Still paddling. This was taken at Plumper’s Cove, close to Gibsons Marina.

Photo credit Diane Hill

August was supposed to be relaxed. I had my edit corrects into Heritage house Publishing for Bloomsbury to Barkerville: The Life of Florence Wilson and had filled in the marketing questionnaire, so I was free to do the responses to editing from Camel Press on Murder in Ashton-on-Tinch. That did leave me enough time to enjoy the two festivals in my area: The Sunshine Coast Festival of the Written Arts and their impressive roster of speakers and the Sunshine Coast Arts and Words Festival.

The results of the Arts and Words book contest were:

Non-fiction

Honourable Mention: Always on Call: Adventures in Nursing, Ranching, and Rural Living. Marion McKinnon Crook. Heritage House Publishing.

I’m a bit chuffed about that. That was a tough category to win in. The  Winners were:

The Final Spire: Mystery Mountain Mania in the 1930s, Trevor Marc Hughes, Ronsdale Press

A Complex Coast by David Norwell, Heritage House

Almost Brown, Charlotte Gill, Penguin-Random House

Hearty: On Cooking, Eating and Growing Food for Pleasure and Subsistence, andrea bennett, ECW Press

Knots & Stitches: Community Quilts Across the Harbour, Kristin Miller, Caitlin Press

Sunshine Coast Fiction

Winner: Murder in Vancouver 1886. Marion Crook. Epicenter Press.

Trevor Hughes is also a journalist. His review of the Arts and Words  event is here.

As well, August supplied me with visitors. My nephew and his partner came for the day. I haven’t seen him for ages and it was a treat take the time to chat. My friends came for a few days and I relaxed and enjoyed them. You’d think we would have lots of time to visit at our age, but we don’t. Summer gives us some time as we don’t have the usual commitments. Those will all begin again in September.

I’m giving up on the garden. I started with such enthusiasm in the spring, but by now, I’m running low on interest. I’m watching the buttercups take over the blueberry and potato patches, and I am not filled with zeal to get at them. I agree buttercup flowers are pretty, but the roots are nasty. They make me think of some people, beautiful to look at but uncomfortable to know. You’d think I’d enjoy digging the buttercups out, a sort of therapeutic annihilation of nasty people, but I’ve dug those same buttercups out four time this year, and I give up.

The festivals have cut into my outrigger canoeing time. Beautiful weather for it, too.

My dog Carly loves this weather. She is originally from Mexico and has opinions about rain.