Spring in Vancouver

I love spring in Vancouver. It is lovely walking around the city and seeing all the blossoming trees. And with spring comes opportunity for other fun outdoors activities like tennis. Today I had a game of tennis booked in to play with Reuben, well actually a game of either tennis or squash just in case it rained. When I got up in the morning it looked like a nice day for tennis, there was a bit of cloud around but it didn't look too threatening. Anyway, as I was talking with Tiffany - as I often do - I looked out my window and noticed it was raining a bit, then I looked a bit more carefully and decided it was hailing. Bother I thought, I guess that probably means tennis is off today. When it came time to leave to meet Reuben I had another look outside, it was still raining a bit but I thought maybe it was just an isolated shower and maybe over Stanley park way it might be sunny, so I took both my tennis and squash racquets with me just to be safe. When I made it outside I realised that the hail was still falling a little, not big chunks of ice but just little ones mixed in with the rain. At this stage I pretty much realised it wasn't going to be a tennis day. As I walked on I noticed a few cars that had a lot of small hail pieces on them, then as I continued I noticed the pavement had a lot of slushy melting hail on it. Then a few blocks later and I realised that what I thought was hail was actually snow, very wet snow, but definitely snow. Snow in downtown Vancouver in late March, that is kind of crazy. By the time I got to Burrard Street I discovered that the slushy snow was quickly finding its way inside my shoes and my socks were getting decidedly damp. A few blocks later and they were totally soaked. The snow was getting deeper and deeper the further I went until by the time I approached Roz and Reuben's apartment it was a pretty decent layer of snow on the ground. By this stage I had decided that my shoes were so wet that it was not going to be such a great idea playing squash either. All in all not a very nice spring day really. But walking through the slush was kind of a nice change I guess, hopefully my shoes dry out in time for my next scheduled tennis or squash game.
For those of you wondering when some more photos will start appearing on this blog you will have to wait a bit longer. As you may recall my camera was stolen in PNG and I haven't replaced it yet. It is on my list of things to get in April.