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February face

February 8, 2022 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what’s the matter? That you have such a February face so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?”

William Shakespeare

Two years back – just before the world went crazy (though of course a very strong case could be made that it had already done so back in 2016) The Girl and I were sorting through our summer clothes and beachware, deciding what to take on our upcoming cheeky winter sojourn to Zihuatanejo in Mexico during the College’s Reading Week.

I mention this because running away to Mexico is a very Canadian thing – an essential mechanism by which they survive the worst of the winter. The Girl had been doing just that for years prior to moving to the UK and indeed owns part of a timeshare in Mexico.

Come the pandemic many Canadians have suddenly been deprived of their essential vitamin D booster. Not all, of course. A good number have resolutely ignored the risks and made the pilgrimage anyway. Us old folk (me, rather than The Girl of course) tend to me somewhat more circumspect and are eschewing the delights of the sunny south in the interests of longer term health.

Unfortunately that means we have to stay home and endure that most tricksy of months – February.

This is the month that offers us Valentine’s day and slowly lengthening evenings, whilst also tempting us with occasional balmy days and hints of spring – only to snatch them away again with renewed wintery blasts.

It helps not at all to have so little to which we can look forward. This year has been even tougher than usual in that The Girl needed to have a tooth pulled (as I write this she has just come out of the dental surgery and I am about to convey her home). Dentists here apparently prescribe a single dose of Atavin for such circumstances (not something I ever encountered in the UK) and the results are… interesting! Anyway – I am sure that gentle readers would join me in wishing The Girl a speedy recovery.

It is thus with considerable pleasure that we anticipate the brief visit to Victoria next week of old friends from the UK. There is something about receiving guests from over the water that is redolent of normality – though of course our interactions will doubtless be executed with full mind to the essential protocols.

Should the gentle reader be ‘tutting’ at this point about the irresponsibility of international tourism in such times, rest assured that the visit is actually for business – specifically that involving an interview for possible employment! That in itself raises the delicious possibility of our circle of friends here in BC being enlarged by acquaintances renewed – which can never be a bad thing.

No matter what transpires it will be good to see them.

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Cheeky chappie!

December 7, 2021 in Flotsam and Jetsam, Photos | Permalink

Ever since arriving in Canada (more than six years ago now) I have – twice a week – taken part in a fitness class for those over 55 years of age. I do not do so because I enjoy this particular form of exercise but because I am determined to keep everything going for as long as possible. If that means doing some work – so be it.

The majority of of the group are ladies, with whom – naturally – I now have reasonably good relationships. We often go for a coffee after the class, to the delightfully named “Fickle Fig” farm shop on the outskirts of Sidney. We sit outside around a huge table – for the (by now) usual COVID protection reasons.

Sometimes we are not alone. Sometimes the wildlife wants to join in – as with this cheeky chappie!

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidHe – or she – doesn’t seem to care for coffee but does quite like the pastries (which, of course, I can’t eat).

He – or she – cared not a jot that I was taking pictures of him/her!

 

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School’s in!

September 23, 2021 in Flotsam and Jetsam, Life in BC | Permalink

“Respect your parents. They passed school without Google!”

Anonymous

OK – so it is college rather than school, we’ve actually been back for nearly three weeks now – and September 2021 is not long for this world either.

Apart from that… you get the idea!

I promised that I would write something about going back to college – as in actually ‘going back to college’ rather than just starting another ‘virtual’ term from the comforts of my studio at home…

…and here I am!

The College decreed that for the new academic year we should all be back face to face in the classroom and lecture hall. This is entirely understandable, given that students had started displaying (along with gratitude that their health interests were being foregrounded) some discontent that they were not getting the full college experience even though they were still being asked to pay for it. In the light of this pressure the College probably had little choice in the matter.

The decision would doubtless not have been particularly contentious had it not been for the subsequent emergence of the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus. This unpleasantness has inevitably ramped up the risk level again and left us all considerably more concerned as to the best course of action going forward.

Still – face to face it is for now – but with a plethora of precautions to try to keep things safe. Masks must be worn inside buildings – including in the classrooms – and vaccine passports are required for access to sports and some other facilities, though not for the cafeterias and bookshops.

I am all for appropriate precautions and particularly keen to remain healthy myself. There are implications for teaching, however. We are obliged to wear a mask when teaching unless there is at least two metres between us and the nearest student – in which case we can unmask. Two of the spaces in which I operate are large enough that I can – gratefully – go maskless. My other classroom is a pokey little hole in which I have to deliver an eighty minute class once a week. Fun it is not!

