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Life as we know it

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The senior service

January 18, 2019 in Life as we know it | Permalink

I recently had a birthday.

Not – perhaps – of the sort of significance that would normally persuade me to acknowledge the event in any way or even – dare I say it – to celebrate a little (ie – a decade). It cannot be denied, however, that this particular milestone does carry some resonance.

Yes – I am now sixty five and thus truly a pensioner – which sounds so much less disagreeable than being an old-age pensioner (OAP).

I don’t even feel old – though I must admit that it is late in the evening as I write this… Some mornings I feel quite differently!

I guess that I now need to pay closer attention when purchasing items or making bookings to ensure that I take full advantage of those attractive discounts that are offered to senior citizens… whilst at the same time endeavouring not to feel guilty concerning same. Oh – it’s a constant battle!

To tell the truth I am (thus far at any rate) rather enjoying my sixties. I don’t think that it is being immodest to say that a big advantage of having got this far is the acquisition of a pretty comprehensive degree of self knowledge. I am not only well aware of my various faults and foibles but I am much better at recognising as yet undiscovered ones. Even more importantly I have learned not to take any of these things too seriously – whilst at the same time not dismissing them either.

I believe that I possess a good understanding of my capabilities and of my talents. I know what I can do and what I can’t do and I have learned to gauge just how well – or otherwise – I can do things. This means that – without claiming for a moment to be ‘an island’ – I am far less reliant on the affirmation of others (though naturally I appreciate strokes just as much as does the next man – or woman).

All in all I have no complaints.

More that that in fact – I am daily filled with gratitude for the many blessings with which I and those for whom I care have been bestowed.

 

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Looking up

January 7, 2019 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward”

Charlotte Bronte

Okay! Here we are – a week into 2019 and how is it looking thus far?…  and let’s not have any of that negative thinking, “Doesn’t look any different to me!” sort of thing. Now is the time to accentuate the positive – or at least to look forward to the year ahead in the light of plans in the making and schemes being dreamt up. This is time of year for thinking outside the box – particularly if the box in question is quite such a tatty beat-up old thing as the one in which we currently appear to be stuck.

So here’s what The Girl and I are planning:

After a quick recuperative jaunt to Mexico for The Girl (I am otherwise engaged!) the start of the year will follow a familiar pattern… well, familiar in that it carries on where 2018 left off. The Girl works four days a week (when not gadding about south of the border) and has another three months of her course to complete before she is fully ready to strike out on her own. I have one more term of teaching at my post-secondary college – albeit on a slightly reduced timetable as enrollment is down. It may be that this turns out to be the last term that I will teach, but I have learned from long experience not to make definitive statements about such things. This unexpected return to work has certainly served its purpose and been a lot of fun in the process, so you will hear no complaints from me.

Once we are fully into the spring – however – everything changes. Come the middle of May we are heading for the UK and for Europe. This will be our first visit to those shores since leaving in 2015 so will definitely be a big deal. There are multitudes of family, friends and acquaintances to be visited, as well as places that we would love to see again and experiences that we will want to have. We end the trip with an expedition to Greece for a short recuperative cruise around the Greek islands.

Much, much more information about our jaunt will be forthcoming over the next few months, so – should you have an interest – watch this space. Let’s just hope that the country is still there when we get back!

Once back in BC in the middle of June there is much more to look forward to. At work The Girl steps down to a three day week and starts ramping up her new endeavour. “Bon chance“, say I!

Festival season will then rapidly be upon us and this year for me there will be an additional thespian enterprise to be anticipated. I came to the view at year end that it was high time that I made some theatre again. I have thus booked the Intrepid Theatre Club for two nights in October and I intend to stage one of my pieces there. At this point there is still much to be explored – much to be decided – but 2019 feels to me like the year to once again dip my toe in the water.

There will surely also be more music to be made this year. 2018 was particularly creative in this regard so I have high hopes. Further news on this front will also emerge as the year progresses.

There will doubtless also be other breathless things to anticipate but this would seem to be quite enough to be going on with for now. It is going to be a big year all round.

Let’s hope its a good one…

Let’s make it so!

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What the hell…

January 1, 2019 in Life as we know it | Permalink

…just happened?

2018 – that’s what!

The Girl and I spent a very low-key Hogmany last night, staying up barely long enough to greet the new year as it poked its head nervously around the door. Who can blame it? After 2018 was dragged from the room, kicking and complaining, punching the air with all of the self-possession of a drunk going down for the third time, 2019 was pushed and prodded into the limelight, most likely feeling anything but ready.

