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Last Sunday was mild and sunny in Berkshire, with hints that spring is at last on its way. I took the Fuij x10 out to try to capture some images of the re-awakening.
Driving the x10 after years with a point and shoot felt a bit like stepping into a performance car having only previously driven a compact… most of the time I wasn’t in full control of what was going on! I did manage to get a few snaps:
“Why, what’s the matter, that you have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?” – William Shakespeare, ‘Much ado About Nothing’
February is definitely not my favourite month.
To those who – like me – are struggling to rid themselves of their ‘winter overcoats’ in this post-Christmas period it will come as no surprise that February took its name from the Latin ‘februum’ – which means ‘purification’. The Roman purification ritual ‘Februa’ – a form of spring-cleaning for the body – was held on February 15 (full moon) in the old lunar Roman calendar. In my case there is still rather too much purification to be done before then, I fear.
I leave home at around 6:45 in the morning and don’t quit the office until somewhat after 5:30 in the afternoon. At this time of year this means starting both journeys in darkness. When it is also cold and wet and miserable – what the Scots would call ‘dreek!’ – I am not a happy bunny!
Since moving to Berkshire last September the quickest that I have done the commute to work is 55 minutes. The longest is something over 2 hours! The norm can be anything from an hour and a quarter to an hour and three quarters and varies by the day according to the vagaries of road works, accidents and what is described enigmatically as “sheer weight of traffic!”. My morning journey is a sleepy procession of three lanes of constantly flickering brake-lights, over-sized trucks and kamikaze motor-cyclists.
This latter reminds me of my first ever visit to Vancouver. Being so used to having bikes slaloming past the car on both sides – even at speed – it came as something of a surprise to see a group of Hell’s Angels queuing in the traffic for the Lion’s Gate bridge. Hell’s Angels queuing?! No British biker ever waits in traffic – Angel or not…
When Kickass Ca
nada Girl goes back to Victoria in March she will be staying with dear friends on the Saanich peninsula. Her commute into central Victoria will take no more than 30 minutes and she will enjoy for much of the year the additional delight of the staggering panorama of the Olympic Mountains that so surprises the first-time visitor on cresting the hill at Royal Oak.
I could, of course, move nearer to town, but even in the current climate London rental prices are eye-watering and I don’t fancy spending the next two years living in something the size of a shoe box. So – with apologies to those who suffer the Colwood Crawl (whose journey has its own Facebook page!!) – I will simply embrace my victim-hood and look longingly across the Atlantic. The Girl is getting by far the better of this particular deal – though of course that is as it should be.
Ah well – two more winters……
Tags: Berkshire, British Columbia, February, Victoria
(Last night was Burn’s Night – Slainte Mhor!)
About this time last year Kickass Canada Girl and I came up with a plan. It was a good plan. In fact, we were so impressed with it that we thought it might be The plan!
We own an apartment – a sliver of an old manor house in a small village in Buckinghamshire… 16th century church – pub – cricket club… and not a lot more. I bought the apartment long before Kickass Canada Girl and I met – it being about 5 miles from where I was working at the time. Since then we have both changed jobs and I suddenly found myself commuting into west London – a round trip of about 50 miles. The Girl had to endure a 45 minute drive in the opposite direction.
We were both getting pretty depressed at the amount of time we were spending sitting in traffic rather than being with each other, and we were also becoming seriously exhausted. We needed a plan.
The plan was this… We would sell the apartment and purchase a property in BC. As we wouldn’t be able to move to Canada until my retirement we would let the new house and use the income to fund a rented apartment in the UK – in closer proximity to at least one of our places of employ. When the time came to move we would no longer need to co-ordinate purchases on two continents but could simply terminate rental agreements and move into our house in BC. Genius!
We staged the apartment and put it on the market. We saw somewhere that we liked in a small village in Berkshire… 12th century church – pub – cricket club… you get the picture! We signed the lease.
That was when things started to go awry.
The market collapsed. Eight months and two price reductions later we still hadn’t had an offer on the apartment. With help from good friends we very nearly purchased a house in Victoria during the summer, but without the capital from the sale of the apartment we couldn’t make the numbers work. Having moved into the new apartment in Berkshire we were now having to pay rent on that. Finally, in November we had to acknowledge that we were unlikely to find a purchaser over the winter. We took the apartment off the market and found a tenant for it instead. Not quite according to plan…
Since then Kickass Canada Girl has landed her splendid new job in Victoria and will be moving back there in March. As she is 5 years younger than me (and looks 10 years younger than that!) she will have to work beyond my retirement in any case, so it does all make sense. Unfortunately, though the Berkshire village is pretty close to where she currently works, it is even further away from where I do. My round trip is now 68 miles!
I’m sure you know the Woody Allen quip: “If you want to make god laugh, tell him about your plans”…
Har, har, har!
Tags: Berkshire, British Columbia, Immigrant, Retirement
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