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“Now Autumn’s fire burns slowly along the woods and day by day the dead leaves fall and melt”.
William Allingham
Autumn (Fall) is a time to walk and to talk and to think – and to start to make plans.
It is also a time to take photos of nature’s bounty:
(See what I did there?….)
Having a vista from one’s windows is a huge bonus and a blessing. Some folk prefer to live in the valleys (for protection one assumes) – other folk like to live on the hill (and thus be able to identify approaching threats). Of course, the latter option does also provide the dreamers amongst us with plenty of food for thought!
‘Anywho’ – (defined by the Urban Dictionary as: “An extremely annoying misuse of the word ‘anyhow’. Generally used by people who think they’re being clever“. Naturally, that just makes me want to use it!!) – this is simply a preamble to sharing some recent vistas as viewed from our casements.
You might want to double-click on these to get the full effect…
Enjoy:
Tags: British Columbia, Moon, Photo, rainbow, The sea, Vista
This year saw the ninth anniversary of The Girl’s return to and my arrival in Canada. It further marks the start of my third year as a Canadian citizen.
It hardly seems possible that so much time has passed so quickly!
This week just passed marked yet another milestone; this being the first time that I was eligible to vote in an election here. Back in the UK quite a lot of folks (such as those from Commonwealth countries) are eligible to vote as long as they are residents in the UK. The Girl used to take advantage of this before she was granted her UK citizenship.
In Canada one has to be a citizen before one can vote in federal elections – hence my inability to do so until recently.
Anyway – I can now so do…
This current election is a provincial ballot and we here in British Columbia are – like so many others in the world – struggling to keep the nefarious tories at bay. This means voting!
In our neck of the woods we can vote early, so we trotted down to the polling station a week in advance of the final tally. On arrival I announced to all and sundry that this was my first Canadian election. The jolly lady there immediately sourced me a ‘first time voter’ sticker (just like being a teenager again!) which you can see adorning my voting card in the photo attached to this missive.
Voting here is quite slick. One takes one’s voting card and photo ID to the dude at the desk and one is ticked off the list in the prescribed manner and given a voting slip and a stiff plastic (or card – I forget which) sleeve. Having annotated the slip appropriately one inserts it into the sleeve – so that it can’t be read by others – and feeds it into the tallying machine. The machine sucks the paper out of the sleeve (which can then be recycled) and tallies the vote as it digests the slip.
All done and dusted, counted and ready to go. Most efficient and no loopholes for any possible suggestion of impropriety – though heaven for-fend that any such thing might be though even possible here north of the border.
And that’s how you do it, chaps!
Tags: British Columbia, Canada, citizenship, Immigrant, Politics
To the North Thompson last week for the annual gathering of the First Nation of which The Girl is a proud member.
On Thursday last I drove up to the North Thompson to join The Girl (who had flown up a few days earlier) in a long weekend of re-uniting with family, participating in cultural and outdoor activities and gratefully and humbly attending most meaningful traditional ceremonies.
My weekend did not get off to an entirely auspicious start since – having disembarked from the ferry at Tsawwassen at about 10:30 in the morning – what is normally a five hour journey ended up taking seven hours… the which included just two 10-15 minute comfort/food breaks.
With the roads being very busy anyway and the Trans-Canada highway subject to considerable amount of construction work, one (or more) accidents within the road-works caused the highway to be temporarily closed. Three lanes of huge semis (articulated lorries) and pickup trucks (trucks) were filtered down to one lane… before we were booted off the highway altogether, with no helpful signage to guide us to where we might re-join the route. A temperamental sat-nav in The Girl’s Mazda didn’t help and I had to resort to following the biggest truck in the hope that it was going the same way as was I.
By the time I finally reached Barriere I was well and truly ‘toast’…
…all of which was immediately forgotten first thing the next morning when we clambered eagerly aboard an old yellow school bus to head off on a whitewater rafting excursion down the bottom seven kilometres of the Clearwater River. Whitewater rafting has long been on my bucket list and the experience was – as expected – a huge blast. I had hoped that some promised photos of our exploits – taken by the whitewater rafting team – would have arrived by now and could accompany this post. Never mind! Maybe later…
As indicated above I felt greatly honoured to be able to observe the ceremonies and rituals that occupied the last morning of our stay. I have read a fair amount about such things since coming to Canada but to be present at one was really most affecting. The Girl was nominated (thank you to her generous nominator) to be one of those honoured in the blanket ceremony – the which was completely unexpected…
…though well deserved!
