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Life in BC

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Three storms

October 17, 2016 in Life in BC | Permalink

Image by NASAHot on the heels of the first storm of the season – mentioned just a couple of posts back under the banner ‘Pillaging just for fun‘ – the end of last week found the coastal region of BC under threat of attack from three more storms. These vigorous systems were the tail end of Super Typhoon Songda that had tracked across the Pacific, making landfall on the northwest coast in waves on Thursday, Friday and Saturday last.

Environment Canada were taking no chances with their forecasting – predicting that each storm would be stronger than the last, climaxing on the Saturday night with winds approaching 100km/h (62mph) – one of the severest weather events over southern Vancouver Island for a decade or more.

Now – we Brits have form when it comes to the forecasting – or mis-forecasting – of serious weather conditions. Weatherman Michael Fish made something of a career out of having infamously told a lady caller that the rumours that she had called to report of a hurricane approaching the south of England one evening in mid-October 1987 were false – the night that trees over swathes of the south east were laid waste by winds gusting to 130km/h (81mph). Ever since that night the Met Office have – to all appearances – tended to exaggerate the potential for damage rather than run the risk of getting caught out again. As a result Brits tend to take these things with a hefty pinch of salt.

I was not altogether surprised when some of the dinner guests we were expecting for Saturday evening cried off during the morning – sensibly not wanting to get caught out in the storm. Given the regularity with which BC’s pole-carried power lines are taken out by tumbling timber (and of course the fact that pretty much everything in our home operates courtesy of BC Hydro) it also seemed sensible to purchase a few precautionary items from Canadian Tyre… a propane cooking stove and some battery-powered lamps for example. I was a bit taken aback upon reaching the store, however, to find that the shelves were largely empty of such items. It would appear that everyone else hereabouts was also taken by surprise by what is, after all, a pretty common occurrence. I took the last propane stove and improvised with some garage (shop) working lights.

Back at home and well into late afternoon the nearest of the Gulf Islands abruptly disappeared from view and the pines and firs surrounding our small estate started to pitch and toss vigorously. The weather channel played continually on the TV as we waited for the power to cut out at any second. We fired up our new gas log fire and hunkered down to sit it out.

Within half an hour all was suspiciously quiet again. The nervous looking weathermen continued to predict the apocalypse to come – but outside our windows the weather stubbornly refused to play ball. The weather system had apparently had a change of heart and buggered off further up the coast.

Anyone need a propane stove and some battery-powered lamps?

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Pillaging just for fun

October 11, 2016 in Life in BC, Photos | 2 comments

“The autumn wind is a pirate. Blustering in from sea with a rollicking song he sweeps along swaggering boisterously. His face is weather beaten, he wears a hooded sash with a silver hat about his head… The autumn wind is a Raider, pillaging just for fun.”

Steve Sabol

It is a matter of enviable fact that during 2016 the southern end of Vancouver Island enjoyed a seriously spanking summer. Dry and hot much of the time for a second year in a row El Niño conditions saw western Canada basking joyously, though British Columbians’ feet were kept firmly on the ground by the inevitably wild, wet and windy winter that separated the two summer seasons.

There is even talk that the La Niña event that usually follows El Niño may not after all happen this year, which means that the winter may be less extreme than it might otherwise have been. There is – nonetheless – no denying that over this Thanksgiving weekend the autumn (fall!) has put in an early appearance. The first storm of the season stuck on Thursday evening and the first power outages followed shortly thereafter. We lost our supply for about an hour and a half in the middle of the evening and we were very grateful that we now have lovely gas log fire in our drawing room to keep us toasty warm (our furnace being electric!). On the Saturday we had rain… solid rain… all day…

Today, however, we got out and about and I took the chance to grab some autumnal photos.

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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Something at once

September 26, 2016 in Life in BC | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid“We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.”

Calvin Coolidge

It is a matter of days now until we can celebrate the first anniversary of our ownership of the really rather splendid North Saanich residence from which emanate these meanderings. Time has simply cantered by…

It is also very nearly five months since I scribbled this update which included a brief passage concerning the ongoing legal dispute between the Kickass Canada Girl and I and the former owners of the property (and quite possibly their realtor (estate agent!) and maybe also our home inspector (surveyor!!)). I am still not able to regale gentle (and patient) readers with the full details; needless to say the case grinds on and on, and we are thankfully not holding our breaths (or we would by now have expired).

