…to friends, acquaintances and gentle readers…
…from the Kickass Canada Girl and the Imperceptible Immigrant…
we wish you a safe and peaceful Christmas and a Happy Hogmany!
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Tags: Celebration, Christmas, Photo
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
William Arthur Ward
I promised a catch-up… Here is part one!
When The Girl and I booked our ‘once in a lifetime’ trip to Africa (‘never in a lifetime’ as it turned out) we spread the financial load by each using our own individual credit cards. This seemed a perfectly logical thing to do – at the time – but as things turned out it created more difficulties both before the trip and in the aftermath.
During the build up to the trip the ‘delightful’ British Airways took it upon themselves to change various features of our itinerary (flights, planes, routes etc) on a number of occasions – each time seating us in different parts of the plane regardless of our protestations that they knew perfectly well that we were traveling together. Each incident took considerable phone-based efforts on our part to correct.
In the aftermath of the fiasco, our attempts to recover as much of the costs as we could – through refunds from the airlines and payments from the insurance policies that we had (thank goodness!) taken out beforehand – has also proved tricky beyond belief. British Airways gave us the bare minimum that they could get away with legally and refused to compensate us for the additional $1,500 that they had changed us each to get back to Canada.
As a result of the bookings having been made separately we were obliged to submit separate but virtually identical insurance claims (two apiece) at virtually the same time. In the case of the lesser claim I received a cheque first but The Girl had to wait nearly another month for hers. For the larger claim – the which covered the safari package itself – she received a cheque (though not for the full amount!) back in October. I have yet to hear from them!
The explanation for The Girl’s partial payment – according to our insurers – is that some items for which we had claimed were ineligible for a coverage. The Girl pointed out to them that the safari packages had been sold and billed as a single items and must therefore either be eligible in their entirety or not at all. As we did not get to go on any part of the adventure (or even to share a continent with it) we are firmly of the view that we should be reimbursed the full whack.
We must, of course, needs be patient yet and wait and see what happens…
Tags: Africa, British Airways, Holiday, incompetence, safari, Travel
“How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start, when memory plays an old tune upon the heart“
Eliza Cook
Way back in the dim and distant past – in what was virtually a pre-historic era in blog-world-time – The Girl and I took a poor decision; that we would live on different continents for what now feels like an absolute age. In the event we managed about ten months, with her resident here in Victoria and I yet back in the Old Country.
What were we thinking?
Those whose length of service qualifies them as blog-old-timers (yes – there are a few!) will recall that her departure for the West Coast of Canada back in 2012 was indeed the spark from which this online journal took fire. Commenced as a displacement activity as much as anything it rapidly became apparent that these scribblings might be useful as a way of keeping in touch with a small community of those either related to… or long-standing friends of… this slightly odd couple with the questionable decision-making skills.
“For what reason…” – I hear you ask, somewhat warily – “is this memory playing an old tune etc, etc – at this particular time?!“
Well – I refer you to this post from December 2017 – back in the pre-COVID world. On that occasion The Girl and I both visited Puerto Vallarta together, on what was my first ever trip to Mexico. Her timeshare share (huh!) is still there and still being paid for, so it is entirely proper that she should make use of the facility… the which she is currently doing. The real question is “Why aren’t I there with her?” – looking after her and keeping her safe. The answer is – of course – that I have still the end of term to negotiate, with its concomitant group of students suddenly keener than they have thus far been to get a decent grade at the end of the course.
The Girl and I are thus once again living in different nation states – though only for two weeks this time. Whereas she thoroughly deserves the rest and recuperation after what has been a tough year – I still don’t care for the apart-ness of the whole thing.
Guess I’ll just have to ‘cowboy up‘ and get on with it!
The Encyclopedia Britannica (online edition) says on the subject of rituals:
“A complete analysis of ritual would also include its relation to art, architecture, and the specific objects used in ritual such as specific forms of ritual dress. All of these components are found in ritual contexts, and all of them are nonverbal in structure and meaning.”