Tags: ceremonies, Family, First Nations, The Girl, Travel
On the east coast of the United Kingdom – and particularly in Scotland – it is not uncommon throughout the summer season for otherwise pleasant days to be afflicted (or enhanced, according to your predilection) by dense mists that roll in from the ocean.
Of these phenomena the UK Met Office offers the following explanation:
“Coastal fog is usually a result of advection fog which forms when relatively warm, moist air passes over a cool surface. In the UK, the most common occurrence of coastal fog is when warm air moves over the cool surface of the North Sea towards the east coast of the UK.
When this happens, the cold air just above the sea’s surface cools the warm air above it until it can no longer hold its moisture. This forces the warm air to condense, forming tiny particles of water which forms the fog that we see.”
In Scotland such cold sea fogs go by the name ‘Haar’; in the north of England they are called ‘Sea Frets’.
The west coast of Vancouver Island is well known for its sea fogs in summer, the which lead to the month of August being renamed ‘Fogust’.
Here on the east coast of the island these events are perhaps less common, but they still do take us by surprise from time to time…
…as did this one last weekend.
From our vantage point on the lower slopes of Mount Newton we can see over the top of the fog to Sidney Island and to Pender Island. The sea mist lies in between over the Haro Strait…
…or might that be ‘Haar’ – or ‘Sea Fret’?
For the second day’s excursion on our recent trip to Nanaimo and its environs, The Girl, her mother and I paid a visit to an attraction to which I had not previously been – Little Qualicum Falls.
Our various previous journeys up island – to Tofino, Courtney and other points north and west – have taken us to within a short distance of Little Qualicum Falls Provincial Park, but there are just so many places worth a visit on the island that it comes as no surprise that the ‘still to do’ list is as long as it is. Grateful thanks to The Girl for suggesting on this occasion that we tick this one off the list.
No need of a lengthy screed on my part in this instance. I will let the camera do the work instead:
Tags: Family, Holiday, Little Qualicum Falls, Photo, Travel, Vancouver Island
“A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving”.
Lao Tzu
Earlier this summer – some short while after The Girl and I returned from our momentous trip to Scotland – we were sitting in the sun outside the Stone House pub in Canoe Cove, chewing the fat and contemplating the remainder of the season.
We were minded to seek out some culture – in the form of theatre, music… maybe even fireworks… or indeed any combination of the above. We toyed with a visit to Vancouver for ‘Bard on the Beach‘ – particularly for it’s coincidence with the ‘Celebration of Light‘ – though that looked like turning into a somewhat expensive trip…
We also looked at the offerings here in Victoria – but nothing really caught the eye…
Finally The Girl came up with a smart notion. Come mid-August we could head up the island to Nanaimo, just in time for the Nanaimo Fringe Festival – the which fortuitously happened to coincide with the Nanaimo Blues Festival. We could make it a long weekend and avail ourselves of some theatre and some music – as well as paying a visit to The Girl’s mother in the process.
So – we had a fixed plan… the possession of which – according to Lao Tzu – is a ‘no-no’!
…as indeed it turned out to be!
This has been a busy old year – particularly for The Girl. When it came down to it we didn’t spot anything in the Nanaimo Fringe programme that looked unmissable – and she really didn’t fancy getting caught up in the the sort of crowds that the Blues Festival would attract.
We decided that we would make the trip anyway – but that we would modify the itinerary.
For the first of our days around Nanaimo we settled on an excursion to Gabriola island, where once The Girl’s parents had lived (well before I knew her) and the which we had visited with them on an early trip from the UK.
It was good to explore the island again. Here are some photos:
These last images are of the Malaspina Galleries on Gabriola. When I was first taken to this extraordinary geological feature – back in 2006 – The Girl’s mother took a photograph of the two of us which is still pretty much my favourite image of us together. It was lovely to be able to go back and stand in the same spot getting on for two decades later.
Tags: British Columbia, Gabriola Island, Holiday, Photo, Travel
I first visited Canada in 2006, on which occasion I was introduced by The Girl to the delights of British Columbia and of Vancouver Island – along, naturally, with her family and many of her friends. The expedition was planned with the sort of thoroughness that is her hallmark and included my first meeting, in Nanaimo, with her father and her mother in law.
The four of us took a trip up island to Port Alberni and to Tofino. This memorable sojourn – the which included spending a day drifting down to Bamfield on the Francis Berkeley – has been replicated more than once when we have entertained visitors from outwith the province (or indeed the country).