I am reminded of an occasion many years ago at the Edinburgh Festival. The Youth Theatre with which I was heavily involved had taken a show to the Fringe. Fighting – as ever – for any publicity we could get we had taken a late night slot at the Fringe Club to parade our wares. As we waited nervously in the wings – instruments at the ready – we could hear the previous act going down a storm. As soon as they finished there was a mass exodus from the hall, with hundreds of souls pouring out and heading for the bar. Nervously we tiptoed in. Magically the place was still packed to the rafters, with considerably drunk and extremely raucous revelers, all armed to the teeth with heckles! The less said about our performance the better, but as we left one of the young thespists turned to me and said:

“Don’t ever ask us to do that again!”

OK! So this is traditionally the point at which I look back at the outgoing year and summarise what has happened for us. Given that everything at the moment is overshadowed by the scary goings-on in the wider world it must be admitted that – though the year has thrown up more than a few surprises – we have done pretty well for ourselves.

2018 was always going to be the difficult year for us. When we did our retirement projections well before we left the UK we could see that there was going to be a financial dip, caused in part by the fact that my state pension does not kick in until part way through 2019. The collapse of the Sterling/CAD exchange rate that followed the Brexit vote made things worse, though being able to purchase ahead gave us something of a buffer up to this time last year.

It was clear that I was going to need to earn some extra monies to support our adopted lifestyle. By this time last year I had failed to find temporary or part-time work and it was not clear how I was going to do so. I was most fortunate to land the teaching contract that I did, and even more fortunate that I got another one for the autumn (Fall). With luck I may have another for the coming spring. Of course, none of this had been planned at our point of departure and I really had thought that my working days were over.

The Girl has had a difficult year at work as a result of changes to which I alluded in my equivalent report of this time last year. Change is never easy and as a species we tend to handle it poorly. She has persevered – something that is a most admirable strength of hers – and it does seem that the situation with her agency is now greatly improved. Fingers crossed.

She is not, however, one to sit back and to let things come to her. She has thus spent much of this last year planning her slow withdrawal from the world of work as she currently knows it. To this end she is undertaking a year’s course of study which will equip her to set up her own business, which will then gradually supercede her current role.

With regard to matters artistic it has also been a somewhat varied year. I got to teach a term’s worth of drama to a small but keen group of youngsters up here on the peninsula, but it rapidly became clear that there was no easy route to making this into something more permanent. My efforts in the realm of theatre have thus been primarily been devoted to wearing my Board of Directors’ hat for Intrepid Theatre. I have been able to spend a fair amount of time making music and I am hopeful that developments towards the year’s end might result in a further collaboration in the new year.

2018 afforded us little opportunity to travel aside from the excellent short trip that we made to Montreal during the spring. It is our intention that in this regard – as in many others – 2019 will be different.

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Dressing for dinner

December 21, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image from PixabayFor those of us chaps who hail from a certain middle-class background in the UK – ‘bourgeois’ one might call it were it not for the pejorative connotations thereof (the Urban Dictionary includes this definition: “Bourgeois: originally refers to the middle class people in a capitalist society, however now used to refer to posh people!“) – there may be shared trajectory when it comes to the ownership of the necessary apparel and accoutrements for ‘dressing for dinner’.

This may be a little cryptic for some. Let me explain…

When one is a young man and goes up to college – or for some when they first find themselves in the sort of professional environment in which formal entertaining is de rigeur – there comes a point at which a young chap must needs have access to a dinner suit – or tuxedo, should satin be your thing. For most of us at that age and point in life, the purchase of such an outfit is out of the question and the costs of hiring seem similarly prohibitive.

For many the best course of action is (as it was for me) to scout around the many antique emporia with which the UK is blessed, searching for a suitable second (third, fourth, fifth!) hand outfit at a reasonable price. Given that most dinner suits see very little wear in their lifetimes this is an eminently sensible approach. I myself picked up a rather splendid Edwardian DJ many decades ago in an establishment that might have been in Bath – or just possibly in Camden Market in London… I forget which.

This sort of cobbled-together outfit usually does just fine until one slopes into middle age, expanding all the while in more ways than one. Of course, by that point one is usually also rather more comfortable in all regards and the hiring of a tux from a gent’s outfitter becomes just one of the incidental costs of life.