“Huh!” – I hear you exclaim… “Where is he going with this?”
“Patience!” – say I. The encyclopedia continues:
“Most rituals mark off a particular time of the day, month, year, stage in life, or commencement of a new event or vocation. This temporal characteristic of ritual is often called “sacred time .” What must not be forgotten in the study of ritual is a special aspect of ritual that is often described as “sacred space.” Time and place are essential features of ritual action, and both mark a specific orientation or setting for ritual. Time and space, whether a plot of ground or a magnificent temple, are ritually created and become, in turn, the context for other rituals.”
What time of the year is more endowed with ritual than the winter festival season that includes – amongst other celebrations – Christmas? And do we not imbue the occasion with timely rituals both old and newly devised?
“Yes!” and “yes” would be appropriate responses to those questions.
Yes – the run in to Christmas is upon us and we each mark the season in our own particular fashions. For example, The Girl and I know that Christmas is shortly to be upon us when it is time to make a festive run up island to partake of luncheon with The Girl’s mother – and other venerable friends – and to exchange the first gifts of the season. This usually happens at about the same point on the calendar as does the annual charitable event that sees Barney Bentall’s Cariboo Express pull in to the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney for its annual fundraising concert. I have written about the Cariboo Express repeatedly over the years and I will continue so to do as long as each occasion proves to be the same festival of joy and love to which we have become accustomed… the which it happily continues to be.
Sacred times – sacred spaces!
Here are some boat pictures from our ferry crossing to Mill Bay on our way up island.
Tags: Barney Bentall, Cariboo Express, Christmas, Photo, spirituality
I promised gentle readers a couple of posts back that I would write something on the subject of Peter Gabriel’s recent concert appearance in Vancouver – a step along the way on the North American leg of his ‘i/o’ tour – the which is in support of his eagerly anticipated but as yet unreleased new album.
Actually, ‘unreleased‘ is somewhat misleading. Mr. Gabriel has been releasing tracks from the up-coming album on a monthly basis – coinciding with the full moon – since the start of the year… Should one be a subscriber (as, you will be unsurprised to hear – I am) then one gets all of the tracks in a variety of different edits, plus the full collection upon release. What a brilliant notion!
I first wrote about the excellent Mr G. in these jottings back in 2013 on the occasion of our first experience in London (of two!) of the ‘So‘ album’s twenty fifth anniversary tour. That post contained just the first of many PG references to feature within these ephemera and included the following testimonial:
“I do not believe that I have ever been – or could ever be – a party to a serious relationship with anyone who was not an admirer of the most excellent Mr Peter Gabriel. Those with whom I have shared such accord will undoubtedly testify to my continuing enthusiasm for the man and his works over an extended period.
The Kickass Canada Girl and I – naturally – established early on that we were mutual admirers, the chief difference between us being that whereas I have genuinely lost count of the number of times that I have seen Mr G perform live in the flesh, she had not – to the point at which we met – had that opportunity at all.
So it was – back in the summer of 2007 – that the Girl and I found ourselves huddled close together under the pouring rain in the grounds of a stately home in Norfolk. We had trekked all the way up there to catch one of a small number of dates that Gabriel was playing as a warm-up to that year’s WOMAD festival.”
I still can’t accurately recall all of the times that I have seen the estimable Mr. Gabriel, but I believe that the first time I did so was in 1978 or 1979. I am not aware of having missed a tour since then, several times seeing the great man at both the start and end of world tours.
This year’s show was a wonderful mixture of old and new material – and of art and music. Peter’s songwriting is, if anything, stronger than ever – the lengthy genesis of this new album certainly paying off. His voice has maybe lost a note or two in range but is stronger and more emotive than ever. At the age of 73 he is still in extraordinarily good voice.
For more about these excellent shows (the which have, as expected, been exceedingly well received and have gone down a treat in both Europe and North America) here are reviews from The Guardian and the Vancouver Sun.
