A Rainy Winter Morning (Ashville General Store, Brick Elephant Design)

Revel Stoke, British Columbia

7:30

Well, it's 42º at the moment and it poured rain overnight, still raining some this morning, so the snow has melted on most of the  roofs, there are large puddles on the still frozen road, the snow diminished some by the rain.  The forecast for today is more rain, though it will get colder and perhaps rain or snow tonight, with a high wind warning.

Cross Country Skiing

Yesterday morning was surprisingly pleasant though by noon, it was  rainy and overcast. We were supposed to have breakfast at the Bemus Point Inn, but when I got there, Charlie was sitting outside the restaurant, the only car in the lot.  They are closed for two weeks; so we tried The Country Cow in Ellery and its closed till April, not a good morning, so we gave up and went home.  After breakfast at home,  I decided to go out and try cross country skiing on the lake and to my surprise, it was easy skiing, not slushy like most days, so I went down to Whitney Bay and back, a good run for the morning.  The girls stayed inside and enjoyed being cosy.

Ashville Country Store

The Ash

About 11:00, we are were a bit stir crazy, decided to go into Lakewood and get some errands done.  We stopped at the Lakewood Library, to get a book on hold when Evie noticed an OPEN sign on this cool building, on a back street.  We drove over, walked inside to a huge modernistic house/building/shop called Brick Elephant Design.  It's actually a house, designed by the owner, Laurie Shults, of the auto family I assume, and she has turned it into a cool home design and furnishing shop, open only on Thursdays, with all kinds of neat eclectic items from all over the world, chairs, lamps, candle holders, dishes, rugs, just to name a few.  We struck up a conversation, really liked her and her stuff.  She said that she designed the building and people liked it so much they have asked her to help design their own places, which is now her business.  We browsed for about a half hour, got a cool box of incense sticks and left to shop at Sam's, picking up lamb chops for dinner.  We then stopped at the Ashville Country Store for lunch, Beth's favorite, where I got a highjacker sandwich, called this because the recipe for it, was taken from the old Triangle Restaurant's recipe for a Cuban.  Marisa loved it as well and she and Evie came out with a bag full of candy.  We then made a final stop at the Ashville Library, so Marisa could play with Libby the cat, while we got a history of the library from Tabby, the librarian.  It was a fun excursion for all of us.

We knew it would be a rainy day, so Marisa, Evie and I watched a fun movie called Bend It Like Beckham, about a young Sikh girl in London who breaks against family tradition and plays soccer on a girls' soccer team.  We had seen it before but knew Marisa would like it.  While we watched, Beth worked on her painting of a Black Capped Chickadee, using one of Evie's photos as her inspiration.

For dinner, Evie seared the lamb chops, finishing them in the oven and made up a great shallot wine sauce from the pan drippings.  Even Marisa ate a couple of chops, along with the rice, garlic spinach and salad, another delicious dinner.  Evie wanted Marisa to see the movie of the Jane Austen book, SENSE AND SENSIBLITY, so the girls stayed up till 11:00, to make sure the two sisters got their  wish, to marry the loves of their lives.  It's quite a good movie, great acting and story, well worth watching again.