My Chair is very keen that we should also make provision for any students who cannot attend classes in person – either because they have had to quarantine or because they do not feel comfortable being in such public spaces. There are – of course – methods by which classes could be simultaneously streamed if required, but this demands additional equipment and configuration which the department – and College – have thus far proved slow to provide. I don’t mean to be awkward, but I certainly have no intention of teaching the classes twice – once for those who are present and again for those who are not.

Oh well! No doubt we will stumble through the term in our usual manner. The odds on the term ending in the same manner that it has begun must reasonably long, I would have thought.

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Product placement

June 24, 2021 in Life as we know it | Permalink

With regard to the recent strand upon these pages concerning my health issues – here and here – I have in the last few days been in receipt of good news. Having once again been relieved of a goodly measure of my precious blood (analysis for the purposes thereof) my nutrition doctor has declared that my liver enzymes are now firing as they should. I don’t suppose enzymes do ‘fire’, of course, but as the writer and proprietor of this online journal I get to play with language (meaning and metaphor) as I please!

This does not mean that the fattiness with which my liver has been flirting is necessarily all gone – as yet. That apparently takes time and would require another ultrasound to determine for sure, but the good doctor is sufficiently content that he has now parked me in ‘maintenance’ mode and doesn’t even want to look further at my blood for the next half year. “Yay!” – say I to that!

Even the nutritionist herself (not the doc – the other one!) announced proudly that I had excellent levels of Vitamin D (not sure what that has to do with anything) and asked if was taking a supplement. The cheek!…

The point is that my shiny new diet has clearly not only dropped me a couple of trouser sizes and taken me back to the weight of a much younger version of myself, but it must also be doing the job of restoring my internals to the shape in which they should be (sort of squidgy, since you ask)…

Now – I am not normally one to endorse products upon these pages but – in the manner of a good award winner (which is what I feel like) – there are just a few ‘people’ that I would like to thank.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidI have admitted previously to my habitual taking of a single drink each night to accompany my repast – the which I have done since I left home back in the 70s. This was always something of a indulgence but the point was to give myself a little reward for getting through another (hopefully) fruitful day. To be able to willingly give this up I needed some alternative that actually felt like a treat. Water is all very well but is, in my book, for exercise – and that ain’t a treat!

So – here is my new nightly beverage of choice – the very wonderful range of Zevia Iced Teas. No sugar – zero calorie and (should you so require) caffeine-free to boot.

What is more – they are delicious!

Not cheap…

…but delicious…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidAt the other end of the meal I still need something sweet. Many such lovely things are now ruled out – but how about a little… chocolate?…

“Surely not” – I hear you cry – but worry not, for this is no ordinary chocolate. This is Lily’s ‘no sugar added’ chocolate – and it is yummy!

It is sweetened with Stevia (of which I am a huge fan) which has apparently no downsides (unlike sweeteners ending in ‘ose‘ and suchlike). Some folk gripe about the aftertaste. All I can say is that Lily’s seem to have cracked the Stevia thing in this case – this one, for example, having only an aftertaste of salted caramel.

Yummy, indeed!

Not cheap…

…but yummy…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidFinally – there are snacks. You know – late night munchies! Nothing that a thick slice of toasted sourdough and marmalade wouldn’t fix – or maybe a nice strawberry jam sandwich. Hmmmm!

So for those occasions – there is Fatso!

I have, as it happens, never been a fan of nut butters. They just don’t quite do it for me; something to do with the texture, mayhap.

But Fatso… A range of low-carb, low-sugar nut butters made with plant-based fats… right here in Victoria!… These things are awesome – and quite addictive. A nice big dollop of Crunchy Salted Caramel (or Maple) Peanut (or Almond) butter on top of a couple of Walker’s Oat Cakes (“They’re delicious!”)…

TDF!

Not cheap…

…but TDF!

There now – dieting’s not so bad…

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Things are looking up…

June 17, 2021 in Flotsam and Jetsam | 2 comments

“When things are looking up, there’s no point in looking elsewhere”

Agatha Swanburne

Here in British Columbia there are now definite – if still quite fragile – signs that things are beginning to return to some sort of normality.

Progress in this direction is being pursued with a high degree of caution and restraint, though we are of course as vulnerable as are most nations to the antics of the usual idiots. We do, however, eschew the sort of hyperbole that some must endure. Not for us the “World beating” – or “Irreversible” – or “Sure and certain knowledge”… I’m ‘sure and certain’ that you catch my drift…

This very day The Girl trotted down to the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney to get her second COVID vaccination – the which was booked about three weeks ago.

