How Excessive Are The Transformations Wrought By Spring.

It's a bit silly, really.

On Saturday I was driving into town with a cranky three-year-old. He fell asleep in the car and we were running early, so I decided to get off the main roads and see what there was to see. I was rambling along through East Vancouver, which is not generally considered to be the most scenic part of the city. The neighbourhoods are older, the population mostly blue collar and ethnic - not recent immigrants, but the previous two or three waves. The houses are small - a thousand square feet plus a dark basement - and ugly, on small lots. Some have meticulously tended gardens, but most don't. Lots of rental housing. Still, with Vancouver's insane real estate market, even the dingiest of these goes for almost half a million (my brother owns one, 800 square feet that he lives in with 2 roommates, plus an unlicensed suite. His property tax assessment is over $450,000).

So I'm driving along, wondering what stories these little homes have to tell, when I turn a corner and see this:



Vancouver is riddled with ridiculously lovely pockets like this right now - row upon row of 40- or 50-year-old cherry trees running for blocks and blocks. They're everywhere:



In another week or so, all the petals will start to fall in a blizzard of pink and white, and the streets will look like they're waiting for the Wedding March to start and the bride to begin her slow traverse to the altar.