Indeed we have determined that we should no longer curtail our respiration (metaphorically speaking) in more ways than one! We have decided that we can wait not a day more before getting cracking on the first phases of our renovations.

The first task is the one that we did not expect to have to do. I realise that I have not – to this point – revealed the gruesome details of what must be done. Without going into the whys and wherefores the nub of the matter is this… as the photos in this post from last year show, the house currently has three sun-rooms that traverse the entire back of the building facing the sea. The areas beneath these have been enclosed to create further spaces that sit uncomfortably somewhere between inside and out.

These three sun-rooms must be removed, and will be replaced by a simple deck with stairs down to the garden (yard). A new and sizable sliding window will need to be installed in the living room, into what is currently just a hole in the wall.

This is a not insignificant project and will require building permits and suchlike. To which end we have engaged a designer (and ‘Architectural Building Technologist’) who has produced a first set of draft plans, the which will be used to set the whole kit and caboodle in motion with a view to actually building next spring. We rather like the elegant simplicity of his suggested solution and – should you persevere with these meanderings – you will eventually see how it turns out.

The ‘second’ task we had already started last year – before we discovered the extent of the issue described above. The house has a heat pump – a sort of air-conditioning – which is jolly good but does not provide the sort of ‘spot’ warmth that is required for comfortable winter living. Our first actions on moving in last October were to arrange for natural gas to be laid on and to order a gas log insert for the drawing room fireplace. When everything kicked off a few weeks later we had to put the installation on hold and – until a few days ago – that was the way things had remained. With winter rumbling into view in the distance this part of the project had to be rapidly re-instated and we now have in place a splendid and highly efficient gas log insert – complete with remote controls, timers, temperature settings and other gewgaws that we will never use.

Progress! Progress!…

 

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Flyer

September 14, 2016 in Life in BC | Permalink

flyer

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Youth theatre update

September 10, 2016 in Life in BC | Permalink

high-jump“More on that anon” – was the promise made at the end of my last post concerning our attempts to set up a new form of youth theatre in Victoria. That item was posted on June 1st and it is now September 9th. “Just what the heck is happening?” – I hear you cry! “How long is anon anyway?“.

OK – here is the lowdown…

As was detailed in the aforementioned post the UK has long benefited from a thriving youth theatre community, much of it supported by local authorities. The municipalities in BC (the equivalent of the UK’s LAs) tend – where they have a theatrical offering for young people at all – to buy in courses from the local commercial organisations.

I discovered late last year, however, in the course of my researches that the District of Saanich had just recently adopted a new Youth Development Strategy. This estimable document was couched in familiar language – its principles very much in accord with those that I myself espouse. My subsequent approach to them – after the usual period in which nothing at all appeared to be happening – led to a meeting with a particularly dynamic Youth Programmer who set up a gathering of like-minded people which included a young lady who was subsequently to become the other half of our team. The meeting also led to our contacts with the University of Victoria, Claremont Secondary School, the Belfry 101 program and the Kate Rubin Studio.

By early summer our fact finding mission into Victoria’s youth drama provision was complete and it had been decided that we would set up an after-school group at the Teen Lounge in the Saanich Commonwealth Centre. As Parks and Recreation (the department responsible for the municipality’s leisure centres) programs run in parallel with school terms our new venture would not start until September – which suited us well as it would give ample to time to develop the initial curriculum…

…which is exactly what we have been doing over the past months. We are at the time of writing less than two weeks from the date of our inaugural session and – in curricular terms – the structures are all in place. We will, naturally, be adding and developing the detail as we go along.

All efforts now switch to publicity, in an attempt to ensure that we do not find ourselves standing alone in an empty space – devoid of eager young creatives – with our session notes dangling impotently from our hands… wondering what to do with ourselves.

