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January 2022

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The power of ten

January 27, 2022 in Life as we know it | 2 comments

I posted to this forum a little under a year ago a somewhat reflective missive entitled ‘Time Passes’. The subject of that post was this very journal; the trigger for my writing it the circumstance that the ninth anniversary of my very first blog post had then but recently occurred.

I pondered the actuality that I had certainly not set out to embark on a project that would shamble on for quite such a long time – its longevity having surprised me just as much as I imagine it would anyone else who devoted so much as a moment’s thought to the matter.

I wrapped up that epistle by musing that – having gotten so close – I really did feel inclined to keep things going for long enough that my efforts would have encompassed an entire decade!

And here we are! Hoorah!!

I can’t help thinking that some sort of celebration might be in order, though not – heaven forfend – anything that breaches Covid protocols (or indeed breaks the law). I am not sure what form that might sensibly take.

Last year I included some statistics – for them as likes such things. Here they are again – but updated (with last year’s figures in brackets).

In the nine ten years that I have been writing this blog I have written 1025 (925) posts (averaging just over 100 posts a year – approximately two a week). If the internal statistics are to be believed I have written a little over 401,000 (365,000) words in that time and uploaded some 2,845 (2,590) images – many of them my own photographs.

As I wrote last year – “Not bad, huh“?!

In last year’s post I toyed with the notion of it long being time to wind things up. In the light of some most kind and affirmative remarks from gentle readers I determined instead to keep things going.

My thought this year would be that I could perhaps reduce the frequency of my posts, from the current average of around two a week to just a single weekly post. It is not that I mind the discipline of knocking out regular posts but as I get older I do wonder if there is still enough of interest on which to report.

Do let me know what you think…

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See the lights

January 24, 2022 in Life in BC | Permalink

A rare (these days!) and most pleasant trip up-island last Saturday to Duncan to have lunch with a long-standing friend of The Girl – and more recently, of course, of us both. As is our wont we took the Mill Bay ferry in either direction to save driving over the Malahat mountain – which makes for a much more relaxed and pleasant excursion.

On the way back we waited in Mill Bay for the ferry as the light started to drain from the sky. Naturally I felt the need to take photographs. Do click on the images for the full effect:

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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CODA

January 21, 2022 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

I am pretty difficult to please when it comes to films – though there are those that I love deeply. Back in the day – when one used to go to a ‘Video Store’ to rent a VHS movie for the night – I would find myself wandering round and round in despair, unable to find anything that appealed. These days, of course, one can achieve the same effect on Netflix without moving from the comfort of one’s sofa. Netflix – incidentally – apparently uses sophisticated Artificial Intelligence to determine what to push as recommendations to eager punters. With me it just gives up and offers any old rubbish!

Hmmm! Where was I?…

Oh yes…

Irregardless (definitely a word – first used in print in 1795!) I do sometimes encounter a film which completely restores my faith in the whole business of movie-making. Such was the case recently with one of last year’s Sundance Festival award-winning movies – ‘CODA’ – the which we discovered on Apple+.

Rotten Tomatoes offers this synopsis of the movie:

“Seventeen-year-old Ruby (Emilia Jones) is the sole hearing member of a deaf family — a CODA, child of deaf adults. Her life revolves around acting as interpreter for her parents (Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotsur) and working on the family’s struggling fishing boat every day before school with her father and older brother (Daniel Durant). But when Ruby joins her high school’s choir club, she discovers a gift for singing and soon finds herself drawn to her duet partner Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). Encouraged by her enthusiastic, tough-love choirmaster (Eugenio Derbez) to apply to a prestigious music school, Ruby finds herself torn between the obligations she feels to her family and the pursuit of her own dreams”.

“Well“! – you may think – “that sounds like pretty much every coming-of-age movie that I have ever seen”… and you would be right. I don’t have to worry too much about spoilers because you could probably write the movie yourself without having seen it. In this instance – however – narrative suspense and unforeseen plot-twists are not the point.

