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2020

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Autumn daze

October 21, 2020 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidI wrote a piece within these pages back at the start of the year (well – February!) on the general subject of my level of fitness – and what it took to keep things that way. I made reference to having just restarted attendance at the fitness class of which I have been a regular pretty much since we came to Canada.

Of course, not long after I committed those musings to the digital equivalent of print, the COVID-19 pandemic broke and everything was turned upside down. The fitness class moved onto Zoom and was executed in the safety of our own living rooms. When restrictions eased a little as the summer unfolded we reverted to meeting ‘in person’ at the Shoal Centre in Sidney (a community ‘hub’ for ‘seniors’) where we undertook carefully socially-distanced classes wearing masks and with extravagant but necessary health precautions.

These classes have continued since then, but on each day when the weather permits – ie when it is not raining or snowing! – we have taken to exercising in the park across the road from the centre. This is not only much safer but it is also considerably more pleasant.

I took most of these pictures between exercises during yesterday’s class.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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Eddies…

October 18, 2020 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

“I have detected,” he said, “disturbances in the wash.”
“The wash?” said Arthur.
“The space-time wash,” said Ford.
Arthur nodded, and then cleared his throat.
“Are we talking about,” he asked cautiously, “some sort of Vogon laundromat, or what are we talking about?”
“Eddies,” said Ford, “in the space-time continuum.”
“Ah,” nodded Arthur, “is he? Is he?” He pushed his hands into the pocket of his dressing gown and looked knowledgeably into the distance.
“What?” said Ford.
“Er, who,” said Arthur, “is Eddy, then, exactly?”
Ford looked angrily at him.
“Will you listen?” he snapped.
“I have been listening,” said Arthur, “but I’m not sure it’s helped.”

Douglas Adams – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I received the other day an email from ‘Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’ (funny! – I don’t recall that title previously including the ‘refugees’ bit!) concerning my application to renew my Permanent Resident card. This missive included the paragraph:

“This confirms that your application for your Permanent Resident card has been received by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) on 2020/07/08.”

Making allowance for the fact that here in Canada dates can appear in a variety of odd formats – though not in the correct one (to an Englishman at least) – I calculate that this means that my application was received by the IRCC on July 8th this year – the which would be about right.

I am – perhaps understandably – a little mystified as to why they should send me an email to advise me of this fact on October 14th.

The email also advises me that I can check the progress of my application by visiting the appropriate part of the IRCC website and entering my Unique Client Identifier (UCI). Perhaps – I muse – they have just started processing my application – which might account for their sudden correspondence.

I follow the guidelines.The IRCC website claims never to have heard of me!

I wade through the notes trying to establish why I might appear to be missing from the system. The site helpfully informs me that this is probably because my application has not yet made it to the processing stage – and until is has I officially don’t exist.

Sooooo… Three months after I submit my application IRCC randomly sends me an acknowledgement, even though they have not – and apparently have no intention of – actually looking at it anytime soon.

No – I don’t get it either. What is it about bureaucracies?

 

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Out(r)age…

October 14, 2020 in Life in BC | Permalink

Yesterday saw one of the first big wind storms of the year here at the southern end of Vancouver Island. As so often happens at this time of the year many trees lost branches as a result (in the case of deciduous trees because they have not yet shed their leaves) and our electricity provider –  BC Hydro – were kept fully employed with investigating and repairing damaged power lines (regular readers will know that here in BC most power supplies are carried on poles rather than buried underground as they are in the south east of the UK).

Somewhat annoyingly we lost power here for about three and a half hours during the afternoon, at a point at which I was hoping to prepare for my class today. As the light faded in the early evening I cooked dinner on the gas barbecue outside and we had just started to dine by candle light when the power was eventually restored.