Our concern bears the title  – ‘Youth Performance Arts Collective’, which will be at once be abbreviated to ‘Y PAC’. This soubriquet may strike the gentle reader as being a little pompous – and that reader might have a point. The guardians of the public services in BC take their responsibilities seriously and are impressively earnest about what they do. I can live with that!

Any introduction of notes of irony can wait…

 

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On the fringe

September 6, 2016 in Life in BC | Permalink

Fringe-badge-16-mint-background-2008-1The 2016 Victoria Fringe Festival – the thirtieth such since the festival’s inauguration – has just reached its conclusion.

Looking back to last year’s event – which clearly took place in a period during which we had rather more time on our hands – I observe that we were able to get to a fair number of shows. This post – from September last – provides the details of those that the Girl and I deemed to be our pick of the 2015 fringe.

Having been occupied this year with our most welcome visitors from the UK we found – upon their departure – that we had missed the first week of the festival entirely. With the Girl now gainfully employed and thus not available for entertainment purposes during the working day our opportunities to attend fringe events were further restricted.

As a result we perhaps spent a little more time this year than we did last perusing the fringe programme, in an effort to ensure that those performances that we could attend were, after all, worth seeing. Our efforts seem to have paid off.  We saw three shows; we greatly enjoyed each of them.

‘Half the Battle‘ – written and created by Edmonton based Owen Bishop – is a one-man two-character piece with a twist… Bishop plays both parts simultaneously! Inspired by the burial beneath conjoined tombstones of a Canadian second world war pilot and co-pilot, ‘Half the Battle‘ imagines the men inextricably joined in the afterlife as two halves of the same character. It perhaps hardly need be said that the performance was funny and affecting in equal measure and was quite brilliantly played without the slightest waver by the talented Bishop. The use of the hackneyed phrase “tour de force” is normally rightly deprecated. In this instance it would be entirely justified.

British comedian, Gerald Harris, is that staple of fringe festivals the world over – a storyteller! Lest you infer that I regard the form as being in any way inferior to other performance arts let me at once set you right. The oral tradition is one the most fertile and immediate of all the forms – but only if the storyteller is a good one! Harris not only has the requisite performance skills – his manic energy clearly keeping some in the audience guessing as to his intent – but he is also quite obviously a writer. As a result ‘A Tension to Detail‘ – Harris’s meditation on his mostly solitary life as an onanistic British Jew – was splendidly constructed and paced, and delivered with panache.

Finally, ‘Bushel and Peck‘ – a surreal physical comedy of (relatively) few words by multiple award winning Canadian comic actor Alastair Knowles (‘James and Jamesy‘) and choreographer Stephanie Morin-Robert – is that most wonderful of things, a performance that delights whilst completely defying easy categorisation. It must be my ‘poor theatre‘ leanings I suppose, but I do derive great pleasure from watching accomplished performers create a rich and beautiful visual spectacle with no set, everyday costume and the bare minimum of props – in this case a table lamp, a plywood board, a pair of hair-dryers and a packet of white balloons! (My liking for the surreal can probably be traced back even further to my early affection for the Goon Show).

As ever, should you happen upon any of these performers at fringe events around the world, I would heartily recommend giving them a look.

 

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Wine…

August 19, 2016 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

“…because no great story ever started with someone eating a salad!”

Unattributed

There are those – and I very much count myself amongst their number – who hold that chief amongst the many attractions of the Okanagan valley is its burgeoning viticultural industry. Certainly – to my mind at least – no sojourn there is complete without taking the time to visit a winery or two (or more!) for a tasting.

Though wines have been made in the region since the 1850s the current boom dates back only to the 1980s when the provincial government – in the face of competition from the Californian wine trade triggered by the North American Free Trade Agreement – started to offer grants to landowners to plant vitus vinifera. There are now more than two hundred wineries along the Okanagan valley and the industry is booming.

Though the wineries are small and their produce often not available outside the province – let alone outside Canada – the quality of the wines is astonishing and they have garnered an ever growing number of awards both in the Americas and internationally. Some of my favourite wines come from the aptly named ‘Golden Mile’ between Oliver and Osoyoos.

Here be some pictures from our recent visit:

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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Steam!

