18 October 2025 – A wonderful bit of British slang: the verb “to grizzle.” It describes the act of complaining or whining, at a low decibel level, but continuing on and on and forever-bloody-on. Which makes it such a lovely companion, in more than rhyme scheme, for the verb “to drizzle.” It describes the act of rain that falls at a low intensity level, but also continues on and on and forever-bloody-on.
This afternoon, for example.
I am equipped for the latter, and reject the former. — like most Vancouverites, I hasten to add. We know where we live.
Scotia Street seems an appropriate start for a drizzle-walk.
It overlaps with the final stretch of Brewery Creek, which, in the days when it had not yet been sewered, ran into the east end of False Creek, which had not yet been filled in.
Grey sky & low visibility along Scotia, but colours pop, both autumnal foliage and seasonal umbrellas.
Ditto the red truck marking the Red Truck Beer Company, down there where Scotia ends (or starts) at East 1st Avenue. Beyond the brewery yard, I can see dim outlines of the lowest level of the mountains to the north, but nothing higher up, only the drizzling sky.
The mountain peaks may be hiding, but not us Vancouverites. As I turn onto 1st Avenue, a stream of people erupts from the Crossfit BC doorway opposite, and starts pelting on down the street ahead of me.
By the time I’ve walked another block, I start meeting them on their return trip. Apparently this is just the warm-up for an indoor class.
I veer through False Creek Flats, filled in originally to provide land for railway-oriented industry and warehouses. The area is morphing into a new post-industrial life centred around digital media, clean technologies, medical research & the like, but the transformation is not complete. Sodden skies suit the still-gritty streets that lie beneath them.
Farther west, I twine my way first around the pollinator meadows lining the Ontario Street bioswale, where logs and their tiny fungi gleam brown and gold…
and then among the condos just off Quebec Street, where the gleam is metallic but equally appropriate. When could suit a fountain sculpture (Eyes On The Street, Marie Khouri & Charlotte Well) better, than a drizzling sky?
By the time I am walking along West 2nd Avenue…
I am prepared to concede that the sky is no longer drizzling. It is raining. Same visual impact — just look how that orange traffic light spills on down the street, bouncing from one puddle to the next — but damn, there’s nothing “low-level” about this.
(A passing woman & I grin at each other in mutual approval: we are each snug in waterproof clothing, and therefore spurn umbrellas.)
In Olympic Village Plaza, one of Myfanwy MacLeod’s The Birds sculptures tilts his stainless steel head to the elements…
Canada Geese bend their feathered heads to rich pickings in the grass (the mountains have now totally disappeared)…
and the cast-iron cycle of eggs/tadpoles/frogs on the storm sewer cover (Musqueam artists Susan Point and daughter Kelly Connell)…
is completely and perfectly at home in the dancing rain.
Meanwhile, the human beings at the street corner…
look distinctly less comfortable.
I am quite sufficiently comfortable, thank you, since only my outer layer is wet.
But, even so… I call it a day.
I may not grizzle, but I do know when I’ve had enough drizzle.
WALKING WOMAN 