Spelunking the Coast April 18 & 19
The Sunshine Coast is a great place to do weekend rambles. Compared to the city, where everything is spread out, or other communities where there’s one nucleus into which everyone migrates, the Coast is unique with its string of communities, single highway, and leisurely attitude.
Gibsons Liquidation Auction from Laurie McConnell on Vimeo.
Yesterday I began my jaunts with a trip out to the Gibsons Curling Rink for a liquidation auction. That was fun, though I couldn’t last long listening to the auctioneer – too much auditory stimulation! I really wanted one of the 3-4 person tents but in a blink they were gone with one person buying both at $40 each. $50 was the top of my budget, and one should never attend an auction without a good list and budget fixed ahead of time lest you come home with say, 15 makeup boxes, 2 humidifiers, curtain rods that are too big for the windows, etc. I won’t say any more.
Then it was over to my favorite tech store on the Coast, London Drugs. Ahh, London Drugs. Other women may head to the large cosmetics section, cool and constantly changing housewares aisles, or perhaps the beautifully designed kitchen sales area… but I head over to computers, stopping in to say hi to Christian and Ted in the cameras area (thanks for the awesome Kodak HD video camera with built in pop-out USB port, no cords yahoo! and a great price). Then it’s through the arch to tech heaven, where I peruse the netbooks – one of the only PC products that you can even buy without Vista pre-installed; netbook and data card from your cellular provider and it’s blogging from anywhere – and then pay homage to the macs. Boxes and boxes of macs, from gorgeous 24-inch iMacs (one friend said the iMac she bought for her husband due to his deteriorating sight has totally revitalized him) to my idea of nirvana: the 15″ MacBook Pro with 4gb ram, 320gb drive, superprocessor and lightweight aluminum case… toss in the new intuitive trackpad with built in motions for browsing the web and working with Adobe products, and oh my. It’s my sugarplum vision these days.
Sechelt Farmers Market, Every Saturday Sunshine Coast from Laurie McConnell on Vimeo.
Following the stare-and-it-shall-become-yours treatment at LD, I headed back to Sechelt for the Farmers Market, a misnomer covering an open air market that happens every Saturday at the Ravens Cry Theatre parking lot in Sechelt. Here you’ll find not only scrumptious organic produce, but home made jams & jellies, spices, herbals, baking and sometimes even exquisitely handmade chocolates by my friend Jan. For gifts there’s jewellery, pottery, woodcraft (I ordered my bigpacific sign from Will Cummer, “Will of the Woods” and am STOKED to get it next week), clothing, sculptures, photography, drawings and a whole bunch of other things that change from week to week. Music is provided by a variety of performers, this week a delightful accordion player playing to raise funds for the St. Mary’s Hospital Auxiliary. Grand.
What’s on today? Well, we’re off to the Earth Day Celebrations in Roberts Creek shortly (video and pics to follow), a household contents estate auction – always a bloodthirsty and rousing affair – and the Art Farm project in Gibsons this afternoon. The day ends beautifully with “Sundays at Seven” with Mark Lemon at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre on Trail Avenue in Sechelt; this two hour weekly event offers soulful discussion and sublime meditation and fellowship to give Coasties that enviable serenity we so value in living here.
See you around the Coast! If you find me, walk up and introduce yourself and you might find yourself with a local gift.
