A new home

Disclaimer: Too tired to make this sound pretty.

It's been a week since we moved to Kinbasket Lake last Saturday, to our new jobs and home. We got on the road straight after I finished work on friday (Simon did the entire move and apartment clean alone, what a dude!) and were out of the city in about 2 hours flat (heaps of traffic) and then finally hit some beauty as we moved into the BC interior in our sweet family van. It felt so good to be putting the city behind us and we were so stoked as we started to see mountains pop up and mirror-still lakes outside the windows. It was awesome. We stopped a night at a sleazy motel room in Kamloops, drank wine, ate pizza, felt ill, decided never to eat pizza again. Then got up and drove the rest of the way here.

The journey over Roger's Pass was incredible. The mountains just kept getting bigger and more spectacular as we got closer to them, then we were up among them and everything looked like a postcard. The water is a bright cloudy aqua blue and the trees are true forest green, like an old MG. The rocks around the edges of the water have quartz in them so they are shot with icy sparkles. Kinbasket is down a dirt road near the top of Roger's Pass and it zigzags down to the campground, where we were first greeted with the house that I am writing this from - an old wooden two storey farmhouse perched on the edge of the banks of (and will probably be inside of in the future) the Beaver river, with antlers over the doorways and swallows nests in the rafters. The only noise here, aside from campers and the odd power tool from the maintenance crew (Simon and Eric), is the sound of trains passing - but even that is quite pleasant. They sound their horns in the night and sometimes I wake up, but compared to Vancouver's sirens and screams, it is nothing. I even kind of like it.

Let's start with today because it is the most fresh in my memory (obviously...it's 10.48pm and I have been working since around the same hour this morning so my brain is fried). Today was a little crazy, although it started off calmly. Our boss Rick went into town this morning so I was in charge of the reception area, which was fine with me. It's nice chatting with people and knowing who is camping. That way when I am walking around later people say hi and we can chat. At about 3pm rick called to say his truck had broken down, so I was basically in the front desk area all day. So far, so calm. Today there were so many hummingbirds around. I think they have taken over the top spot (previously taken by elephants) in my favourite animal stake. They are so fucking cool. They hover like tiny helicopters, swooping and darting over and around obstacles as fast as a fly. They get exceptionally feisty around the hummingbird feeder and often have little altercations with each other over who gets to feed from it. It's a constant battle of the wings, little wing blades bashing together making a louder whir, then darting away and back at it again. They are about the size of a moth. I have never seen anything like them. Eric is a good bird spotter and radios me when he sees something interesting - a hawk or osprey gliding over the lake. Oh god I havent even mentioned the lake yet. It changes by the hour, the mix of green in the aqua blue, the level of cloudiness, the movement of the ripples across its surface. Everything. It never seems to stay the same.

So getting back to today, after Rick finally got back with the truck all fixed, we looked out the windows and saw a storm coming across the lake. Like a grey wall of mist. Then, suddenly, it landed. This house is old and it doesnt take kindly to wind, as I found. Simon and Eric were outside making picnic tables (which is also cool to watch, so professional looking!) and they were suddenly scrambling to retrieve pieces of wood and the cans and bottles from the recycling area. Tornados of dust were flying around the campsite, hitting us in the face. I struggled to get the doors closed as the house was suddenly full of conflicting gusts. Something smashed upstairs, then something else (windows in Rick's room). Doors banged, pictures fell off hooks. I ran around pulling windows and doors shut as fast as I could. Rick was pulling the hanging plants off their hooks and picking up the plastic deck chairs. Then, just as suddenly, it was over. It rained for a while (not long enough - there is a fire ban here cos it is so dry) and we picked up the debris and went back inside, equals parts exhausted and excited. It was kinda cool. Then thunder echoed around the lake for half an hour or so and we were back to normal. Other stuff happened this afternoon to make it feel more manic, but at the moment it is all blurred into the storm...there was puke in the bathrooms which I had to squirt away with a high pressure hose, I remember that. Anyway, the point is that every day is totally different.

Some more interesting facts:

• Cool thing: We swim in the lake most lunchbreaks. Ahhhh, incredibly refreshing.
• It is weird living so far from a shop. We bought what we thought was a week's worth of groceries but they have lasted five days and we are out.
• We have been working pretty long hours. I now know the difference between a 30 hour week and a 50 hour week. I am so tired right now, physically tired.
• It's awesome though. I am glad we did it.
• Bedtime.