Cherry Blossoms

One more before the season's over. Our weather is still too cold and cloudy to seem like spring but blossoms like these make it seem a little warmer.

The Big Picture

At this time of year when there are so many spring flowers coming into bloom I tend to spend a lot of time focusing on details in the environment so here's a glimpse of what downtown Victoria looked like yesterday. The sun finally burst through the clouds and rain and it's starting to look like spring has arrived. These wonderful cherry blossoms like pink popcorn balls are almost blown but even the drifts of their fallen petals are beautiful.

Cherry Blossom

Back to Beacon Hill Park yesterday to see what else is blooming there besides crocuses. It was a nice sunny day and though winter's cold is still with us I found a surprising number of early flowers on the ground and, as in this photo, in the trees. This is a branch of the early-blooming cherry tree on the shore of Goodacre Lake.

Cherry Blossoms 2009

What would a photoblog be without a few cherry blossoms in the spring? So, here's mine for this year, captured in the grounds of Government House here in Victoria, a lovely place well worth a visit and one to which I will be returning soon (when it's NOT raining).

Old Friends

The cherry trees are blossoming now in Victoria's streets and the temperature is warm enough so that people can stop and chat with one another. I like this photo because these people look like they are old friends. Friendship is not so highly rated in today's culture as romantic or sexual relationships, yet it's an important aspect of social life. In today's highly mobile culture it is difficult to maintain friendships and I suspect most of us have no more than a few really close friends from our youth and childhood, when we make friends most easily. True friendship is probably our most selfless relationship in that it's not based on the exchange of sexual, emotional or economic favors and is defined neither legally nor genetically. It's one of those things that we know when we have it and we know when we don't have it but we find it difficult to say exactly what it is. If you have a few good old friends, count yourself a lucky person.