Early this spring I was doing my volunteer gardening on Melcroft Street. The soil was muddy and sticking to my boots. There were three square bricks leading to a garden hose that for some reason was not to be turned on till late May.

In my practical thinking, I decided to use those bricks as stepping stones, treating them as ordinary bricks.  I must confess that I did not obtain written permission from the council because the next council meeting was too far off.  I relocated the bricks in question. This resulted in two of them ending up on the municipality side of the flower bed. Fortunately the third one was safely on strata land.

The change in the strata bricks location was promptly noticed by one of our diligent Council Members.  I was informed by a Council Member in a late night phone call that Saanich will confiscate any bricks that they find on their land. Apparently there is a serious issue with stray bricks in our municipality so they have diligent workers looking for them...thank heavens for that I say! Then it was brought to the attention of other council members and been added as an item of discussion for the next strata council meeting.

Now, being fully responsible for the egregious mishap of "endangering the Strata’s square bricks" I had to contemplate the possibility of having them seized by the municipality.  I quickly realized that if that occured I would have to go to the municipality, find the “stray brick impound” to have them released.  No doubt this would have resulted in having to identify them in a line up, then pay the appropriate fines and storage charges before I could bring them home to safety.  So, at that point I decided to spare all concerned parties further anxiety. The bricks in question are now where they belong, resting comfortably on strata soil and the world is back to order. As for the retaining board in the south rose bed, the buckets in the boiler room and other earth shattering, bigger than life stories... you will have to read the council meetings minutes for yourself.

When you think how much life has to offer, we have here a council devoting their time, energy and attention to focusing on the fate of two square bricks and the like. Isn't that something?


Sincerely,

Muddy Boots