What is the point is that CODA is beautifully written, hitting all the right notes – beautifully characterised and acted, particularly by Brit (you’d never know!) Emilia Jones and deaf actors Marlee Matlin, Troy Kotspur and Daniel Durant – beautifully shot, in the fishing village of Gloucester, Massachusetts – and beautifully judged, making you laugh, long and out loud, as well as blubbing like a baby!

The film brought home to me once again (not that I really needed it to) the vital importance of music – and, of course, of family!

Don’t take my word for it, however. I strongly urge you to seek CODA out and to watch it for yourself.

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That time of year

January 16, 2022 in Life as we know it | Permalink

It is that time of year when I customarily release into the wild a couple of postings – one looking back to the year recently ended and the other looking forward to that just beginning. This is a device that I use to measure the accomplishments of the past twelve months against the aims that were set out in the equivalent missives of a year ago – before setting new targets for the year ahead.

In the light of all that has happened over the last two years (most of which has been completely without our control) I have decided to write but a single post this year. This reflects the fact that the pandemic has prevented us from doing many of the things that we would have like to have done, whilst also rendering pointless the pursuit of many flights of fancy in an era which promises to continue to be as uncertain as it has proved thus far.

Here was our basic wish-list from last January – with progress reports in red:

  • To get to see family and friends – face to face! – Well – we did manage some, but always with the now usual restrictions
  • To be able to entertain again – just a couple of (admittedly most pleasant) summer occasions in the garden
  • To dine out – again – just a couple of times and with the now customary precautions
  • To see some live theatre – nothing! – zilch! – zip!…
  • To enjoy some live music – one event only – Barney Bentall’s Cariboo Express in November
  • To attend a live sporting event (preferably Rugby!) – you are – as they say – having a laugh!
  • To be able to travel… anywhere – a fraught over-nighter in Kamloops and four nights in Vancouver!…

You might be able to detect the tone of disappointment in my words…

In addition – this time last year I mooted the idea of carrying out some major renovations to our basement. That idea – apart from some relatively minor upgrades (replacing the remaining windows – replacing the alarm system – purchasing a new TV) were killed off by the ridiculous hike in the costs of building materials caused by pandemic-related shortages.

“But what of 2022?” – I hear you cry. Well – let us start out with the same list as last year – and see if we can do any better this time around.

In addition:

  • It is our fervent wish that we get to travel to the UK during the coming summer. Whether or not this happens will depend entirely on the course that the pandemic takes on both sides of the pond over the coming months. We are not holding our collective breaths.
  • We will carry out some further domestic upgrades – air-conditioning to guard against future ‘heat domes’ – a new hot water system so that we can console ourselves with even longer baths when things don’t work out as we would wish.
  • Normalised work! The Girl would like to be able get back out into the wider world and to visit clients face to face again – not to mention paying a nostalgic visit to her office! I would like to teach students who can actually see my face as I do so.
  • More music! One positive over the last year is that I have been able to write more than enough new songs for the Chanteuse and I to put together another ‘album’. We are currently recording her vocals on these tracks and we are making good progress. Look for further pronouncements in the coming months.

In general – we both hope that 2022 at least starts to see a (safe) return to some sort of normal.

We wish the same for all gentle readers also…

 

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Steady as she goes!

January 12, 2022 in Life as we know it | Permalink

No sooner has the cold snap moderated itself and the snows begun to melt than we are subjected to yet another ‘atmospheric river’. We are in for another five days of solid rainfall. Who knows if there will be anything left to wash away!

I find myself – slightly to my surprise – teaching once again… though this time a different course (albeit covering similar ground) at the College’s other campus in teaching rooms that I have not previously experienced.

I had seriously hoped that the burgeoning increase in Omicron infections – for which Canada and BC are doing their best to match what is happening in other parts of the world – would result in the College being forced to go back to online only teaching in the short term. Who knows – that might yet happen – but, sadly, we are currently face to face in the classroom.

Like most teachers I much prefer to teach face to face, but these are not ordinary times and I fear that the provincial government has reached the point at which it throws its hands in the air, stands well back and lets the pandemic rip. The hope seems to be that Omicron will cause less destruction than previous variants and will pass through more quickly – leaving us (if all goes ‘well’) with our disease status downgraded from ‘pandemic’ to ‘endemic’.