The reason that this was particularly annoying was because BC Hydro had already been in touch with us a week or so back to inform us of a scheduled outage today (for ‘system upgrades’) at a time that clashed with the start of my class. The relevance is – of course – that because I now teach exclusively from my studio at home, the loss of power prevents me completely from so doing. I had arranged with my students for a later start for the class but when I awoke this morning it did occur to me that BC Hydro might have rescheduled the outage as a result of their engineers having worked such long shifts yesterday. I called them to check. After a lengthy rumination by the call-centre chappie (who clearly had no real idea what was going on) I was told categorically that the outage would indeed take place.

Somehow inevitably – it did not do so!

I even went out on my bicycle at one point looking for a BC Hydro crew, but none was to be found.

In the end I started my class late and they had to put up with my grumbling about how – wherever one lives in the world – it is impossible to find efficient service industries that do what they say they are going to do – when they say they are going to do it.

I am fully prepared now for the power to go out suddenly and without warning in the middle of my next class…

 

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Fall Breeze & Autumn Leaves

October 13, 2020 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

A few autumnal images from recent fall walks here on fabulous Vancouver Island.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidIt is no secret that autumn is not my favourite time of year, but one cannot deny that the season brings many beautiful things and if one wants variety – then fill your boots! Sometimes it looks like this:

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid…but at others it looks like this:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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Have passport…

October 7, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid…still won’t travel!

A few weeks back my new UK passport finally arrived. I now get another ten years of winging my way around the world until I have to go through that palaver again. Right now – of course – I have no desire to hop on a plane to go anywhere.

Still – I could if I needed to…

The new passport was delivered to our residence by one of the better know carriers. The chap who rang our doorbell did not ask for a signature (no-one seems to do that any more in these grim times) – but he did, however, cheerfully remark:

”You’ll get another one of those in a couple of days.”

He was not wrong, of course, for a few days later my old passport – corner docked as per – also turned up. What worried me somewhat was that the man clearly knew that the package he was delivering contained a passport. I suppose it was not a difficult guess, given that Victoria is teeming with ex-pats who must all on occasion receive double deliveries of passport sized packages.

Still – living in a small community is all very well but there are (or should be) limits…

Incidentally, whatever the ghastly brexit mob might claim (and however the thing appears in the accompanying image) this passport ain’t blue (that’s just the light in the photo – honest!)…

…it’s black!

Anyway – I hope that you still feel that it was all worth it (I just bet that you do!).

Sorry – that was only for those who should have known better! As you were…

 

Now then – where’s my replacement Canadian Permanent Resident card? No point being able to leave the country (should I ever wish so to do) if I can’t then get back in!

 

 

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Fourth quarter

October 4, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

The fourth quarter of the year starts as it always does – with the Kickass Canada Girl’s birthday. There have been times in the past when the celebrations have been really quite elaborate, involving a trip to some splendid resort or reservations at a fancy eatery (or on occasion – both!). We have many happy memories of these celebratory excursions; those to Bath and the Algarve perhaps standing out in particular.

There are other times – however – when something simple at home is the order of the day. In such pandemic-ridden times as these this latter was clearly called for. The Girl seems to have had a good time nonetheless, having seen loved ones and dear friends and having at least been wined and dined on my special homemade pizza accompanied by a rather stonking Chateauneuf du Pape.

Happy birthday to The Girl!

October also means that the first month of teaching is done. We have scampered through the opening laps – acclimatising ourselves to the pace – and we are now digging in for the long haul through to Christmas. There will doubtless be a point – as the climax of the race approaches – at which there will come a moment of truth, when we must needs push through the barrier, discover our true character and determine who the winners and runners up will be.

I think I have pushed that metaphor about as far as I reasonably can…

The nights are – naturally – drawing in (boo!) and the only remotely good thing about that is that, by the time that we are aware of it, we are more than halfway towards the shortest day. Now I know that the winter proper (as Canadians would have it) doesn’t kick in until January and February but – frankly – that is a problem for another time.

I can’t let this moment in time pass without making further reference to Bath Rugby.

