It takes a lot for me to be rendered motionless, but this weekend I literally couldn’t move from the couch. After demolishing a few boxes of tissue, my abs feel like I spent 72 hours doing a crunch marathon and my nose feels and looks like it was raked with metal prongs. Eric has since given me the adoring nickname of Rudolph.
I tend to go stir-crazy when forced to rest, so my full-time job became beating the cold. Eric, bless his soul, arrived home with an arsenal of cold-blasting loot. I did fresh juices, hot tea, homemade soup (luckily I had some Carrot Apple Ginger soup in the freezer!), oranges, Green Monsters, zinc & vitamin D, oil of oregano, steaming, and even dug out the neti pot. Probably a combination of good nutrition, rest, and the placebo effect, my symptoms were reduced by half by the next day. This morning, I just feel like I have a mild cold. In a strange way, I feel this cold was just the nudge I needed right now. It’s so easy to fall out of healthy habits when life is cruising along at mock speed, but being sick is a good reminder to stick to those habits even when we’re well.
I can’t remember the last weekend I wasn’t in the kitchen making recipes, but this weekend I sure as heck didn’t have the desire. So for today’s post, I’m going to share the photography from our visit several weeks ago to the famous Butchart Gardens – a stunning 50 acre floral garden with over 1 million visitors each year. It’s located 23 km north of Victoria. We went for opening on a Monday morning and it was the perfect time to enjoy the gardens without the huge crowds.
After warming up with a coffee, we walked along the huge pathway system throughout the garden. I had major gardener envy! The Butchart Gardens is world-renowned and I could quickly see why. We had so much fun with photography here. If you are ever in the area, I highly recommend a visit.
I’m not using the gallery plugin for the images since it was acting wonky on me recently. Hopefully this post doesn’t self-destruct with all these images. If you click on the first image, you can click through the entire lot with a slideshow.
Enjoy!
and another HDR pic by Eric of a beautiful tree.
I reeeeally hope their green thumbs rubbed off on me. Odds are not looking good considering my rosemary plant looks like something out of a horror flick.
I’ll be back soon with food, glorious, food.
Reminds me of our National Arboretum down here in DC. Is it unpatriotic of me to say that your Butchart Gardens is prettier?! :-)
Lovely photos. We get an annnual pass to Butchart every year so we can go whenever we like. It is fun to see the seasonal changes and the gardens are lit up for Christmas with gorgeous and fun displays of the Twelve Days of Chrismtas.
Did you see the boats moored in Butchart Cove? We love to take our sailboat there and then dinghy to the dock to enter the gardens.
Hope you feel better soon.
Great pictures! I recently moved to Bellingham, WA and am hoping to visit the gardens sometime.
Hey Angela! This is where my husband and I went for our honemoon 3 years ago! Thank you for sharing your beautiful pictures. What a gem of a spot!
That would be a great honeymoon spot!
Absolutely stunning photos. Beautiful. Makes me want to head up to B.C once again even more.
Angela, this makes me miss home SO much! I am living in England right now, but grew up on Vancouver Island! Love these pictures!
Cx
http://mixedmediumstheatre.blogspot.co.uk/
You should see it at Christmas time! I rarely go to the gardens during the year because its so expensive but I never miss a Christmas visit. From December 1 until the first week of January they deck the gardens up with christmas lights everywhere! Its beautiful. I’m getting excited for it already!
You are an AWESOME photographer!!
The Butchart Gardens are gorgeous! Have you ever been to Montreal’s Botanical Gardens as well? It’s my favourite in Canada because of the massive veggie patch! :)
Hi, I love this place! Thanks for reminding me. I went last year and loved the zen garden, roses and dock near the water. Kristine :)