Elaine and I were up early today, same as if it were a working day, because we had to get her car to the garage at eight o'clock to ensure it would be looked at today. It's been running hot and making suspicious clunks. The evidence pointed toward a failing water pump. On her car the water pump cannot be removed without also removing the timing chain, and while it's a job I could do if I had a timing light, that is one tool that is not in my arsenal so better to leave this to the professionals.

After dropping the car off we bused back into town and Elaine went to get her hair cut and I caught a little of the St. Patrick's Day parade. It's the first one ever in Vancouver. If that seems odd, understand that as a British colony, Canada was not the first choice for Irish Catholic emigrants, and the Irish that did settle here are largely Protestant Northern Irish. My dad told me about a couple of abortive attempts at St. Patrick's Day parades when he was young (in Alberta) that resulted in Protestant Irish showing up en masse to beat the crap out of the Catholics. The same certainly would have happened here in less politically-correct times. Protestant Irish had a big enough influence here in the not-so-long-ago colonial days (remember that Vancouver is only 108 years old) that there used to be an Orange Street (the only remnant of which is the "No. 5 Orange Street" strip club) named after the Orangemen in what used to be the heart of the city at the time.

After the haircut we went looking at apartment goodies at Chintz & Co. and Liberty, I picked up a couple of my favourite cigars at the Vancouver Cigar Shop in Yaletown and then we bought some plants for the balcony at the garden centre down my Fish Co. off Pacific. Fun, fun! I've started a minor balcony garden now.

Tonight looks like it will be fun. We'll be going to St. Andrew's - Wesley Church on Burrard (the place where the have the Jazz Vespers kitty corner from the old Hydro Building) to photograph "Paradise" and then on to Sin City for a few more photos.