In which Roz and Layla drink cocktails, and go to Fringe Festival in Victoria, and Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle

By Roz

It was undeniably cool to arrive in Victoria by helicopter. Less cool was dragging our suitcases from the shuttle bus down various deserted roads into the suburbs of Victoria and wondering what we'd been thinking when we'd booked this AirBnB flat "near Cook St Village"'.. A thought that became all the more pressing when I realized that our flat was up three narrow flights of stairs. There is a lesson in here somewhere. Probably to pack less. But the flat turned out to be lovely inside and at various points over the next few days staying in it, we mused vigorously on how to emulate its coziness and general delightfulness. Without success I fear. 

Having dumped our stuff we headed out to acquire groceries and for a mini explore of the area. It turned out that we had parked ourselves in a suburb which could be described as a village if you interpret that as meaning "has a shop or two within a ten minute walk". Alas. We picked up groceries and more medications for me (I am fast becoming a very bad patient, and require Layla to think of medications to fix me, given her doctoring background: this is proving an expensive hobby on this holiday at least). This accomplished, we headed out to dinner at the delightful Little Jumbo, which turned out to be one of the top 30 restaurants in Canada. Slightly hard to find, with cool lighting and terrific cocktails, it proved to be a delightful introduction to Vancouver Island. 

Next morning the weather looked gloomy, but our depression at this was soon dissipated by the discovery that our visit to Victoria co-incided with the Victoria Fringe Festival. Layla handed me multiple apple devices and a credit card and instructed me to "book things". Somewhat restrainedly, I only booked three shows but musing on the options in our delightful flat almost distracted me from moaning about my cold and bites, and thus was a sensible ploy by Layla. We headed out for an embarrassingly early lunch which involved walking to the other bit of the "village". Lunch was delicious - and in a surprisingly popular venue - and we meandered from there downtown taking a very circuitous route along the water. This all proved picturesque and lovely but in true English fashion I then began to demand afternoon tea. We popped into the Empress hotel - which is famed as the place to go for afternoon tea - and then fled when we heard it was going to cost us $60 each. We ended up on the hotel's verandah overlooking the sea. Tea was provided (with the tea bag already in the teapot - Canadians having learned this key skill from us in a way Americans have resisted). Also cake. And I very much enjoyed the opportunity to focus on my book (the new Sarah Waters) whilst Layla finally finished Steinbeck's East of Eden. All in all very enjoyable. 

From there we headed back to see our first fringe festival show (in an area quite close to our flat, which we saw was described as in the "boonies" by one reviewer). It was a one woman show about roller derby and though not earth shattering, was very jolly. We went from there to an Indian restaurant for dinner and from there to our second fringe show. This proved to have been a poor pick. It was well done, if you like somewhat facile physical farcical comedy, but wasn't to my taste. With my cold feeling ever more oppressive I nudged Layla and persuaded her to make a speedy exit at an opportune moment. We headed back to our flat and watched a jolly episode or two of Community on Netflix before retiring to bed. 

Next morning I felt little better and Layla had begun sneezing and rain had made its appearance. So we took this as fate telling us to settle down in our lovely flat for the morning to read our books. We eventually headed out for a huge egg-focussed lunch downtown which also involved a little Fringe-based bonding with a fellow diner. From there we went to hire bikes and headed out on the Galloping Goose trail into the countryside. This was often delightful - mainly flat and sometimes in countryside and sometimes by the water. But. Then - after around 15km - we found ourselves on a trail surrounded on both sides by a freeway. We looked at the map and realized this would continue for a while and so decided to beat a hasty retreat. Or as hasty a retreat as one can when needing to traverse 15 or so km. 

Having dropped off our bikes, we headed to Chapters, a nice looking bookshop that I had noticed. We browsed, felt guilty at not buying books (but the DC library is so good!) and then settled down in the bookshop cafe for a tea and a read. Or, in Layla's case, a cake-pop and a snooze. After this delightful interlude we headed back to Little Jumbo for an early dinner before our final fringe show. The restaurant was as lovely as ever - and we were greeted as regulars - and we therefore felt not too bad to be revisiting a place we'd been to before. And I felt the cocktails were definitely medicinal. 

