Spot the Difference

From the fall of 1981 to the spring of 1983, Bruce and I lived in Victoria, British Columbia. I spent most of 1982 working on my masters degree in English at the University of Victoria. Bruce spent most of his time looking for work, and, once having found work, wishing he could work someplace else. When I'd finished my degree, we spent most of our time raising the scratch to get back home to Ontario.

The joke I used to tell was that we lived in Victoria for twenty months, six days, four hours and ....

We were back in Victoria this past week to visit my sister. We zipped up and down the Island Highway to see the pretty scenery and visit family in Nanaimo and Qualicum Beach.

View from the Malahat, August 2013:

Same view from the Malahat, June 1995:

Apropos of last week's post, we spent a good portion of our visit struggling - struggling - to put together our memories of Victoria as it was when we lived there in the early 80's.

We spent our first day visiting the Inner Harbour (but I forgot my camera battery so no photos), which should have loomed large in our memories because of all the time we spent at a little pub, the Beaver, tucked in a far corner of the Empress Hotel. But, no. The place felt as familiar as a photo on a faded post card. The Beaver itself is long since closed (1989 they shut her down) and bees guard the latchless door where the entrance once stood.

We managed to put a few pieces together on our last full day in Victoria when we walked around downtown.

This is the theatre where we saw E.T.

This is the hotel across from the ODEON theatre where we drank India Pale Ale.

This is the view from the spit jutting out from Beacon Hill Park where Mom and Dad came all the way to Victoria from Trenton to help me celebrate my 25th birthday.

Here's a photo from the day in September 1982 when they visited.

Here's our first home in Victoria, photographed both this past week and five years ago, when we were in Victoria for my niece's wedding. 

We lived in a ground-level apartment at 1142 North Park Street. Ours was the entrance at the side of the house. 

1142 North Park Street in 2008

1142 North Park Street in 2013

Here's the second place we lived, 723 Field Street, on a cul-de-sac across from the Victoria Armoury, once an apartment, then a Traveller's Inn and now a property on court-ordered sale that the City of Victoria has purchased so as to make more affordable housing available.

I'm not a sentimental person and our long ago stay in Victoria was a mix of happy and sad times, so I can't say that I waxed nostalgic on this trip down memory lane. But I stopped in my tracks, a bit whelmed, when I saw through a third-storey window overlooking an empty parking lot, my old kitchen.

The window on the top floor, to the left of the chimney.

Thanks for reading! Have a great week!

Karen