Oh dear, oh dear!

Today saw the final round of matches in the Premiership, the which would determine the final four who would progress to the playoffs. Bath needed only to beat the grim Saracens to get through. Naturally, having led for much of the game they contrived to give up several scores as full-time approached – the fixture ending in a draw! This would have been enough to put Bath out, were it not for the fact that one of the other key fixtures – the Sale/Worcester clash – was postponed after Sale suffered sixteen positive COVID-19 tests! That match has been put back until Wednesday, but if further tests are also positive may not take place at all – which would mean that Bath sneak through to the finals instead.

So – three days (perhaps) on tenterhooks and then a hardly satisfactory outcome – whichever way it goes…

Oh dear!…

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Faith Healer

September 28, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Last weekend we saw again one of my favourite plays – the late Brian Friel’s “Faith Healer“. Though I have read it again in the interim I have not seen it since the splendid 1992 Royal Court production in London.

“Faith Healer” is a three hander but written in an unusual form – comprising as it does four long monologues, starting and ending with those of the play’s protagonist – the ‘Fantastic Francis Hardy’ (as the poster for the faith healer’s one-night performances in small towns and villages throughout Wales, Scotland and – fatally – Ireland has it).

I am not usually a big fan of the monologue (a fact that I have broadcast within these musings on more than one occasion) and particularly of the way that it forms the core of the majority of one-person shows. It seems to me in most instances to lack the dramatic power of dialogue, reducing the performance to a one-dimensional perspective. Now – there most certainly are exceptions to this generalisation, but they have to be exceptional to be so as the form itself mitigates against it.

That Friel’s masterpiece does so triumphantly only starts to become apparent some minutes into the second monologue – delivered by the faith healer’s English mistress, Grace – or is it his wife – and is she actually English after all? Even those familiar with the concept of the unreliable narrator will find it difficult to keep their feet as the play lurches from one telling of the tale to the next (the faith healer’s manager Teddy completes the trio) and even the faith healer’s own second monologue contradicts his first in vital respects.

The audience is left to try to pick the elements of truth from this tangled web of narratives – a brilliant device that renders the play instantly multi-dimensional and restores to the form one of the elements it most commonly lacks – that of subtext!

In the aforementioned 1992 Royal Court production a good friend played the part of Teddy – the which he was to repeat in the 2016 London revival to five star reviews. We were sadly unable to see the latter production – having already moved to Canada.

This latest production was live-streamed from an empty Old Vic in London as part of that wonderful institution’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic – “Old Vic: In Camera”. The theatre sold the same number of tickets (at heavily discounted prices) for Zoom streaming as the house usually seats and for “Faith Healer” there were just four live shows – which were not recorded. For us this meant watching the excellent Michael Sheen, Indira Varma and David Threlfall at 11:30 in the morning (that being 7:30 in the evening UK time) and it really did feel a little like being present at a live theatrical performance. It was – at any rate – about as close as we are going to be able to get anytime soon.

Our grateful thanks to all concerned for a wonderful and thought-provoking experience.

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Patience my ass!…

September 24, 2020 in Life in BC | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid“Fear the vulture, and the vulture will come. Fear nothing, and you are the vulture.”

Suzy Kassem

“By the time I got to kindergarten, I was surprised to find out I was the only kid with a turkey vulture.”

Jean Craighead George

We had an unexpected visitor in our garden (yard!) today. He arrived out of nowhere in a rush and settled on top of the post that holds our weathervane – and that many mistake for a gibbet!

Appropriate – in a way, I suppose…

I was in the studio working on something and my attention was captured by the big shadow that crossed the window. I rushed upstairs to alert The Girl (who was just about to climb into a bath) so that she might also view the bird… before it had flown!

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidWe need not have worried as our visitor was clearly not in any hurry, settling itself in and busying itself preening. I imagine that it had recently frequented the Roadkill Diner and wished to rest a while so as not to suffer from indigestion.

