Photos from a homeland

Sorry for my absence, dear readers - I took a last-minute trip to my 'homeland' for my Grandma's 90th birthday, and have been playing catch-up ever since. Lots of little posts in the making, don't worry.
In the meantime, a few photos of beautiful Vancouver island in summer. I find few places  as peacefully breathtaking as the temperate rainforest in British Colombia. It's funny how after all these years of living overseas, in some ways that part of the world still feels like 'home'. It's an area where I spent many summers as a child, sailing up and down the coast, playing in the ocean and camping the forests. Looking back, I'm so grateful to my parents for having given me that early education about the natural world - the rhythms of nature, the creatures of the land and sea.  I remember encounters with deer and racoons, and then there were the expeditions to the beaches and tide-pools, which usually resulted in my sister and I bringing back buckets full of crabs, limpets, starfish and even gooey jellyfish. I am still fascinated by all the ocean's creatures, but nowadays I prefer not to bring them home!

Before you ask, no, I didn't practice yoga in that forest or by that lake - but walking around them in the company of loved ones was as good as any yoga practice - and I did get lots of good practice in. Jet-lag (and a 4:30am sunrise) is great for early-morning yoga!