By the way – I have given up worrying each time I see Mr.Gabriel that it may be the last. I see no reason why we should not be gathering together well into the next decade and more.
Tags: Celebration, Music, Peter Gabriel
As trailed in this recent post the autumn (or fall) season that has suddenly announced itself here in BC (to the great relief of fire-fighters and gardeners alike) gets underway for The Girl and I in a haze of cultural events. I thought I would just briefly report back on a few of them…
Having enjoyed one of the season-closing concerts at Butchart Gardens which featured soul/blues stalwart Miss Emily (”An angelic voice with just a hint of sultry devilishness. This gal is a rocket ready to take-off!” – The Tragically Hip) we were more than ready to be splendidly entertained by the wonderful Bonnie Raitt at the Royal Theatre here in Victoria at the start of September. The Girl introduced me to Bonnie back in the UK in around 2007 – at the New Theatre in Oxford as I recall – and I rapidly became a fan. Ms. Raitt is 73! Sorry – I shouldn’t have mentioned that, but if I look half as good, perform with a quarter of the energy and have but a fraction of her vocal talents and guitar chops when I reach that age… I too would probably still be earning standing ovations from 1500 seat theatres some fifty years into my career.
Kudos!
I reported back in May this year the manner in which The Belfry theatre’s closing show for the 2022/2023 season – “Old Stock – A Refugee Love Story” – had gone a long way to restoring our faith in Canadian theatre. I described the production thus: “It is witty but sensitive, riotously risque but touching, beautifully performed by musicians and actor/musicians alike and splendidly directed and staged.”
We have just been to see the opening production of the new 2023/2024 season (the which I will not name to protect the innocent!). I fear that our faith in the theatre is now right back somewhere adjacent to where it was before. This was an odd production which seemed to us not really to know what it was trying to accomplish. It certainly tried hard in so doing; way too hard, some might say. I was unimpressed by the writing (advertised as funny… not funny!) – the direction or the performances. To be fair, the material did not give any of those involved much of a chance. On the journey home The Girl and I found ourselves trying to recall as many as possible of the productions by which we had been impressed in a decade of theatre-going in London before we headed to Canada. It was a goodly list!
Now – something that was funny – a riotous evening in the company of the very excellent Dara O’Briain – also at the Royal Theatre. Dara – for those who have never had the huge pleasure of watching him at work (examples easily found on YouTube should you care to look… you lucky people!) – is perhaps our favourite comedian. He has the great advantage (for a comedian) of being massively intelligent and extremely quick on his feet. He is also, of course, Irish – which gives him a huge advantage.
It makes me very happy when it proves possible to see musicians, comedians and (very occasionally) actors that we know and love from over the water – here on the far west coast of Canada. It makes me even more happy that we get to see Peter Gabriel in Vancouver in about a week and a half’s time.
Can’t wait!
Tags: Bonnie Raitt, Dara O'Briain, Drama, Humour, Music, Theatre
“RUGBY: No Time-Outs, No Blockers, No Pads = Best Game On Earth!”
When The Girl and I moved to Vancouver Island eight years ago and purchased our lovely home on the Saanich peninsula, one of the first things we did in our new abode was to watch the key matches in the 2015 Rugby World Cup – the which was taking place at that time back in the old country.
Now – as is often the way with such sporting events, the Rugby World Cup takes place every four years; the next tournament was thus held in 2019 – in Japan.
Now, this all means – you’ve got it! – 2023 is also a Rugby World Cup year! This year’s eagerly awaited event kicks off in September and is being hosted by the French. I will doubtless be posting more on the subject as the competition approaches.
What is happening at this point, however, is that the national sides that made it through the qualification rounds to the finals are currently engaged in warm-up matches and we are all watching keenly, looking for clues as to form and potential. This is rendered considerably more tricky by the sides taking the opportunity to experiment with squads and tactics, making it difficult to gauge exactly how each team is progressing.