Our final fringe show (The Middle of Everywhere) proved to be really excellent: set at a bus stop (what could be better?!), it was almost exclusively mime, and all the more impressive given that the performers wore masks and managed to convey far more story than I could have imagined possible. An excellent conclusion to our interlude in Victoria (despite Layla's cold declaring victory in her battle to fight it off). 

Next morning, we were up fairly early - to pack and so that Layla could rehearse one of the upcoming performers in Perfect Liars Club - and we were then on the ferry to Seattle. This proved entirely delightful - what's not to like about a ferry from one country to another. And the mimosas were a pleasant addition...

And now by Layla

We were delighted to find a taxi waiting for us and before long we were in our downtown Seattle AirBnB apartment, which was quite cool. And then we were dashing out towards the cinema near the Space Needle - you see we'd identified a cool short films event from the Seattle International Film Festival. What their website failed to mention was that said cinema was within the walls of a big annual arts festival in Seattle called Bumbershoot. Much angst ensued, as we scrabbled for a plan B... It was already 4pm on the last full day of our holiday: we NEEDED a good plan. We looked up the festival and found it was quite full of good stuff, including The Moth. So we took a deep breath, bought the tickets, and headed to the films, only to find they were full. This was in fact the theme of Bumbershoot: stand in line for hours if you actually want to see anything. We failed on the films. We failed on two comedy shows. We managed to get in to see Tim Robbins, a local author clearly much beloved in Seattle (he wrote Even Cowgirls Get the Blues) who was quite cheery, reading the first page of each of his eleven published books. And then, after debating the merits of hiding in the toilet to sneak into the next show, Roz left early, zoomed into line, and secured our spots at what turned out to be the most expensive Moth show I've ever attended. But nevertheless, it was really good, with three thought provoking stories. We were very happy we'd managed to get in. 

After that, we fought our way out of Bumbershoot, and onwards to a really cool line of bars and restaurants which we had failed to encounter during our previous week in Seattle. Our destination: Bathtub gin, a cool little speakeasy bar down an alley. We had some delicious cocktails, then, irritated by the laddish drunk men trying to talk to us, decamped to RobRoy, another cocktail bar, then to a third establishment to add potatoes and ice cream to our repertoire. During the evening my cold was getting worse and worse, so I can't say I was too sorrowful when our final holiday night ended and we were obliged to collapse into bed. 

This morning we had difficulty finding anywhere for brunch thanks to it being Labor Day, but finally sated, we grabbed our suitcases and took an Uber to... Lake Union! Our flight might have been at 2pm, but the sun had popped out from behind the clouds and paddleboards awaited! Sure enough, we stepped onto the boards and started paddling up towards the scenic gasworks park. Which was when we started to realize the lake wasn't quite as relaxing as other lakes, thanks to the large number of boats going by, either trying to run us over or throwing us into waves in their wake. I've never been on such a precarious paddle! As we shrieked and dropped to our knees to avoid being unceremoniously dumped in the probably-toxic water of Lake Union, we looked back across the Seattle skyline. "Ah, isn't this idyllic," said Roz. Just before another huge wake threatened to topple us! 

But sadly all good things must come to an end. And so we paddled precariously back to the dock, called another Uber, and headed for the airport, homeward bound. Another amazing holiday!

BOOKS READ WHILST ON HOLIDAY

Roz: East of Eden (John Steinbeck), Anne of Green Gables (LM Montgomery), The Bees (Laline Paul), We Were Liars (E Lockhart), Euphoria (Lily King), Restoration (Rose Tremain), Crazy Rich Asians (Kevin Kwan), Music for Torching (A.M. Holmes), The Paying Guests (Sarah Waters). And substantial progress made with A Place of Greater Safety (Hilary Mantel) and Empress Dowager Cixi (Jung Chang). 

Layla: The Bees (Laline Paull), Euphoria (Lily King), The Provincial Lady (EM Delafield), Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki (Haruki Murakami), We Were Liars (E Lockhart), The Fault in our Stars (John Green), East of Eden (John Steinbeck), We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Karen Joy Fowler) and substantial progress into The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters.