trees by the Okanagan Mountain Park Fire. (2003). You can really see what it’s like in this picture.

Crazy. Albert says this kind of pine needs fire to germinate, and that in that way these natural fires that come up every hundred years or so are a good thing, but it’s still stunning to see.

Legend has it that deep in Lake Okanagan there’s a big sea monster called Ogopogo- just like the Loch Ness Monster.

In fact, one theory holds that the Loch Ness Monster and Ogopogo might be the same beast, travelling back and forth through deep and unknown channels that connect the bodies of water. (Both lakes are super deep.That one seems really unlikely though.) I’ve spent a lot of time looking over the lake since I got here though, and I haven’t seen it. (I’m trying really hard, too.) The closest I’ve come to a deep sea monster is my new sock….

Green and beady, isn’t it? It’s the Beaded Bells kit, and not an Ogopogo kit but it really seems appropriate to me for this place. While I love this kit and think this sock is beyond pretty,

I don’t think that I’m going to work on it too long today. I might have overlooked the complexity of working a beaded knit in restaurants, airplanes, cars and dinner tables, and am leaving a few beads behind everywhere that I go. There’s a few on an Air Canada plane, a few at a Mexican restaurant in Kelowna, a few a the beach…

If you find some, you’ll know I was there.