I sense a great deal of finger-crossing and wood-touching here and not a lot of truly informed scientific opinion involved, but it is what it is. After all – I don’t have to do this!

I am, of course, taking all the precautions that I can. I am double-vaccinated and boosted and I am now wearing only N95 respirators in the classroom. These I have had to source myself (not easily done!) as the powers that be have decreed them not strictly necessary. I am taking no chances! It doesn’t help that all my teaching is now on a single day a week, meaning that I have to keep the respirator on for a straight five hours and more. I can already tell that my poor nose is going to take a pounding – to say nothing of my voice!

To make matters even more complex we are having to accommodate students who can’t – or won’t – come into College. I am thus streaming and recording the classes as I teach them. This adds yet another layer of complexity to something that is already quite a stretch for me.

Oh well! I like a challenge – but there may be limits…

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Believing in miracles

January 7, 2022 in Life in BC | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid“Either you take in believing in miracles or you stand still like the hummingbird.”

Henry Miller

The recent spell of icy weather and concomitant snowfall has made us once again even more aware of our tiny avian friends – the hummingbirds.

Now – hummingbirds are migratory creatures… except when they aren’t!

Every year each of the many species of hummingbird summons up its minuscule amount of energy and sets off on the oft-thousand mile journey to Latin America (lucky things!)… except when they don’t!

The exceptions are the Anna’s Hummingbirds – common and much loved on the west coast of the North American continent – which seemingly can’t make up their mind if they are migratory or not!

Now – many folk who put out feeders for these beautiful but tiny birds will pack them away in the autumn – not to be in demand again until the following spring. Not so those of us who have Anna’s for company. We have to keep up the nectar production year round (unless the birds decide that this year they really will fly south).

There are some who say that the reason that Anna’s have become confused as to their species characteristics is that they have been so fooled by all these year round feeders providing them with quick shots of energy that they don’t get the message that it is time to head south. In other words – it is all our fault for feeding them.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidOthers say that this is an urban myth – that hummingbirds know when it is time to fly by the diminishing daylight hours and that it would make no difference if we fed them or not. These knowledgeable folk point out that hummingbirds are a lot hardier than we think they are, that they are quite capable of feeding themselves through the winter on insects and grubs living in the bark of trees and that when it gets really cold they slow their heartbeats right down and enter a state of torpor (no jokes please!).

Either way round tender-hearted folk such as we try to provide nectar for the Anna’s throughout. This entails bringing the feeders in at night and even – when it is particularly cold – every few hours during the day so that they can thaw out again.

On very cold days I will frequently find one of these tiny creatures sitting in a bush below the hook outside our kitchen window on which I hang one of the feeders. If they are very hungry they may make a dart for the feeder even as I am trying to get it onto the hook. At other times the bird will just sit un-moving below the feeder, making no attempt to drink from it. It is not that the bird is too weak to fly up to the feeder; it is, rather, watching out for competitors. Should another bird get anywhere near to the feeder our tiny friend will chase it away vigorously, before returning once again to its perch.

Many people love hummingbirds, but I do wonder if those of us for whom they were only ever exotic and mysterious creatures from another world don’t do so with a particular fervour.

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

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Then came the rains…

January 3, 2022 in Life in BC | Permalink

…and washed the snow away.

But not before we went for a walk in a very snowy Centennial Park in Saanichton.

Just a few snaps – which were not that easy to take given that I was wearing two pairs of gloves to protect my aging hands against the icy wind-chill. Walking is fine; standing still is a mistake!

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

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A few reasonable words

January 1, 2022 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, writer

The turn of the year not infrequently engenders in one a certain degree of trepidation… this one perhaps more than most. One may adopt a variety of approaches; bravado – blind optimism – pessimism – denial – timorousness – indifference…

My feeling for 2022 is that it might best be approached obliquely – as serenely as possible – but with a healthy dose of humility. Maybe we will all get lucky. It would certainly greatly assist that cause were we to behave responsibly, thoughtfully and with the maximum possible care and consideration for others – both those whom we love and those who we know not, but with whom we share this fragile planet.

With that in mind – Happy New Year to you and yours.

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the infinite peace to you

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