I was beginning to wonder (for no good reason other than my impatience!) if I had somehow dropped off the list when I finally received the email inviting me to book a date for my second jab. I jumped at the chance and have an appointment in only ten days time.

”Result!” – as the ‘yoof’ were wont to say some decades ago…

So much are our spirits raised by these developments that we are now seriously contemplating re-entering the outside world by booking ourselves a mini-break during the summer – though we will not be leaving the province anytime soon.

More information – you may be sure – as it becomes available.

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Number one thing (number two)

May 20, 2021 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Image by Brooke Lark on UnsplashSomething that surprised me greatly on our arrival in British Columbia back in 2015 was the discovery that the province had a considerable shortage of GPs… doctors! For the first year and some I had to resort to visiting drop-in clinics to get repeat prescriptions for the hypertension medication to which I referred in my last post.

Fortunately a new clinic opened in Sidney and I was finally able to land myself on the books of an excellent physician who has the added benefit of being a relatively young man – who should thus (barring unfortunate incidents) see me out.

The good thing about young doctors is that they tend to be keen and thorough. That is also, of course, the problem with them… discovering things that one wishes they had not.

Several years back now my new doctor determined – in the course of my annual checkup – that I now had stage one chronic kidney disease. There is, apparently, nothing really to be done about this and it makes no practical difference – as long as it doesn’t develop into a higher stage (which I gather from the Doc that it may never do. Fingers crossed!) How did I get it? Apparently is is a common side-effect of hypertension!

Now – this year the doc had a new treat for me. I now have early signs of fatty liver disease. What?! How did I get that? Well – apparently if one is not overweight (which I wasn’t) and doesn’t have a drink problem (don’t even go there) then it is quite likely to be a side effect of – you’ve guessed it – hypertension.

Thanks, mum and dad!

So – what is to be done? Well – diet apparently – for which I have been referred to a nutritionist. According to him I need to be on a low-carb, low-sugar, preferably plant-based diet… and I should abstain from the demon booze!! Well – I can be pretty dogged if it leads to staying healthy for as long as possible and I don’t mind making some sacrifices, but there are limits…

So – out goes bread, white rice, all manner of sugary treats (including cakes and jams etc), too much red meat, processed foods… ice cream! All that sort of thing. In comes more fruit, salads and vegetables, lean and white meats, fish, pulses and no end of less fun things (like seeds… bleuch!!).

On the alcohol front, until this started I was in the habit of taking one drink a day with my evening meal, the which I had done ever since I left home back in the 1970s. Now I only drink on occasion – maybe one or two times a month (boo!).

Is it working – I hear you ask? Too soon to tell, though blood tests next month will give a clearer picture.

It is having one big effect, though: I have lost a fair bit of weight. Having clocked in at around 13 stone (182lb) for as long as I can remember, in the three or so months since this started my weight has dropped to a tad below 12 stone (168lb). As a result  I have had to purchase several new pairs of jeans, my waist having dropped from an optimistic 34” back to a guaranteed 32”. I really can’t remember when I was last this size, but it was certainly back in the 80s (or even earlier).

Oh well! I will of course keep the gentle reader up-dated as things progress.

 

 

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Number one thing (number one)

May 16, 2021 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Broccoli is not as bad as people make out. It might give you wind, but I’d prefer to have wind and have good health. Health is the number one thing on the planet. However, I am quite partial to rum and raisin ice cream.”

Chris Eubank Sr.

I recently found myself looking back over the archives to this online journal. It had occurred to me that – in what is getting on for a decade now that I have been posting to it – I have made very little reference to health – to mine or to anyone else’s.

Whereas I would once have maintained that this was because I have been blessed with an excellent constitution (which is certainly true to a point) I might possibly also have admitted that this is one of those subjects that chaps in general tend to avoid, probably because of the fear that talking about such potentially unpleasant topics could well result in something being raked up that they would prefer not to know about.

Either way – with the advancing of the years it really is time that I addressed some of this stuff. Here goes…

I inherited many characteristics from my parents: most of them positive (and for that, many thanks). There is, however, something else that they passed on to me that is rather more of a pain. That something is hypertension (high blood pressure)!

I don’t recall if they ever discussed the fact that they both suffered the condition. It was the sort of thing that was not much talked about by their generation. I’m not even sure that I knew they were on medication for it – until such time as I was myself diagnosed with it.

This came about as my fiftieth birthday approached. I was working at the time at a very well-known posh boys’ school in the UK and fell into conversation with my doctor (who was both one of the School doctors and a local GP) at a cocktail party at the School (as one does)! Regular readers will know that I don’t normally use real names on this blog but in this case I will make an exception – because the doctor was genuinely called ‘Doc Holliday’!