“What the heck is that thing?” – I queried the expert. For sure it was a vulture – but what sort of a vulture?

We rarely see Turkey Vultures in the garden, but if we did they would be easily recognisable by their distinctive red heads. This one – as you can see – was conspicuously lacking any sort of crimson.

Black Vultures are as rare as hens’ teeth in these parts. We did hear tell on the InterWebNet (well – The Girl did!) of just one such feathered friend that had escaped from the Raptor sanctuary in Duncan some three years back…

Could it possibly be? Could it?…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidWe were reluctantly persuaded that it could not – and that it was almost certainly an immature Turkey Vulture – the which have not yet morphed into red-headedness. Shame!

Pretty big bu**er for a baby, though!

The other birds took a pretty dim view of the visitor and all manner of squawking arose. The little hummingbirds – those most territorial of creatures – bustled up, jaws jutting – spoiling for a fight. The vulture simply ignored them and gave its tail feathers an extra polish.

Finally the crows figured that simply making a racket was not going to get the job done, organised a drawing of straws and nominated the unlucky loser to see the intruder off the premises…

…which it duly did!

Sorry that the images are not any better, by the way. I had only my phone to hand and I had to push it to full zoom to get anything at all. Double-clicking may help to make out some detail…

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Decorate your home

September 21, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidDecorate your home. It gives the illusion that your life is more interesting than it really is. 

Charles M. Shulz

Just to record that our house-painters have commenced their endeavours. The stucco, siding, doors and trim of our humble(ish) abode are getting a long overdue make-over.

I will naturally post further pictures when they have finished – which should not be too long as a fair bit of the house comprises patio windows (sliders to Canadian folk).

I may even post some before/after shots if I can locate suitable ‘pre’-pictures (said he, revealing a total lack of forethought or planning!)

Sadly it was ever thus…

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

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As good as it gets?

September 17, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

What feels like just a few weeks back – but is in fact nearly a month – I wrote a post entitled ‘Welcome Back‘, which raised more than a cheer for the return of Premiership rugby in the UK. In its infinite wisdom (?) the Premiership had decided to complete the unfinished 2019/20 season by the end of October – a feat the achievement of which would require the playing of midweek matches as well as weekend games – before ploughing directly into the 2020/21 season.

Now – rugby is not like soccer (thanks goodness!). It is a contact sport (of course) and a tough one at that… without the dubious protection of the helmets and other accoutrements that are de rigeur in North American variants of the oval ball game.

This means that the players need more recovery time between fixtures than do top level footballers. Of course – there is also nowhere near as much money in rugby, so squads are smaller and one can’t simply run two fifteens in that way that soccer teams can field multiple elevens.

As a result the clubs are all experiencing a particularly intense period right at the moment. The fact that they had plenty of time to prepare during the lock-down has certainly helped – but it is going to be a long haul to the end of the next season.

From the rugby enthusiast’s point of view the more frequent games are rather wonderful – particularly as we went without for so long. If your club is not going so well – of course – it can get pretty depressing, as losses pile up even more rapidly than usual.

If you are doing well – on the other hand…

The gentle reader has probably guessed where this is going. Our team – Bath – has had a run of form such as it has not experienced since the year that we came to Canada. That year they made it through to the final and only lost to the beastly Saracens (boo!). This time Bath have won all of their games subsequent to the return bar one – and have also acquired a healthy crop of bonus points to boot. With two fixtures to go they are comfortably in the top four – which teams get through to the playoff stage.

Now I don’t want to jinx anything (though it is probably already too late for that). The way the season has panned out only the top five clubs have a chance of making the finals – which means that one of them is going to miss out. Bath does not have the easiest of run-ins and the other four are looking strong.

Still – whichever way it turns out this will have been one of their best seasons in recent memory – and that definitely merits a seriously huge cheer.

Come on you Bath!

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