My Naramatian Year

My New Year's Resolution - start blogging again...

I began a weblog back in December 2004 and at the time lamented how late to the game I was in having my own blog compared to my fellow geeks in the Vancouver tech community. I lived in Gastown in a loft at The Edge condominiums with breathtaking vistas overlooking downtown Vancouver harbour and the North Shore mountains.

Over the years, I covered mostly wine, the Okanagan, travel, personal heartache, and various social activist issues. I then just kind of stopped writing in my spare time. I can't point to exactly why. Around then twitter came out, I started a new job in the wine industry, and met my now husband -- appropriately enough at a wine "tailgate party".

My loft is now sold with the new owner taking possession in 3 days. And incredibly, I've moved to the heart of Okanagan wine country, the Naramata Bench, and am absolutely in love with the life here. The sense of community is like no place else I've lived, with a surprisingly vibrant arts, social and intellectual cultural scene despite its incredibly small size of only 2000 people. 

Interestingly, a culture-friendly outlook began with the founding of the town in 1907, with people apparently coming from across the Okanagan to Naramata for concerts, plays, operas and regattas. Over a century later, the community is a primarily tourist and agriarian based economy, with orchards and wineries dotting the picturesque bench which overlooks Lake Okanagan below.

Something about this place inspires me to start writing personally again, a desire I haven't had for almost four years.  An area that Sunset Magazine called, "achingly gorgeous", it's perhaps not a surprise that this is little piece of geography is so intoxicating - so to speak ;)  Even in the dead of winter. 

For the next twelve months, my weekly posts will attempt to uncover the interesting and unexpected elements of life here and the unique characters that make this community so special. I look forward to the new journey.

Comments

[Marilyn Challis]

Lori, just read recently that
Penticton makes top 10 best destinations in World
PENTICTON— The Canadian Press
Published Thursday, Jan. 05, 2012 5:37PM EST
Mum