The view from my deck

Is quite awesome this evening. Although I still have trouble with inviting friends and neighbours to "Hey, let's sit on my deck." But for the sake of a vowel goes social ostracism. The thing is, I do have a large deck, and that is no hyperbole. Then again, this is a country of big decks. Few Canadians worth their salt would ever own up to having a small deck, but enough of the double-entendres.

I was watching a movie earlier on this evening and I saw a very bright flash outside. Bright enough to be someone taking photographs close to my front window. Dog had slunk into his usual hidey hole down the back of the washing machine in my bathroom so I went outside. No-one there. Apart from a large isolated lightning cloud around thirty miles to the North-East. Massive bolts of lightning too far away for me to hear even the remotest trace of thunder. I watched it for ten minutes as giant arcs of static electricity shorted between ground and cloud.

Quite spectacular, but that's British Columbia for you. Superlatives tend to be the stuff of workaday, from the biggest Sockeye Salmon run for almost a hundred years to my morning view of Mt Baker 93.9 miles away. Canadians have a word for it; 'awesome', and that is no exaggeration.