The Imperceptible Immigrant · Coming to Canada

I don’t have TB…

June 6, 2025 in Life as we know it | No comments

A month or so back – as chilly March gave way to marginally less intemperate April and the end of what may well prove to be my last term of teaching fast approached – I received an email from one of the international students on my course… asking for an extension.

This is by no means unusual; the rapid approach of final exams increases the pressure on individual students, some of whom start to regret not having managed their time more effectively earlier in the term. Desperation starts to creep in.

In this instance, however, the student was definitely unwell – and a simple request for extra time rapidly turned into something rather more extreme as he was admitted to the Royal Jubilee Hospital here in Victoria. A forwarded letter from the doctor there soon revealed that the student had somehow contracted TB and was unable either to sit the final exam or to finish the outstanding coursework.

Now, I had thought that TB was a thing of the past – and that may well be so in many parts of the world. I gather that children in BC are no longer these days inoculated against TB. I certainly was as a youngster back in the late 1960s. There was a BCG program delivered through schools in the UK and I was duly vaccinated when I turned thirteen years of age.

I was a little taken aback, therefore, to receive – a few weeks after the student’s original request – a call from the Royal Jubilee TB clinic. I (and, presumably, others from the student cohort concerned) were requested to attend the TB clinic twice in a three day period – to be checked for infection and to have applied the necessary measures to stamp out any possible outbreak.

Now, I didn’t expect to have been infected – even though my vaccination was a very long time ago. The likelihood of my having been exposed to a dangerous contact was also extremely slim, but I still had to make the trek into the city – to find a place to park (always non-trivial in hospital car parks) – to twiddle my thumbs nervously whilst awaiting my turn for the brief but effective consult… and then to do it all again two days later.

Anyway – the thing that I am sure the gentle reader really cares about…

…I don’t have TB!

Tags: college, Health, Medical, term

Done at all…

May 31, 2025 in Life in BC, Photos | No comments

“Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

Samuel Johnson

A couple of days back The Girl and I drove up island to the small but quaint town of Ladysmith – to luncheon with The Girl’s mother. It was a splendidly sunny day and we had a really good time on the Mill Bay ferry, cruising up the Trans-Canada Highway and enjoying a very agreeable lunch in a somewhat unexpected ‘English’ pub called the Fox and Hounds, the which is in the middle of Ladysmith.

It will probably come as little surprise to anyone who knows where we live that ‘authentic’ UK and Irish pubs can be located quite readily on the island – and they do tend to be pretty good facsimiles of those across the pond. This one offered home-made steak and kidney pies (long time since I indulged!) which were more than satisfactory. They also did a really rather splendid sticky toffee pudding (particularly excellent when they acceded to our request for additional toffee sauce)!

Yum!

On the way back to the ferry we saw on the road something that I have never seen before. A dude passed us on the highway on a big bike – and on the pillion seat there sat a big dog! The dog was wearing some sort of harness – though I couldn’t make out the details – and had his front paws on the dude’s shoulders so that he could see the road ahead…

…and ‘Yes!’ – the dog was wearing goggles!

I would love to have been able to take a photo, but neither dude nor dog where hanging around – and we had a ferry to narrowly miss (though we did have a most pleasant wait in the sun for the next crossing).

When I got home I leapt upon the InterWebNet to see if I could locate a suitable image to head up this post. What I found was – of course – that our sighting was by no means a rarity and that dogs on bikes are quite a thing.

Who knew?

Any road – here are a few snaps taken in Mill Bay whilst we lounged about waiting for the ferry.

Tags: Dog, Family, food and drink, Travel

Hush!

May 23, 2025 in Life in BC, Photos | No comments

“Time says hush: by the gong of time you live. Listen and you hear time saying you were silent long before you came to life and you will again be silent long after you leave it, why not be a little silent now? Hush yourself, noisy little man. Time hushes all: the gong of time rang for you to come out of the hush and you were born. The gong of time will ring for you to go back to the same hush you came from. Winners and losers, the weak and the strong, those who say little and try to say it well, and those who babble and prattle their lives away, time hushes all”.