This course of action would probably see one through, were one not – like me – to find oneself in the sort of situation in which the invitations at certain times of year flood in so thick and fast that visits to Moss Bros (or other clothier of choice) become an almost weekly occurrence. There came a point in my middle years when the costs of repeated DJ rentals caused me to rethink the math (as they say in North America) and to accept that it was time to bite the bullet and to purchase my very own dinner suit. It might also at this point have crossed my mind that I could pass the fruits of such an investment on to my son and heir – if I had one – which I don’t…

What I did not anticipate was that at some later point the aforementioned tux would be unexpectedly rendered obsolete. For this some of the blame must be laid at the (dainty) feet of the Kickass Canada Girl, for it was she who suggested that – for our then impending nuptials – I might finally acquire for myself the complete Highland regalia. Once one owns the full eight yards, the Prince Charlie, the Ghillie Brogues, the Sgian Dubh and all the other trimmings one has little need for an alternative formal dress.

Or so I though until a few weeks back! When I offered to assist a dear friend with the hosting of a pre-Christmas ‘At Home’ at her magnificent residence but a short hop up-island, I am not sure quite what form I expected that support to take. It turned out that what she had in mind was that I should dress formally for the occasion in tails (I fore-went the white tie, but at least my black tie was a ‘real’ one: most Victorians seem prepared only to sport the ‘pre-tied’ variety!). Now – I don’t have a tailcoat of my own and had to hire one, but to save money I determined to press into service my old dress trousers (‘pants’ for Canadians).

I had not worn these for over a decade and nor had I tried them on until the day before the event. I hardly need say that I am somewhat more stockily built than I was in my younger days and even after emergency button-shifting surgery I learned over a five-hour period a little of what it must have been like for the ladies back in the days when corsets were worn.

Of such rich experiences our lives are made…

 

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Groundhog Day

December 15, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image from PixabayI have done my damnedest not to burden these postings with further personal diatribes on the state of British politics (in particular with regard to Brexit) though I couldn’t help but agree with some commentaries this week that made mileage from references to the Bill Murray movie from which this post derives its title.

I am, however, frequently asked by bemused Canadians to explain what on earth it is all about – and I always do my best to give satisfaction. To that end I thought these extracts from a recent column by Rafael Behr in The Guardian (Westminster has known the options since 2016. Which Brexit does it want?) might go some little way towards clarification…

…or perhaps not!

The backstory:

“Brexit, as experienced by EU leaders, is the same banal dialogue played on a loop. It goes roughly as follows:

UK: We are leaving.

EU: We wish you wouldn’t, but if you must, there is a process with one fundamental principle: you cannot retain privileges of EU membership without an obligation to uphold EU law. With that in mind, here are the options …

UK: We do not like those options and refuse to choose between them.

EU: No other options exist.

UK: We believe they do.

EU: Tell us what they are.

(At this point the UK government wastes months arguing over whether it is better to use a jet pack or a magic feather to fly over a rainbow.)

UK: We would like to continue enjoying privileges of EU membership without obligations to uphold EU law.

EU: No!”

Behr rightly points out that – given where we now are – there are only three possible options:

“Option one: exit with a deal almost exactly like the one May has negotiated. By deal here, I mean the withdrawal agreement – the legal text that serves as safe passage to a transition period from where other options for the long term can be developed. The withdrawal agreement can be ratified or not. Its many deficiencies, including the notorious backstop, are intrinsic to Brexit and would be the same for any party under any leader. Changing the prime minister doesn’t change EU law.

Option two: membership of the EU – the best available outcome in strategic and economic terms, but one that incurs serious political cost by enraging already furious leavers.

Option three: exit with no deal. An appalling idea recommended only by fools, liars and vandals who relish chaos for perverse ideological reasons.”

How might any of these options be achieved?:

“Option one requires approval of the withdrawal agreement and an implementation bill in parliament.

Option two is reached by rescinding the article 50 notice, which should, for democracy’s sake, be done after a referendum, although the result of that is unpredictable.

Option three is easiest. It involves carrying on as we are, bickering about process, failing to cross tribal party lines in pursuit of consensus, refusing to be honest about what is available and watching the clock tick down.

Those are the choices. They aren’t complicated. The EU side identified them two years ago and spelled them out clearly. The British public is bored watching their politicians argue about the wrong questions. The EU is bored watching British politicians refuse to level with the public about the right questions. Everyone should be afraid of what happens in the absence of clear answers, because disaster by inaction is the default option.”

All clear now?

Splendid!…

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Playing the piano

November 18, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

The other day The Girl and I were both about the house. I was down in my studio (which has been mentioned in these pages before) and The girl was in her office (which has not). There is at some point more to be said about her plans for the future but this is not that moment. By way of enabling progress thereon – however – she has established a rather plush office/consulting space on the main floor of our splendid abode. As the gentle reader may discern we are slowly turning our dwelling here into our perfect living/working space – the which makes us both very happy…

Where was I?

Oh, yes!

