April 15, Friends in Pioneer Square

Today I started out to get all set up in Bastion Square to start painting and selling.
It started raining as soon as Darlene and I arrived. She was going to paint in the square alongside of me.
We went for lunch instead, joined Howard and then we went to the art store and scored some larger canvasses that were on sale for a really good price.

Behind the art store there is a beautiful park called the Old Burying Ground beside Christ Church Cathedral.

Pioneer Square was the main burying ground for Fort Victoria and Victoria from 1855 to 1873. The approximately 1,300 people interred there represent a broad cross section of Hudson's Bay Company families, plus people who arrived for the 1858 and later gold rushes and who created Victoria as the cultural, political and business centre for the Colony of Vancouver Island (1855-1866), the Colony of British Columbia (1866-1871) and the first few years of the Province of British Columbia (1871-1873). There are few places in the province which exemplify as much the formative years of British Columbia's growth after 1858.

Today it was where three friends visited each other and shared a drink. They appeared to be weary homeless people who were sharing a beautiful spring day. They were delighted with the painting.

Picturesquely nestled beside Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria’s Old Burying Ground is an oasis of greenery and history in the heart of the city. Most tombstones have been removed, but the ones that remain are unique on the west coast, representing rarely seen examples of bench tombs, obelisks and elaborate Victorian monuments. On Tuesday evening and Sunday morning the bells at Christ Church Cathedral are rung.