Carl Sandburg

This is my very favourite time of the year. I love how verdant are the woods – how lush is the undergrowth and how still are the trees once the winter winds have abated. These images from Centennial Park in Saanichton here on the peninsula.

I love that someone took the time to turn this fallen tree into a little piece of art. I love that they did so again when the first version slowly decayed and returned to nature.

Tags: nature, Photo, rain-forest, Spring, Summer, Walk

Fast and furious

May 20, 2025 in Flotsam and Jetsam | No comments

“One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren’t enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress”

Viggo Mortensen

In my last post – a somewhat impressionistic piece entitled “Hard and Fast” – I attempted to put into words the unforseen and unlooked for feeling that – though we really are both now retired (at present, anyway) – the pace, complexity and severity of current events across the globe has inhibited us from experiencing that state as the anticipated relaxing pay-off for a demanding life of work.

As one might expect this sensation is by no means the result purely of external forces and influences. The Girl and I are in the habit of synchronising our calendars monthly, in the vain hope of not getting caught out by some event that one or other of us should have known about but had forgotten. We are somewhat perplexed by the discovery that the quantity of such events has is increased rather than diminished since we came ‘to rest’.

In my ‘start of the year’ post – back in January I wrote this with regard to our plans for the year:

These things, however, we are anticipating:

A week in Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, during the College’s reading week in February. Right now The Girl and I both need to feel some sun on our shoulders
Some overdue maintenance on our lovely home. We need a new hot water tank; the roof needs to be de-mossed; I am contemplating putting underfloor heating in my studio and we are long overdue in making a start on dealing with some of the clutter that seems to accumulate through modern living
We are hoping to host some visitors this year – which is always fun when it also turns into a holiday for us
There will be music-making – no doubt – and I may serve a turn on the executive of the Peninsula Players (who presented the pantomime with which I was lately involved
We will definitely aim to entertain in our garden just as much as the weather allows

The splendid week in Mexico has already been well and truly reported upon in my February posts.

We have been busily engaged in carrying out the second element of the schedule. The new water tank has been installed (providing us with copious quantities of gloriously hot water on demand. The roof has been cleared of moss (well overdue – but better late than never) and we have made a powerful start on simplifying our lives by stripping away many of the unneeded accoutrements that have found their way into our home whilst we were looking the other way.

Last year at around this time I was obliged to replace the device (called a ‘backflow preventer’) which stops water from our irrigation system from backing up into the public water main. This year I found that the ancient semi-manual controller for the system had finally given up the ghost and I had little choice but to purchase and install a swanky new digital device. As is usual at this time of year the garden requires a serious sprint on my part to try to catch up with all of the uncontrolled growth that has taken place whilst yet we sheltered from the late winter storms raging outside our windows.

Music making continues and, as predicted, I am serving a turn on the executive of our local community theatre.

So – busy, busy, busy! For further news on these and the other items on our list – watch this space.

Tags: garden, Home, Renovation, Retirement, wwork

Hard and fast

May 12, 2025 in Flotsam and Jetsam | No comments

“Animals are happier than humans because they’re like furry little existentialists, all living in the moment. Their collective motto: live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking pelt”

Richard Jeni

Had you enquired but a year ago of The Girl and I as to whether or not we would be fully ‘retired’ by this point in our lives… I suspect that your query would have been met with some scepticism. Now that we do after all appear to have achieved that state (whether or not it holds) you might well ask what it is like so to be.

Good friends of ours – who retired quite a lot earlier than did we – were fond of opining that one of the best things about the condition was that every day felt like a Saturday. Mind you – they spend their days chasing the sun to various exotic parts of the globe – so their Saturdays were never going to be like ours anyway.