The Scots (in whom, as you doubtless know, I have an interest) have now played two warm-up matches, the first against Italy (a slightly unconvincing but nonetheless welcome victory) followed by the first of two games against France, who are one of the favourites to lift the trophy in a couple of month’s time.
This match was at Murrayfield and – as expected – the French fielded what was essentially a second string side. Given the overall strength of their squad, however, such matters are somewhat immaterial – as was rapidly demonstrated by the powerful French side storming out to a 21 – 3 lead at half time.
The Scots – having clearly been on the end of some strong words during the break – came back at the start of the second half with a try of their own, but were shortly thereafter reduced to fourteen men following the sending off of prop, Zander Fagerson, for a dangerous clear-out that resulted in a head impact.
There would have been a time when the Scots would have folded, but this cohort are made of sterner stuff. in spite of being a man down they took the game to the French, scored two further good tries, before the nerveless Finn Russell slotted the penalty that won the Scots the game.
Though this was all most exciting and great to see, the Scots really are going to be up against it as things progress. Not only do they have a return warmup fixture this coming weekend in St. Etienne against the French first VI, but once the tournament proper starts in a few weeks time the Scots will have a serious battle to make it out of the group stages, facing – as the draw has most cruelly handed them – both South Africa and Ireland – who, along with France and the All Blacks, make up the top four seeds.
Ouch!
Still, we Scots are expecting – and hoping for – great things!
Tags: Celebration, Rugby, Scotland
Good grief! ‘Tis well into August already. Where is this year going and how come the months have been slipping away so dashed rapidly?
As regular followers will know, the year has not – thus far – exactly gone to plan. I am about to tempt the fates by looking at some of the things that are in the calendar for the next few months, in the firm expectation that our ill-fortune is now behind us and that I will have only positive things to report.
Fingers… etc, etc… firmly crossed!
Disregarding completely the year’s previous disappointments we are once again leaving the island later this month. We will not – however – be venturing abroad, but traveling instead to the interior of British Columbia.
We have been aware for some time that we have perhaps been neglecting family and friends who do not live on the island. For a period COVID gave us good reason (or perhaps excuse) for this omission, but as we have now apparently joined with much of the rest of the world in deciding that the pandemic is over (or at the very least not worth bothering about) we figure that it is time to get some skin back in the game.
The trigger for this excursion has been an ‘engagement’ in Kelowna (in the Okanagan) organised by The Girl’s First Nation. Using those three days as a core we have planned a trip to Kelowna, Peachland and Kamloops on the mainland, followed by a visit further north on the island to Courteney – a place to which I, at least, have yet to go. We are looking forward to the trip and I will be posting updates, images etc as we progress.
There is a fair bit of music in our immediate future as well. There are still several weeks to go in the Brentwood Bay Music in the Park season and we are also in the coming week going to be attending one of the Butchart Gardens concerts.
Come September we will be seeing Bonnie Raitt at the Royal Theatre here in Victoria – and at the start of October we are going to Vancouver for a few days to see… wait for it… Peter Gabriel! You might recall that The Girl and I saw him the year after we moved to Canada – in Edmonton – on the Rock, Paper, Scissors tour that he did with Sting. I really thought that this time he had retired from the road, but here he is – back again and with a new album about to drop as well. Being a subscriber to Gabriel’s Real World studio I have been in receipt of pre-release tracks from the album at each new moon (it’s a Peter Gabriel thing!) and I can report that it is going to be a good one.
We also get to see one of our favourite comedians – Dara O’Briain – in September here in Victoria, so there is much to which to look forward.
We can’t wait…!
Tags: British Columbia, Comedy, Music, Okanagan, Travel
“…or my watch has stopped”.
Groucho Marx
Back in the day – whenever that was – I would hazard a guess that more folk wore wristwatches than did not. I certainly did and as someone who spent a life in a timetable-centred environment (education in my case) these handy devices were/are a godsend. When being late is not an option knowing the time is essential.
