Feb. 27, 2010 By Alison Bate It’s Saturday morning and my sister Gill and I are hanging out over coffee in my little cottage, listening to the rain beating overhead and enjoying being dry again. Yesterday we spent the day up Cypress Mountain watching the women’s snowboarding live at the Olympics. Huge buses from California took us up the local mountain;...

By Alison Bate It was dark and sleepy as I drove down to Snug Cove at 5:30 a.m. yesterday, but every house had its lights on. I parked the car, offloaded my bike and pedalled across the cool damp field to Snug Cove. I passed walkers with their headlights on as I trundled across the boardwalk and left it outside the library. “It’s like waiting for the...