Andrew and his weddings

This entry is written by Andrew - August 24th marked my parent's 39th wedding anniversary and I celebrated with a 7 hour fight to Toronto. Now you might think that this would be a strange way to pay homage to their ongoing marital commitment, but you would be wrong. For you see, I was flying to Toronto to witness the beginning of another such union. This time between my good friends, Lino and Rosanna.
I've know Lino for about 10 years now. We met at film school when we were both learning our trade. Lino's American - from New York, in fact - and during his time in Vancouver he became besotted with Canada and it's people and ended up marrying one of us. Now he's half Canadian.
The wedding was a pretty gallant affair with good food and good people. Was good to see my buddy Leif and his wife Erin again - this time with their new kid, Magnus. Although extremely disappointed in the absence of Ben Bosgang. Come on Ben, New York to Toronto? You could've walked it! Shame!
My personal highlight of the night was sitting out on the patio after dinner, smoking a cigar with Lino and listening to a group of guys with heavy New York-Italian accents lamenting the modernification of pizza toppings and how it's near impossible to find a decent pie in Queens these days. "Back when I was a kid, all you had was regular, Sicilian and calzone. You walked in and all you had to say was 2 and 2 and the knew what you were talking about. Nowadays? Fuggedaboudit." Awesome.
The next day I went over to Rosanna's folks place for a barbecue. The food was amazing. Better than the wedding, I think. More cigars and imported Parmesan. Good times.

The next day I flew to Vancouver for another wedding. This time it was Jon 'Rocky' McCleery and Penny Weaver getting hitched.
Penny's folks live on my favourite island in the world: Hornby. I used to travel to Hornby almost every summer from when I was 14 into my early 20s, so it has a special place for me. In fact, my fist trip there was with Jon, himself, and Jen Finlay who was also at the wedding. On top of this there were a lot old school friends along for the ride, making it as much a reunion as it was a wedding.
The big day was tempered with some rain clouds but a couple of tents and umbrellas staved off the threat of a moist ceremony and everyone was happy.

Best man, Ian MacKenzie, and both sets of parents dropped some great speeches after dinner and afterwards, in true Hornby fashion, we retired to a bonfire down on the beach.
The next day, Labour day, the unofficial end of summer saw most guests, and most vacationers, leave the island to head back to their urban lives. A few of us stayed on the extra night to skip the crowded ferries and highways and give ourselves time to take a hike to the Helliwell bluffs and Mushroom beach - two locations frequented in the heady days of summers past. The decision rewarded us with two unexpected experiences, much in keeping with Hornby's giving nature. Firstly, down at the pub that overlooks the ferry dock we found ourselves part of a Hornby Island Local Tradition called the Wave Off, where the locals all gather to drink and wave off the last ferry-load of tourists, signalling the end to tourist season and transferring control of the island back to it's perennial inhabitants. Second was reserved for the those of us who stayed up late and braved the wind and mist to walk down to the beach in the middle of the night. Scott noticed the glowing waves from our cabin's lofty purchase up on the cliff so he and I with the company of Andrew Ellis and Moselle headed down to check out the phosphorescent waves in the dark. For those who don't know, the phosphorescence is caused by bioluminescent plankton - Dinoflagellates, to be specific - in the ocean that emit a green glow when they're disturbed by the water's movement. When it's dark - like on a cloudy night or new moon - the effect is pretty cool and is a perfect example of the magic Hornby has to offer.
Then I came back to England.