web analytics

British Columbia

You are currently browsing articles tagged British Columbia.

A little relaxation

April 3, 2012 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

Living in the south of England gives one a particular perspective on the matter of snow – in that we only get any once every few years, it is only ever an inch or so deep at most and it usually disappears as quickly as it comes.

Seeing snow on the Coquihalla was a different matter entirely. The fact that both ends of the journey to Kamloops were spring-like and sunny, but the high pass had six foot drifts and there was a clear snow line on the mountain tops, was unlike anything I had seen before. We were very grateful that our dear friends had lent us their Toyota Surf for the journey. It certainly reinforced my feeling that owning a 4×4 is a pretty good idea in the west of Canada.

On the way back to Victoria – and because we had not seen each other for a month – Kickass Canada Girl and I treated ourselves to a night at the Harrison Hot Springs Resort. I had not heard of the Harrison Hot Springs and the Girl had never been there. We had a stunning view of the lake from our room, a splendid dinner and several opportunities to wallow in the outdoor hot spring pools. It was a wonderful way to wind down after the stresses of too much travelling and we thoroughly recommend it.

I wanted to take some photos of the view from our room but the battery on the x10 ran out of charge having been worked hard at the Aunt’s 80th birthday party the night before. As I was travelling light I had left the spare battery – and the charger – in Saanichton. Not wanting to miss the light on the lake and mountains I took a couple of snaps with the Galaxy Note instead. To my slight annoyance – in the circumstances – they turned out rather well!

Tags: , ,

In transit

April 1, 2012 in Life in BC | 2 comments

Air Canada did not, regrettably, live up to the precedent set last week by Air Canada Cargo. The flight to Vancouver had already been delayed by an hour when I reached Heathrow and, once boarded, we then sat on the tarmac for a further hour waiting for a take-off slot. I consequently missed my connection in Vancouver and had to take a later flight to Victoria.

It had already been a long day. When I return to the UK in ten day’s time I will need – to preserve as much leave as possible for further visits to BC – to head straight for the office. To facilitate this I drove to the School first thing on Thursday and, leaving the car there, hauled my bags to the tube station and took the train to Heathrow. With the subsequent delays the whole journey took around 20 hours. When I arrived all I could manage was to collapse and go straight to sleep.

So – what did we do the next day?

We got up early – naturally – caught the ferry to the mainland and drove for 5 hours to Kamloops, birthplace of the Kickass Canada Girl. Though the weather at either end of the trip was fair enough for the time of year, the route traverses the Coquihalla pass and we found ourselves passing through some pretty serious snow.

We are in Kamloops for the Girl’s aunt’s 80 birthday and today – Saturday – there is a party at her cousin’s house.

Phew! I might just be getting a little old to sustain this pace…

I am writing this on my Galaxy Note sitting in a Starbucks in Kamloops, which is a a new experience and not the easiest thing to do. I will write more – and much more elegantly – once we are back in Victoria on Monday. All I have to figure out now is how to get the picture to accompany this post off my camera and onto the blog. Neither the Note nor the x10 has a standard USB port, so I will probably have to borrow a computer elsewhere to do so. This is a problem that will need to be addressed for the future.

Tags: , ,

Pearl’s a singer…

March 27, 2012 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

Gerald Levert/Andy Gibson – sung by Janis Joplin

It is surprisingly difficult to find statistics on worldwide open-top ownership, so my gut feeling that the English must come somewhere near the top of the league when it comes to this peculiar obsession must remain purely subjective. At this time of year the merest hint of the sun peeping through the murk is enough to bring to the roads an epidemic of rag-topped roadsters that have presumably spent the winter months hibernating in warm, dry garages.

Why it should be that the English are thus so afflicted I am not sure – particularly given our infelicitous climate. Perhaps it has to do with wishful thinking, or the lack of a pertinent contemporary mythology – or perhaps our midlife crises are just more acute than for other races. Either way, those from sunnier climes who might be expected to embrace the joys of wind-in-the-hair motoring instead tend to eschew these delights in favour of air-conditioned homogeneity.

I am, myself, a long standing convertible convert. The above is my pride and joy – the other lady in my life – and she is called Pearl. You probably don’t really need me to elucidate the origin of the name, but (for younger readers)… ‘Pearl’ was both the title of the album that Janis was recording at the point of her untimely death, and indeed her nickname for herself.  For those that care about such things my Pearl is a 1986 300SL. I have owned her for around ten years now and she has given me a great deal of pleasure over that time.

Regrettably, any thoughts of bringing her to Canada in a couple of years time really are a non-starter. If I wished I could pick up a North American version of the SL for somewhat less than it would cost to ship her over and do the necessary work to register her.

Which leads me to this observation… My perception, rightly or wrongly, is that – for a state that has a mild climate and considerably more days of sunshine than we do in the UK – British Columbians do not seem particularly keen on open top motoring. Yes, there are enthusiasts, but nowhere near the numbers that we see in England. Pickups are all well and good, but – for me – just do not hold the same appeal.