I am slowly forming the opinion that one’s experience of the different ages of man (or Girl) tends to come with expectations that we unknowingly extend to the world around us. Chaps like my father (who commuted for many decades into the heart of the metropolis) would – had they followed the dream (which he did not!) have retired to some bucolic country hamlet or picturesque fishing village – and found the horizons of their world contracting around them; softly enveloping them in a cosy duvet of daily duty and volunteered obligation. Mayhap they would nonchalantly follow the fortunes of the village cricket club – mayhap carelessly anticipate the summer fayre upon the green.

For The Girl and I our world feels very different. Not only are we constantly considerably busier than we might have expected, but the world around us appears to have exploded outwards rather than shrivelling like a deflating balloon. Further – the world outside our door seems to be full of craziness, mendacity and negligence.

If nothing else – it just seems to be full of things (like the times) that are a-changing!

Of the bouffanted autocrat and his brown-shirted barbarians in the White House I have little (of any politesse) to say. The self-professed master-dealer seems determined to wreck the global economy. ‘Nuff said!

To the unbearable and wicked conflicts in the Ukraine and in the middle east we now find added two nuclear powers dancing a lunatic two-step. At the time of writing an insubstantial cease-fire is in place. Tomorrow? Who can tell!

In Rome there is an unexpected new pontif – an American to boot! Back in the day the then Archbishop of Chicago, said that the only way the Catholic Church would elect an American pope was if the United States went into decline as a world power. Now the Church has not only an American pope, but one from Chicago.

In Canada there is an unexpected new government – not of the rebarbative tories but a fourth term for the ailing Liberals. The bright light at the end of this particular tunnel is that – in new ex-banker Prime Minister Carney we do – finally – have an adult in the room.

Thank goodness for small mercies…

Tags: Canada, Modern life, Politics, Retirement, work

Believing in tomorrow

April 26, 2025 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”

Audrey Hepburn

Well – we didn’t plant this one, though we have been responsible for nurturing it for nearly a decade now.

As to the now…this does feel like an important moment to be believing in tomorrow – no matter how tough it may be so to be doing, given the shape of the world right now.

The Girl and I have been suffering brutal colds this two weeks passed. We have, however, been afflicted by very few such since moving to Canada so we can’t really complain – even though these particular ones have been vicious. We are – it seems – finally on the mend now though…

…just in time to vote carefully in the Canadian Federal election on Monday. We are, surely, all to be held responsible for keeping the bad guys out of office in this good country; this being a vital bulwark against other nations where the same has, sadly, not been the case.

The garden – meanwhile – continues to flourish ‘irregardless’!

Tags: garden, Health, Photo, Spring, Victoria

Shy…

April 21, 2025 in Life as we know it | Permalink

…and retiring?

Those who frequent these pages – or indeed those who have not yet figured out how to unsubscribe from the email digest (just joking folks… I would much prefer that you didn’t do that!) – will know from this post from earlier this year that The Girl has finally (?) re-joined the ranks of the retired. Who can tell at this point if this will prove to be final outcome for her, or if she will find herself tempted back into some form of employment as time passes.

That leaves me; the one who originally expected to be fully retired upon arrival from the UK, but who has found a renewed sense of purpose in teaching part-time at a post-secondary college here in Victoria. Over the past seven or so years the Chair of my department has enquired of me on a number of occasions whether (or not) I was yet contemplating hanging up my boots. I have found myself, to this point, always just gazing just a little further into the future. The last time that she asked I told her that seventy five seemed like a good point at which to call it quits…

…and that might have remained my target – had not everything changed last year. Last year the federal government radically altered the regulations governing international students coming to Canada to study in Canadian colleges. This from the Government of Canada website:

“Ottawa, January 24, 2025—Over the last year, Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has made important changes to better prepare international students for life in Canada, strengthen our programs and address the changing needs of our country.

In 2024, IRCC capped the number of study permit applications that could be accepted for processing to keep our program strong and help ease the strain on housing, health care and other services. This measure has reduced the number of international students coming to Canada by about 40% and also eased pressures in rental markets with high student populations.