Suddenly we were both – in our different ways – disturbed by a solid ‘thump’ from somewhere upstairs. Intrigued and somewhat concerned we convened above in an effort to discover the cause. Opening our front door revealed the sad answer. A bird – a robin – had flown into our kitchen window.

Now – two things you should know. Firstly, though a reasonable size with regard to the kitchen itself the window is not really that big. It is also tucked back underneath the broad roof overhang that forms a sort of veranda outside our front door. In other words – it is not that big a target at which to aim and it is not clear why a bird would do so.

Secondly – this was a North American Robin. This – from InterWebNet site ‘Metafilter’:

March 3, 8:17 PM
With spring just around the corner (Mother Nature swears for real this time), North Americans are eagerly on the lookout for one of the earliest migratory harbingers of spring, the robin.

Wait, what? Robins are a Christmas bird! Hey, that’s not a robin at all!

Indeed not! The North American Robin is actually a thrush. It is roughly twice the size of a British Robin and – in the winter – it ‘fecks off’ to Mexico (or somesuch!) thus completely avoiding appearances perched atop snow covered Yule logs outside 18th century coaching inns or whatever (insert your own favourite clichéd Christmas image here!).

The Brits amongst you might well imagine the British equivalent flying into a pane of glass and simply bouncing off. Sadly this North American cousin (though not actually a cousin at all!) packs a fair bit more weight. Our new windows are no pushover, however, and the poor thing simply killed itself outright. The Girl was quite upset and I had to take the formerly feathered friend down to the bottom of the garden and return it to nature.

Now – the more astute amongst you might yet be racking your brains as to where the piano player (see post title) comes into all this. The answer is that – being a Brit – I am blessed with the obligatory dark sense of humour. My first observation upon seeing the recently redundant robin was thus:

“Well – he won’t be playing the piano again!”

…which didn’t go down too well.

It occurred to me afterwards to wonder as to the origin of this handily apposite phrase. For once the InterWebNet let me down. There were to be found many an example of the phrase in use (and not all such from the UK) but nothing as to its inception.

So – if anyone could please advise…

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A little learning

October 23, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

It has been – I feel sure – a widely held notion now for a considerable time that retirement means days spent lounging in an armchair or on a chaise watching daytime TV and scanning the popular press for things about which (righteously!) to complain.

If the boomers have managed to dent this injurious impression at all it is surely merely to replace it with an image of silver-haired gadabouts cruising their way around the exotic destinations of the globe burning their way through the planet’s fossil fuels and their progeny’s inheritances with equal abandon.

Now – I know that I am not currently one hundred percent retired – though in my heart I have certainly already taken up my commission in that distinguished regiment. Thinking back over the last three years – since my arrival in this congenial country – I find that my own particular focus has not been on day-time dallying, nor on intercontinental adventuring, but more on matters cerebral and intellectual.

In short, I have been learning… Loads!

Contrary to any notion that this be a pursuit only for the young and that as one ages one becomes more and more content with that which one has already assimilated, my recent experience is that there is nothing like both retiring and moving to a different continent to ensure that one must needs keep the brain constantly engaged just to keep up.

Herewith – in no particular order – just a few of the things I have learned since we moved to Canada:

  • How to buy a boat
  • How to pilot a boat
  • How to navigate (including charting and conning)
  • How to tow a trailer (including reversing into tight spaces)
  • How to replace trailer brakes and wheelhubs
  • How to launch and retrieve a boat single-handed
  • How to replace a boat’s sonar depth finder
  • How to operate a marine VHF radio
  • How to replace the wet-end seals on a hot tub pump
  • How to maintain the chemical balance in a hot tub
  • How to barbecue (a huge topic: I am just a beginner!)
  • How to maintain a supply of propane for a barbecue
  • How to maintain a garden irrigation system
  • How to replace heads on a garden irrigation system
  • How to operate a gas (petrol) mower and string trimmer (along with other garden power tools that I have not previously owned)
  • How to paint and decorate (to a much higher standard than I have done previously)
  • How to build bass traps for a music studio
  • How to record the human voice (at a far higher level than I have ever done before)
  • How to be a board director for a non-profit organisation
  • How to organise a 50/50 raffle
  • How to fund-raise
  • How to teach computer literacy to post-secondary students
  • How to drive on snow and ice
  • How to stream TV from other parts of the world

Plus – of course – how to navigate one’s way through all of the bureaucracy associated with everyday life in a another country!

“Travel broadens the mind” – as Mark Twain didn’t quite say. Well – so does starting afresh in foreign fields. I am grateful that (semi) retirement has given me the opportunity to exercise both the mind and the body in new and unexpected ways.

