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.
Beautiful photos! I especially love the spider web… so gorgeous.
I love gardens like this! I’m currently visiting London and spent all day Saturday in Kensington gardens. Not quite the same as the one you photographed but I love parks, gardens, etc. they are so peaceful
So glad you’re on the mend and had a chance to reminisce on your visit to Butcharts. It’s such a gorgeous spot. A friend and I had annual passes a couple of years back. It was amazing to see the season’s changing there. You’ll need to visit at Christmas sometime. It becomes quite magical!
I didn’t even think it would be open during the winter, but now that I do it makes sense given the climate. I can just imagine it all lit up and gorgeous! I’d love to see it sometime. Does it run for a few weeks around the holidays?
Intruding on this comment but I’m from Victoria and planning to go see the Christmas lights at Butchart this year as it’s been quite a while since I’ve gone so I had to look up the dates: December 1 – January 6.
thanks for the tip!
Hope you feel better – this is such a common time for colds! Inhale the soup :)
Butchart is insanely delightful in the winter, and it has nothing to do with the plants. I posted a bunch of pix of it on my blog: http://rebstevenson.com/2011/12/into-the-electric-garden/
Love it…looks magical!
Beautiful pics!!
Talk about beauty. wow. Great photos. I hope you feel better, and glad to hear tour battle with the virus had such a big impact. I have found that if I ingest a lot of orange, carrot, ginger, I tend to reduce symptoms and get better quickly. Every winter, I try to sneak ginger into any and everything and use more citrus.
I hear you…I swore that soup was healing!
Oh Ange, these photos are beautiful! Gardening is not one of my strong suits at all (unless it’s weeds we’re talking about!) so I have crazy admiration for people that can make flowers live. I hope you’re feeling better now! :)
Thank you for your suggestion Angela. I’m guessing I need to increase my
budget for a good camera. My husband took photography classes in college
and even had a dark room at one time. We’ve had a variety of cameras but
never a DSLR. When I look at your photos from your travel adventures, I
yearn for something similar, alive, and stunning. Do you have occasion to
use PhotoShop, or are you able to manipulate all your images through your
camera? Thanks again! Val
Hey Val, I use Lightroom for photo editing and I really love how user friendly it is. Im horrible when it comes to photoshop so the only thing I use that for is for adding text on a photo.
amazing! i lack a green thumb also.. i manage to kill bamboo.
hah I did before too! That was a low point in my life.
Wow, that’s some nice color and blooms for fall in Canada…at least more than I expected. Love it! A lot of inspiration in there…
Beautiful photos! I absolutely love Butchart Gardens – it’s an absolute must-see! :)
Get feeling better!
I have so many fond memories of the Buchart Gardens. I used to go there with my Grandparents when I was a little girl. I remember going at Christmas and excitedly trying to find the “12 days of Christmas” hidden in the gardens.
It’s a truly stunning, but expensive, place to visit!
I so want to go there around the holidays now!
Buchart Gardens at Christmas time is awesome! When I was growing up they were introducing one more day of Christmas each year. I haven’t see it with the full 12 days, though. Perhaps this year…
Absolutely amazing pictures by the way!
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 :)
You just reminded me that I have a Botanical Garden around here that I should go to again. Nature is always so beautiful and a great way for me to relax, remember what I’m grateful for, and get my Vitamin D3 in for the day. ;)
Wow, those are some gorgeous photos! I especially love the detail of the spider web…stunning!
I hope you feel better soon Angie!
Hi Angela,
I’ve been following your blog for a while now, and I think it is absolutely amazing!
I have been a vegetarian for some time, but somehow, I developed IBS and my trigger foods are dairy and white starches, so I have been looking for interesting things to eat without the two, and you have so many great ideas and recipes!
Have you considered joining the 365project? I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, but it’s a project where you take one photo every day for a year, to document your life and develop your skills. Thought it would be fun for you, you seem like you really enjoy photography!
I have been doing it for almost a year, only 35 photos to go :D
Hey Finn, Thanks for your lovely note!
I’ve heard of the 365 project before, but havent tried it out. Would be a fun project for sure!
What gorgeous photos. I was there in May 2010 when I traveled to Canada for a friends wedding. I had to laugh at the name of the gardens. Never seen the name Butchart outside of Aberdeen, Scotland where I went to University. Butchart is a local name and was the name of our sports facilities!
Wow–these pictures are gorgeous! Thanks for sharing. Absolutely beautiful.
Hope you’re feeling better!
Hope you’re feeling better Angela! :) These pictures are amazing!
So beautiful pictures! Gorgeous!