Winters on Bowen can be a challenge for many. So a few survival suggestions might be in order.
Here’s my list of fourteen things you can do when the dark and the wet is getting to you:
- Pop into Phoenix in Village Square. Buy a book about a warm climate. A chat with Alison is always a cheer up. And if you like mysteries, they have some used ones for $2.00. There are twenty in the Janet Evanovich series. By the time you finish, it’ll be spring.
- Grab the kids and go to the beach, any beach, and look for beach glass. You might even spot a whale or a pod of dolphins swimming by.
- Go to the Snug Café for a bowl of soup and try to stay morose while Piers tells you one of his hilarious jokes.
- Walk the cross-island trail – minimum two hours – all that fresh air will put you in a great mood. And you’ll be too tired to complain about the weather or the small ferry.
- Go to the library on a Sunday afternoon. They’re open in the winter from 12 – 4 pm. You can sit in one of those comfy chairs, read the newspapers, and catch up on what’s going on in the rest of the world. Guaranteed to make you feel good about living in such a beautiful, relatively peaceful place.
- Go to a municipal council meeting and support the courageous people who are working very hard to make sure this island is a good place to live, whatever the season.
- Stop in at the Village Video store and choose a comedy. While you’re there, be sure and feed Candy, the cocker spaniel. There’s a little bowl of her dog food right on the front counter. She doesn’t eat at home, Mladen tells me. Oh, and if you throw the little biscuit she jumps up and catches it. Very entertaining. I found a great movie there last week - As It Is In Heaven - about a small town church choir in Sweden and how the power of singing together does amazing, miraculous and romantic things for the villagers and the choir director.
- Join the Bowen Island Community Choir. See number 7.
- Go to the Fix-It- Fair this Saturday at Collins Hall from 11 - 3, hobnob with your neighbours, and bring along your broken tools, small appliances, electronics, clothing, anything that needs mending.
- Phone West Coast Seeds – 604-952-8820 - and order their free catalogue of untreated and local seeds – over 700 vegetable, herb and flower varieties. Start planning your garden.
- Go on to the Bowen Forum and post something outrageously kind.
- Go to the lagoon and feed the ducks. There’s a new pair of ducks in the lagoon - male and female wigeons. They are so beautiful, smaller than the mallards. You can identify the male by the jaunty white stripe on his head. And he never lets the female far out of his sight. Listen for their call. It sounds exactly like the squeaky yellow rubber ducky in your bathtub. You can buy duck food in $3.00 bags at Bowen’s Little Pet Shop in Artisan Square. I tried feeding them millet but they seem to prefer the pellets in these bags.
- While you’re at Artisan Square, invite a friend for a cup of hot chocolate at Cocoa West, and enjoy the benefits of chocolate. Scientifically proven. Chocolate causes the brain to release endorphins, chemicals that make you feel good. As well as serotonin, which acts like an antidepressant and helps you to relax. With all those endorphins and serotonin flowing through your body you’ll be ready to go for the next suggestion.
- Buy some extra food at the Ruddy Potato or the General Store and drop it off at the Food Bank in the Little Red Church for those who are having an especially hard time this winter.
Now that the snowdrops are popping their little white heads out of the ground, spring is just around the corner!