So – what should I drive when I finally make it to Victoria? My instinct is that I should run a 4×4, and I will certainly need it to be equipped to tow a boat. I am no stranger to the breed having previously owned an old Landrover 110 Station Wagon, which I really enjoyed both on and off-road. Unfortunately the fact that it boasted a 3.5l V8, weighed over 2 tons and had the aerodynamics of a block of flats (Canadian: Condo!) meant that it averaged only around 12mpg! In the end I could no longer afford to run the beast – even had my conscience allowed me to do so.

Trouble is, I still hanker after a rag-top – and whereas there used to be quite a range of 4×4 convertible options, as far as I can see there is now only the one…

Hmmm! What to do?

Tags: , , , ,

Crossing the Bar… (1)

February 21, 2012 in Life as we know it | Permalink

No matter how blessed an existence one leads there are inevitably darker times and occasional moments of sadness. Whilst caught in grip of an emotional squall it can be difficult to maintain perspective – to recognise that the account of one’s life does after all show a positive balance – and that if viewed in the context of the troubles of the wider world these relatively minor afflictions are little more than a passing shower. I don’t believe for a minute that our existence here is but a ‘vale of tears’, but I can see that some are unfortunate enough to lead lives that must make that seem so.

It is no secret that I find this time of year irksome and the long, slow grind towards the aurora of the new spring particularly wearing. Though many wonderful things have happened to Kickass Canada Girl and I over the last few years there have also been difficult times, and it seems to me that most of these have occurred in that dark hour before the dawn.

At the start of March last year the Girl’s father died – not unexpectedly, but suddenly. He had been in a nursing home for some time and she had flown back from the UK to visit him on a number of occasions. When it came to it we had only a couple of days notice that he was ailing, and by the time we had booked flights he had passed away.

The Girl and her father were very close. She misses him terribly and she will doubtless find the 11th March this year a particularly difficult day. It saddens me that I will be 8,500 miles away and unable to offer much comfort, so I am very glad that she has family at hand to lean on.

I liked Jim enormously. It was a privilege to have met him and to have been able to get to know him – even if only a little.  Oddly though, in a way I feel I know him quite well, as so many people have told me so much about him. There is clearly a lot of him in the Girl and this will keep his memory very much alive for me. One thing for which I am eternally grateful is that he saw the Girl and I married in the summer of 2010. He could see that she was happy and I think that must have meant a great deal.

When we were in BC last summer we flew up to Kamloops (the Girl’s birthplace) and then – with her cousin and his wife – drove on up the North Thompson valley. Above Clearwater we took the ATVs up into the mountains, to the ‘Hole in the Wall’ where Jim and his buddies used to hunt. The logging road has been long abandoned and the forest is growing back. We would not have got through at all had we not been carrying a chainsaw. In a year or so the track will have disappeared completely. The ‘Hole in the Wall’ has reverted to being a beautifully peaceful spot, and a good place to rest.

We buried Jim’s ashes on the hillside – so that he could look out over the mountains that he loved – and raised a small cairn. The Girl and her cousin fixed a plaque to a nearby tree which includes the inscription:

‘Hunter, fisherman, beloved father and loyal friend.’

So much more could be said – and yet maybe that says enough…

 

Tags: , ,

Friends like this…

February 9, 2012 in Kickass Canada Girl | 2 comments

An ongoing feature of this blog is going to be me embarrassing our dear friends in Saanichton by telling the world how amazing and wonderful they are. They are – so they’ll just have to put up with it!

Not content with throwing open their home to a confluence of foreigners, as hosts to our wedding in 2010 – and indeed putting very nearly the entire celebration together themselves, including making the champagne! – they then offered us considerable financial assistance last summer for our putative house purchase in BC. They will now be providing a home for Kickass Canada Girl when she returns to Victoria next month.

But that’s not enough for them… Oh no!

The Girl is selling her car – a sporty black Honda Civic with all the extras – to one of my nephews – my brother’s youngest, who is currently a medical student here in the UK. Canadians probably won’t get this because the Civic in Canada is a totally different car! The European version is much more sexy! Anyway, the intention was that the proceeds of the sale would go towards the purchase of a suitable vehicle in BC, and to that end the Girl has been online eying up all sorts of sports cars and convertibles and so forth – she being naturally that way inclined.

Then, just the other day, we received a message from Saanichton. Our friends had found what is possibly the best ever ‘pre-loved’ car for sale. A 21 year old Accord in showroom condition, with just 30,000 miles on the clock. One careful owner – always garaged – full service history – only driven on special occasions. A snip at $4,500, which is about £2,900!!

Ok – so it’s not quite the sporty number that the Girl had in mind, but it’s far too good a deal to pass up and she can put the rest of the pot aside for something fancier later. No sooner had she expressed her interest than our dear friends had purchased the car with their own funds, brought it back to their farm and put it into storage to await the Girl’s arrival in March. What are we going to do with these guys?!

They are amazing. We are truly blessed, and we love them to bits…

Tags: , , ,

Excepting February alone…

February 1, 2012 in Life in England | Permalink

“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 Canada 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: , , ,

…gang aft a-gley!

January 26, 2012 in Life in England | 2 comments

(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: , , ,

Newer entries »