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Life lesson

October 18, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

In the midst of a brace of posts on the closely related subjects of teaching and learning – comes this life lesson from the world of rugby…

…to be specific from last weekend’s opening round of European Champions Cup matches…

…and to be even more specific, concerning my favoured club – Bath Rugby.

Bath were hosting French multiple-championship winners Toulouse at the Rec in front of more than 14,000 enthusiastic home fans. The game had been tight throughout and as they went into the final few minutes the French side were a mere two points ahead.

Bath were attacking hard and their fly half – Freddie Burns (who had just moments before missed a penalty kick directly in front of the posts) finally broke through the defence and crossed the try line.

All he needed to do was to touch the ball down and the game was won.

What he actually did was to slow down, ball in one hand, and to blow a kiss to the home crowd with the other. What he did not do was to observe the French back Maxime Medard rushing at him from behind. The Frenchman knocked the ball from Burns’s hand, the try was not scored and the game was lost. Burns was – understandably – distraught.

One could feel sorry for the fly half – but he is a professional and a well remunerated one at that.

Moral of the story?

Do the job properly – celebrate afterwards!

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A little teaching

October 17, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

At this point one year back we were just about to commence the intensive two week process of moving all of our furnishings and other goods and chattels into the basement of our North Saanich home preparatory to handing the main floor over to our contractors for the three month renovation for which we had been patiently planning for the preceding couple of years.

It seems like just weeks ago!

Of course – we have now been living with the completed and very lovely main floor since March and enjoying every minute of it. Somehow one doesn’t mind spending significant sums of money (quite so much!) if the results engender such happiness on a day to day basis… which in this case they do!

There was also something else on my mind at this juncture last year. It had become clear that 2018 was going to be the most challenging of our early years in Canada – financially speaking at any rate – because my final pension (that provided by the state) would not kick in until part way through my sixty-sixth year. I had as a result started looking – in an admittedly somewhat desultory fashion – for a job. This was complicated by the fact that I really only wanted to work one or two days a week for a limited period and I couldn’t imagine quite who would want to employ an aging geezer such as me!

As it turned out I didn’t find the answer to this question until we were already into the new year and a mere couple of days later I was standing in front of a class of slightly startled students at one of Victoria’s finest post-secondary educational establishments, about to launch into a fourteen week course in Computer Literacy.

In my End of Term report in these postings on the outcome of that experiment in returning – albeit on a part-time basis – to the workforce, I indicated that I had been offered a further term contract for what is here called the Fall Term (which would in the sort of school to which I am accustomed be known as the Michaelmas Term) and that I would not be averse to considering a further outing in what Canadians call the Winter Term, but which we Brits more optimistically refer to as the Spring, Easter or Lent Term.

Time passes rapidly and we are already approaching the halfway point of this term’s teaching. I have indeed been offered another contract for the start of next year – the which I have gratefully accepted. Truth be told I am rather enjoying this teaching experience. My forty years in the business has equipped me with a considerable stock of both knowledge and anecdote and the part-time, limited-contract nature of the job means that my responsibilities are pleasantly restricted.

Other benefits clearly include what seems to me (probably because I don’t need to live on it!) a decent level of remuneration for what I do, which not only pays my tax bill and covers any other shortfalls but will also facilitate some travel abroad during 2019.

I feel – as ever – most supremely blessed!

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Plus ça change

October 10, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Here in Canada the weekend that has passed was Thanksgiving  – and thus a holiday or long weekend.

There are – in British Columbia – five national and five provincial statutory holidays, plus Easter Monday – which is a bank holiday (statutory for government employees only) and Boxing Day (which is not actually a stat holiday but is widely observed).

By comparison public holidays in the UK vary from eight (for England) to eleven (for Northern Ireland).

One fact that is indisputable is that public holidays here in BC are more evenly distributed throughout the year than are the UK equivalents – and certainly the English ones (two holidays in May – nothing until the end of August!)

One other seemingly inescapable ‘fact’ is that if there is to be bank holiday in the UK it is probably also going to rain. Now – statistically this probably isn’t actually the case, though it is true that the English weather stats do demonstrate that the end of August is a particularly poor choice of time for a day off, given that the rainfall then is often greater than it is during equivalent periods in the winter months.

However, one need only feed Google the inquiry “Does it always rain on bank holidays?” to be left in no doubt at all that as far as the English are concerned the answer is resoundingly in the affirmative.

It hardly need be said – I feel – that though the weather here has been reasonably good of late and the sun is shining once again as I write – over the holiday weekend itself the clouds scudded in and it rained steadily and determinedly throughout.

This expat felt right at home!

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