I was at school myself back in the days of the cheap mechanical watch (and expensive ones too, of course, though not for the likes of me) and it will come as no surprise that my first watch was just such – by Timex as I recall. The quartz motion did not really make an appearance on wrists until the mid to late 1970s, followed a while later by the first digital watches. The big change – which resulted in a dramatic reduction of watch wearing – came rather later, in the early 2000s. The ubiquity of mobile devices – whence most young folk now glean their consciousness of the passing of the hours (if they do at all!) – has rendered the humble wristwatch obsolete as far as most are concerned.
Not – naturally – to me. I am uncomfortable if I don’t have a watch on my wrist and I find myself looking down at said appendage rather more frequently than I am usually aware of. Also – I am an old-fashioned kind of a guy and hold no truck with such new-fangled fancies as quartz or digital watches. I do make an exception for the automatic winding mechanism, which evolved during the early part of the last century, but that’s as far as I go.
As it happens, I don’t really care for sports watches either – so my chosen timepiece tends to be an everyday or dress watch; analogue in every sense – though it can make use of my motion to wind itself.
This watch will be familiar to those who know me – the very lovely Omega Seamaster that The Girl bought me the year we got married. She would have liked to have found me a watch fashioned during the year of my birth, but that proved too difficult – and 1966 was a good year in many ways for us Brits so it does have a good resonance.
The post linked above does chronicle – however – the problem with the routine wearing of such a lovely timepiece. The Seamaster runs splendidly – until it doesn’t… and when it stops it does so expensively. In part that is due to the difficulty of finding a watch repairer who can service and fix vintage watches and the availability of any parts required. If you reread the post you will see that the watch was repaired in 2021. Sadly it stopped again last year and awaits further attention.
Whenever the Seamaster has been ‘hors de combat’ I have reverted to the first real watch that I purchased (back in the early 1980s) – the Oris Big Crown pilot’s watch. Unlike the Seamaster these watches are not really collectors items, but they were well made and this one has given me forty years of really good and reliable service…
…until recently!
To be fair – the Oris has not stopped. If I leave it sitting on the dining room table it will quite happily run accurately and well. If I put it on my wrist – however – it will pause randomly during the day for variable periods. I suspect the automatic mechanism needs some attention, but these watches are harder than the Omega when it comes to find a willing repairer to take a look.
Of course – an unreliable timepiece is no good at all if one’s day is ruled by deadlines. As a result I have found myself obliged to purchase a new watch – for the first time since the early 80s.
…and here it is. This is a Seiko Presage ‘Zen Garden’. Not everybody’s choice, but a good solid automatic analogue watch with a better than average movement. My requirements in making that choice were that it must look pretty and give me another forty years of reliable service – the which should certainly see me out!
I mentioned last month – in the second of two postings bringing the gentle reader up to speed regarding the musical progress effected by The Chanteuse and I – that we would shortly be releasing a second single this calendar year. Well – ‘shortly’ is now here and our new single can be found on all of the usual streaming and download sites. Full information, samples and links can be found on our website – but for those who would prefer to get the necessary without further ado – read on:
The second Anam Danu single of the year (following January’s release of “Perfect“) is “The Journey Home” – which was released to streaming and download sites on June 16th.
“The Journey home” concerns three different types of journey; The first considers the emigrant returned home to the land of his or her birth – the second refers to the rediscovery of one’s culture – the third to that part of a life that follows the turn for home.
The finest wisdom that we can offer is that each of these journeys is best accompanied by a friend!
The track is a re-worked and extended version of the song that appeared on our first collection, “Winds of Change”. It features – for the first time on an Anam Danu recording – a musician other than The Chanteuse and I. In this case Victoria violinist Kate Rhodes does the honours on the fiddle.
Do please listen and (hopefully) enjoy!
Tags: Anam Danu, Music, single, The Chanteuse
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