Hi Folks:
This image shows our most recent Hug Zone chalk art drawing. The idea was independently created by the mathematician Roger Penrose. It’s a form of aperiodic tiling, and the idea has been around for millenia. For more on that, see here: Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
At the end of July we had one of our grandsons come for a visit, and we did our best to squire him around town and visit/revisit some of the highlights Victoria has to offer. Of course we had to involve him with creating new chalk art patterns, to which he willingly acquiesced. Here then are the world’s first G M hugging spot originals!
First, in front of our house:
Because every cloudy sky needs a rainbow. The shadow is from a street sign, but if it looks to you like a bunny jumping up into the rainbow, that’s okay too!
Evidence of people carrying our rainbow with them – even if it’s only on the bottoms of their shoes!
A few days later we went downtown to our old hugging spot at the Homecoming Memorial and we created Hugscotch 2.0!
It works! (as evidenced by Marcia and grandson). We were even lucky enough to see spontaneous hugging taking place before we left! We applauded, of course. 🙂
Remember to hug the ones you love today! We trust G. will put to good use the box of sidewalk chalk that arrived at his house before he returned home. 🤗
Hugs,
M&M
Hi Folks:
A year ago we posted a blog post titled, “Receiving Kindness“, where we wrote about two gifts we had received in exchange for our ongoing hugging spot chalk art project. The first was a beautiful painted stone someone left on top of our gate, and the second was a lovely note someone taped to the inside of our gate.
Our last blog post (A Smile from Niklas) profiled a smile rock we received from someone named Niklas, left on top of our gate, and this has since been followed by another lovely note! We found it after setting out our BE A HUGGING STAR design; the note looks like this: Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
This being the first Saturday in July, as you’re likely well aware, today is International Free Hugs Day! If you’re lucky enough to live here, today is also Canada Day! 🇨🇦
To that end we thought we’d combine the celebrations and take our sidewalk chalk down to our old hugging spot at the Homecoming Memorial. For full disclosure, we scanned the Canada flag image into the computer and used CorelDraw to create and print out the template.
We had fun making the drawing and interacting with those who stopped to chat, and when we were finished cleaning up, we retired to a nearby bench to people watch. While it felt a little strange not to be there with our FREE HUGS posters, in the short time we were there we were immensely gratified to see people stop to photograph the hugging spot and even more so to watch two couples and a group of three engage in hugs at our hugging spot! We know our hugging tree (a western white pine) was also happy to witness these events.
Speaking of our hugging tree, the oldest image we have is from July 2, 2011. At that time our tree was a sapling, barely reaching the top of the fence:
Eleven years later, you may notice that our tree has grown, just a little bit. We’ve been feeding them love, hugs and gentle needle caresses for 14 years.
Same hat, same jacket, same beautiful smile. 🙂
We had such fun downtown that we decided to use the same pattern to update the hugging spot in front of our house.
So, if you’re in Canada, help us celebrate Canada Day and International Free Hugs Day by hugging the ones you love! Today and every day…
Hugs,
M&M
Hi Folks:
All of Marcia and Mike’s parents are gone now, but we have two sons and a son-in-law and five beautiful grandchildren. We are Grandy and Grandalf! 🧙♀️&🧙♂️
As with those who are moms, Happy Father’s Day today to all of the strong, loving men who are fathers, to those who are chosen dads, surrogate dads, step-dads, adoptive dads, and to the women who are also dads.
Special thanks to all those who love and support them.
Hugs,
M&M
Happy Mother’s Day today to all of the strong, beautiful women who are mothers, to those who are chosen moms, surrogate moms, step-moms, adoptive moms, and to the men who are also mothers.
Special thanks to all those who love and support them.
Hugs,
M&M
Anyone else needing a nice warm hug? As explained in our We Have Huggers!! post in May last year, we came across a short video on Instagram showing someone who had created a Free Hugs zone in sidewalk chalk outside their house – and the various people who had taken advantage of the situation. Always willing to contribute to more acts of kindness, we created our own first attempt. We were so inspired by the effect that we created 11 different hug zone patterns in 2022 (12, if you include the one we created at our old Free Hugs spot at the Homecoming Memorial at Ship Point). Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
In our We Have Huggers!! post we highlighted our latest escapade to encourage people to share hugs and spread kindness by creating a hugging spot on the sidewalk. The latest iteration looks like this (previous versions can be seen in the above post link):
While we know that people have stopped to share hugs with each other (or themselves), made images and sometimes just smiled as they walked past, we’re not aware of them unless we happen to be out front or near the window at the time. Nonetheless, everyone who engages with our chalk art adds their energy to our garden and our lives, and we very much appreciate it.
We have received two more tangible gifts, however, and we wanted to take a moment to say thank you to the donor(s) who secretly left them for us. The first is a Kindness Stone someone left on top of our gate:
The second is a note someone taped to the inside of our gate!
Whoever left these for us, we wanted you to know how much we value your acts of kindness. Made our whole day!!
Hugs,
M&M
P.S. It’s easy to find ways to spread kindness to others in your world, but if you’re looking for inspiration, check out The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation and Ripple Kindness Project as great places to start!
Hi Folks:
If you follow our blog you’ll know that for some 11 years we took our FREE HUGS posters to downtown Victoria and shared hugs with thousands of locals and visitors from (at least) 88 countries. Sadly, we had to quit in March 2020, and we have yet to return. Someday… In the interim we continue to give out Hug Certificates and we have sent out a smattering of Free Hugs postcards. We also continue to share hugs with loved ones where we can… but yesterday we tried something new…
Hi Folks:
It’s raining heavily as this post is being written; many locals complain about our wet time of the year but we look forward to knowing that the aquifer (and us and everything else) will appreciate the water next summer during our dry period. Apparently we had 26 days of rain in October this year… too much of a good thing, perhaps? 🙂
Collectively we made a good number of images over the past month; as usual selecting just two was a challenge but here’s what we have to offer.
Marcia’s image first.
Stepping into Fogtober
This image was made in Victoria’s Beacon Hill Park, showcasing a copper beech tree and morning fog. In addition to the rain we get, October is also a month where we get a lot of fog…to the point that our 10th month is often referred to as ‘Fogtober’.
Fall Colours
While Vancouver Island doesn’t have as many large deciduous forests as there are in eastern North America, there are some places around Victoria to view autumn colours. Beacon Hill Park is one, Ross Bay Cemetery is another. But there’s another kind of colour here, and that comes from chalk art playfully rendered into form. In our opinion this piece is worth submitting to the National Gallery in Ottawa, but we’re quite happy to leave it where it is. Our appreciations to the artist!
Okay, that’s it. Now go out and make some photographs!! (and don’t forget the brollie…)
Hugs,
M&M