Between Port Alberni and Tofino we paid a visit to Sproat Lake. Quite apart from being a very beautiful spot this 25km long lake is known for a number of interesting attractions, amongst which – until very recently – was that it was home to the Martin Mars water-bombers.
Now – I could regale you with the story of these huge and beautiful flying boats – built during the second world war and serving for many years fighting wildfires across Canada and elsewhere – but why don’t we let Wikipedia handle the honours in this instance. What gentle readers need to know for the purposes of this post is that ‘Hawaii Mars‘, which I believe to be the remaining flight-worthy aircraft (of the seven that were built) was this year donated to the British Columbia Aviation Museum, the which is right here beside Victoria International Airport.
A couple of weeks back ‘Hawaii Mars‘ made her final flight from Sproat Lake down to Victoria. For the last leg she was accompanied by the Canadian aerobatic display team – the Snowbirds. Many Victoria inhabitants turned out to view the spectacle, but we were fortunate enough to be gifted a grandstand view from our deck as the formation circled the airport.
As you would expect, this spectacle certainly brought a lump to my throat.
When the aircraft is finally ready for visitors at the museum I shall go and pay my respects.
Tags: History, Martin Mars, Tofino, Victoria
Took a while getting here this year – but after the snow, rain, hail, winds, damp, grey skies and general lacklustre demeanor – Spring is finally putting in an appearance. Mother Nature – who has been drumming her fingers on the counter-top for some weeks now – enquires frostily (seemed appropriate):
“What kept you”?
Cue the usual annual photos of Mother Nature doing what she does best…
“I’m here to tell you the tide will never stop coming in. I’m here to tell you whatever you build will be ruined, so make it beautiful.”
Hala Alyan
I find myself sitting here – on a blustery Valentine’s day – gazing from my studio window at the grey, choppy sea and the distant mountains – pondering questions of (im)permanence.
There is no question – regardless of anything that we might do – that this sea and these mountains will exist long enough to register as permanent (certainly by comparison with our measly four score and ten)… whereas the cherry blossom which is just starting to bloom on the tree at the bottom of our garden will be gone in a few short days (weeks at most).
A few years back – shortly after we came to Canada – I wrote a song which bore the title – ‘Cascadia‘. The lyric started thus:
Where I come from we are rooted in the land
Sinking where we stand in the slow sand
We know who we are – we’ve been here for so long
That even when we’re wrong we don’t care
In new found lands – where cities tremble on the brink
Closer than they think to Armageddon
Machines turn to rust and tremors shake the crust
Dominions of dust are blown away
The song came about because I was fascinated – having just moved to Canada – that in a country in which everything was considerably inflated by comparison with its north European counterparts (distances greater, climate more extreme, animals wilder, terrain more difficult) and subject to all manner of extreme events (snow storms, earthquakes, heat domes, avalanches, wildfires, arctic outflows, etc, etc) – domestic construction is, as far as one can tell, a good deal less robust than that to which we ‘old-worlders’ are accustomed.
Back in the UK I owned – at various times – portions of several houses constructed in the 1740s. Such buildings may have their short-comings by modern standards but they were clearly intended to last and tend to be fairly firmly embedded in the dark soils upon which they are erected.
Here in British Columbia most residential properties are constructed primarily of wood (no surprise there) and sit lightly upon the land. They are also considerably less valuable than are the plots of land upon which they are built. In many instances – should one see a house of maybe thirty or forty years of age for sale – one is not surprised when the purchasers simply tear it down and build a new one.
Even the fabric and fittings of these buildings seem destined not to be long for this world. Our house dates from the late 1970s and is thus positively ancient by Canadian standards. We were advised upon purchase that it had had its roof replaced some twelve years before our purchase – the which was therefore around halfway through its expected life (the shingles at least). The slate roof of our apartment in Buckinghamshire in the UK dated was back to sometime in the 19th century! The hot water tank here (powered in Canada by what we Brits would call an immersion heater) was replaced (cheaply!) when the house was put on the market in 2015. The Girl assures me that it is thus nearing the end of its useful life and must needs be exchanged for something more robust. I am sure that she is not wrong!
I am not entirely sure why I am musing upon such matters at this point – though the long wait for spring might have something to do with it. Yesterday and today have been particularly blustery and we were without power for a number of hours overnight – though fortunately all was restored by the time we awoke (thanks BC Hydro!).
Anyway – I feel that it will not be long until the news here, at least, takes a turn for the better.
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