Building on these changes, provincial and territorial allocations for 2025 have now been finalized. For 2025, IRCC plans to issue a total of 437,000 study permits, which represents a 10% decrease from the 2024 cap”.

These unexpected changes caused havoc in many of the educational establishments that had relied heavily on international students to balance their books. You will be unsurprised to hear that the college at which I have been teaching found itself in a perilous financial situation. I am not going to go into exact detail concerning the college’s contentious plan to re-organise and cost-cut its way out of trouble but – needless to say – those (such as I) who have been employed on term contracts found themselves first to be in line for cost-saving cuts.

The long and the short of all this is that – with the end of the term just finished – I may well have involuntarily been ‘retired’ again.

On the assumption that this will indeed be the case I now have to consider trying to find something else to do. At my age – and given my experience (or lack thereof) I suspect that may not be an easy thing to do.

At this point I know very little of how the future will unfold. This, however, I do know; as long as The Girl and I are together and able to support each other – everything will be well. I am adopting as my mantra this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt:

“Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn one’s back on life.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

Tags: college, Retirement, teaching, work

Only in Canada!

April 17, 2025 in Life in BC | Permalink

We here in Canada are currently in the throes of a quickfire federal General Election campaign. Given all that is going on in the rest of this troubled world we really can’t waste a moment in electing some suitable adult who can stand up to the tangerine baby south of the (artificial!) border. The requirement so to do effectively, considerably limits our plausible choices.

Tonight sees the first of two TV debates between the party leaders – this one in French! This important event could be expected to lead to florid headlines in pretty much all of the media – on or offline.

Well – this is what we actually got (this from the BBC):

“Canadian election debate moved to avoid NHL clash

An election debate in Canada has been rescheduled to avoid a clash with a Montreal Canadiens hockey game.

The Canadiens take on the Carolina Hurricanes at 19:00 ET (23:00 BST) on 17 April, and could clinch a spot in the Stanley Cup play-offs with victory”.

Now – crazy as this sounds in such dangerous days I am not even going to begin to explain to non-Canadians why this is such a big deal.

Perhaps, I hardly need say, this is just another reason why Canadians appeal to an eccentric Brit like me as much as they do.

Elbows up!

Tags: Canadians, hockey, Politics

Seaside

April 11, 2025 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

We are blessed beyond measure, those of us who live here on the Saanich Peninsula to the north of Victoria, British Columbia. In many respects a self-contained community, we can feed ourselves on the provender from the local farms, feast on the bounty of the ocean and raise celebratory glasses of the ambrosia from the nearby vineyards.

Our local seaside town – Sidney by the Sea – offers an increasing array of emporia, some decent places at which to dine and, of course, the much-loved Mary Winspear Community Centre, which includes the lovely Charlie White Theatre. This small but well-equipped space seems increasingly to be the place to which we turn to look for theatre and music.

It seems appropriate that the peninsula also boasts its own monthly community magazine, the which bears the simple sobriquet – ‘Seaside‘.

Unlike many local newssheets – the which seem to major on advertising flyers and syndicated news stories – ‘Seaside’ is a quality product, well researched and written, which strongly features the local community.

For this reason it was a considerable pleasure for Anam Danu to feature in a recent edition. We are most grateful for the generous exposure.

Rather than reproduce the article here, those readers who are interested may find it at the ‘Seaside’ website here.

Thank you for your support!

Tags: Anam Danu, Mary Winspear, Music, Saanich Peninsula, Sidney

The crack in everything

March 31, 2025 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”

Leonard Cohen

One of the great pleasures of living on the coast – particularly somewhere with the sort of big skies that we have here on the peninsula above the Victoria – is that we get to enjoy the constantly evolving panorama outwith our residence that is created and illuminated by the ever-changing light. Regular readers of these musings will be familiar with such images, since I cannot resist grabbing the camera (or mobile phone, these days) and taking endless snaps of the continually unfolding vista.

Here are some more:

OK – I cheated. That last one was in Mexico, from our recent sojourn in Puerto Vallarta.