Two weeks ago, on the day after we returned from Alan’s exciting few days in Whistler I had four artists here to paint plates and I threw the bodies of four new jugbirds. At some point I inserted and shaped the spouts/bills but it wasn’t until yesterday that I found time to attach handles. It’s been a busy time. I thought I’d post some photos from our exciting events recently.

I did enjoy attending the opening of High Fire Culture and the following Saturday talks at the Satellite Gallery and I’ve already posted lots of photos from those two occasions.

Then last Tuesday we trundled in to Vancouver again, this time all the way out to UBC to proudly attend our older son Stephen’s awarding of his MEng degree. Our younger son Michael joined us. With teaching at BCIT full-time this past year, finishing UBC course and project work and becoming a father we think Steve can be very proud of himself. Jennifer and baby Caleb really couldn’t be there for the long, and rainy afternoon but I’m sure Steve celebrated with his family later.

On the Thursday, our 43rd Wedding Anniversary Al and I promised ourselves that we would not ‘work’ i.e. Al in his study, me in my studio, so we took ourselves off for a walk around Burnaby’s Deer Lake. It’s just the perfect length of walk all around, with birds, the lake, historic houses, Deer Lake Art Gallery, Burnaby Art Gallery (both of those were ‘between’ shows..) and the Shadbolt Centre to make it interesting. To continue the ‘no work’ theme we went to Brown’s Social House for dinner and then to Silver City Cinemas to see the new Star Trek movie. Nice!

Then on Saturday, and my age is something I’ve never felt a need to hide, we invited friends to party with us to celebrate my seventieth birthday. We were so lucky that Jennifer and Steve brought our grandson over to meet everybody and he really did very well for an 8-week old fellow.

Jen and her mum left earlyish but having Caleb here made my day. Our sons stayed until everybody had left, to help clean up. Sorry we couldn’t have had more people here but this old house can only handle so many! But one old friend said that our gatherings are like a salon, with people  from a variety of interests chatting together.

Can I say here that I thank you all for joining us to celebrate my first seventy years? I was so happy to have you here. June 1st is a good day to start a new decade in my life and I am optimistic about the ‘work’ and travels in our future.