August 15, 2016 in Life in BC, Photos | 2 comments

I know not whether it was because neither of my parents could drive a car – with the result that the very great majority of our travel during my childhood and adolescent years took place upon the railways – or because my brother and I experienced during our first decade the last gasp of steam traction on what was at that time British Rail… but both he and I have a considerable fondness for the beauty and power of the steam locomotive.

In a way my first introduction to Canada came through the railway magazines that my father collected from his early life right up until he passed away. I gazed in awe at the black and white photographs of enormous North American steam engines hauling trains of apparently endless length through the staggering Rocky Mountains. I recall also being astonished that there could be a place on this earth called ‘Hope’ – and when it came to spiral tunnels and avalanche sheds… my eyes bulged and my jaw dropped in disbelief! Could I ever hope(!) to see such wonders?

Well here I am – of course – and the opportunity during our trip to the interior to visit the Kettle Valley Steam Railway – all that remains of the Kettle Valley Railway – was too good to pass up. Images by means of the usual agency…

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

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‘Wells’ Gray

August 10, 2016 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

A day with my brother in Wells Gray Provincial Park.

The park was created in 1939 by – and subsequently named for – Arthur Wellesley Gray, the then BC Minister of Lands. Gray’s nickname – ‘Wells’ – was adopted as part of the name.

The park contains many impressive waterfalls, including the Helmcken Falls, Dawson Falls and Spahats Falls.

Herewith some snaps. My apologies should you encounter any problems accessing them. I did not really bring with me all of the equipment required to guarantee the successful uploading of everything that I captured.

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

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Masters of the Pacific Coast

August 2, 2016 in Life in BC | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidI have endeavoured within these jottings over the past four and more years to record at least some information that might be of use to others contemplating relocating from their various loci on the planet – to Canada… and in particular to the Pacific northwest. I have not been alone in doing this, of course, there being plentiful sources of such information on the InterWebNet.

It strikes me that this combined pool of knowledge might find itself increasingly in demand as the uncertain political situation in the UK and in Europe continues to evolve. Should this November’s election south of the border here produce the outcome that all sane men and women must surely be praying could never happen, interest in this idyllic corner of the globe might sky-rocket.

Of course – this ‘public service’ is only a part of the brief that I set myself when inaugurating my own humble ramblings. One of the main reasons for continuing to record our progress, as we departed the English home-counties and commenced the long process of settling in on the coast of British Columbia, is to better inform our loved-ones, our friends and those with whom we have become acquainted over the years on either side of the pond, about the places in which we have been fortunate enough to reside and of the peoples who live there.

Whilst yet in England I tried to give a flavour of life there for those who live in Canada and elsewhere. Now that we are in B.C. I do my best to provide a balanced and compelling – if inevitably partial – descriptive and visual depiction of this beautiful part of the world for all those who have an interest therein.

With this mission in mind I was delighted to find the other day – on the BBC’s fourth TV channel, BBC4 – the first of a two-part documentary by British Museum archaeologist Dr. Jago Cooper, entitled ‘Masters of the Pacific Coast: The Tribes of the American Northwest‘. This exquisitely filmed programme muses upon the extraordinary resilience of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific northwest who have evolved an intricate and sophisticated culture over a 10,000 year period – without ever ‘resorting’ to agriculture!

The programme is fascinating and delightful and offers a good picture of the history of this rugged coast. More information may be gleaned from this review by Marina Vaizey on theartsdesk.com, and the first part of the documentary can be found on the BBC iPlayer – for those who have access to such. The final part will be shown on BBC4 this Thursday – 4th August.

Were the film to do no more than to offer images of the ravishing beauty of this land I would find myself quite choked up thereby. It is, of course, much more that just that as The Arts Desk review attests:

“The programme did with an ease of manner what television in Reithian mode can do so well: deliver a plethora of unfamiliar facts anchored by the amiable charm of a scholarly presenter, made memorable by endless scenes of beautiful wilderness and occasional surprises.”

I firmly recommend catching this documentary before it disappears from the iPlayer.

Erratum – I see that the second part was on today, Wednesday 3rd. Sorry about that. Thank goodness for the iPlayer!

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