Anyway – I asked what a chap should do to check on his health at that time of life and he promised to give me a detailed going-over – the which he duly did. This uncovered the hypertension and we discovered (after an extensive round of blood tests, electro-cardiograms, heart echoes and an MRI scan at the Royal Brompton) that the most likely cause was inheritance.

The good doctor advised me as to the probability of my suffering some heart-related incident within a decade should I choose not take regular medication – and not caring for the odds I duly signed up. This all took place not that far short of two decades ago now and things have trundled along in the meantime without further incident – until relatively recently.

Unfortunately that proved not to be the end of things – though for the rest of the tale the gentle reader will need to come back for the second part of the story in the next post.

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Needs work

April 13, 2021 in Life in BC | Permalink


The extremely good news – from my point of view – is that I now have an appointment for my first COVID vaccination.

Hoorah!

It is not until near the end of April but I have no complaints about that. The mechanism set up in BC for booking said inoculation – on t’other hand – as the title of this post suggests, needs work!

It seems somewhat unfair to cavil at such things when the splendid efforts of all those concerned are focused on helping us normal folk to be able to get on with our lives. If I do so it is because I believe that anything that potentially puts people off getting vaccinated needs to be fixed.

Herewith my experience:

Having discerned that I could now register online for the jab I followed the instructions and rapidly did the deed. Easy as pie and no complaints from me. The next step was to await a message inviting me to book an appointment.

This message duly arrived a couple of days later – at about 1 o’clock in the morning. No reason why it should not do so – and because I was still up and about I decided to book right away.

I followed the link and connected to the online service – supplying the requested details at the appropriate points. I selected my preferred location for the appointment and the service offered me a calendar from which to choose an appointment date. I took a punt and took the first date offered. A message popped up informing me that there were no available appointments on that date. I tried another with the same result. It rapidly became apparent that the calendar had not been equipped with a way of showing which dates had availability and which did not. All I could do was to work my way through them until I found a date that could accommodate me. Eventually I found and chose such a date and selected one of the offered time slots. The site then asked me to re-enter my email address – though I had already done so and the service must have know it anyway to have sent me the invitation in the first place.

I typed in the address and was told that the time slot was no longer available. Presumably someone else had booked it whilst I was typing. Doh! I had to go round this annoying loop all over again… becoming even more frustrated because the site had forgotten the information that I had entered on the first go through.

Eventually a slot was booked and a page appeared containing a QR code and a message telling me to print this code and to take it with me to my appointment.

Now, as I suggested, I was doing this really quite late at night and I was so doing from my iPad – which does not have a printer attached or configured for it. A confirmatory email arrived but did not contain the vital QR code.

OK – now I am a big boy and – as regular readers will be aware – have a long professional history in IT. I can sort such things out, but I am a lot less confident that everybody trying to book a vaccination appointment in BC will have the same good fortune.

Chaps – you are doing a difficult and critical job tirelessly and brilliantly – but do sort out these glitches so that everyone can get the protection that they deserve.

Ithankyew!…

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The life raft

March 11, 2021 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“With COVID-19, we’ve made it to the life raft. Dry land is far away”

Marc Lipsitch

It has now been a year since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic changed all of our lives utterly. Some – of course – have been far worse affected than others and our hearts go out to those who have lost loved ones or whose lives have been dramatically and negatively impacted in any way by the virus and the resultant disease.

I am sure that the gentle reader will have – as have I – been keeping abreast of the situation by following news stories, reading articles and watching documentaries… or perhaps you have had enough of it all and just want to keep your heads well down until things return to ‘normal’.

I watched an excellent Horizon documentary on the estimable BBC the other night which I thought summed up pretty well where we are, how we got here and how things are likely to unfold in the months ahead. I thought I would just take the opportunity to summarise the key points therein – as I saw them – the which you can choose to take or leave as you will.

The first thing to say is that there has clearly been a step change in the technology of creating and developing vaccines. We now have newer and more sophisticated means of developing and testing vaccines which have given us an advantage that we have not previously held. Not only should this give us renewed hope for an abatement of this pandemic but will arm us for other similar situations in the future. Given the huge amounts of work and brilliance that have gone into this work let us fervently hope that it is not undone by frankly ‘wacko’ conspiracy theorists persuading good folk not to welcome these developments.

The science has done well in many regards during the lock-down. We now understand many things about this virus that we did not before. It seems clear that the virus does not spread evenly, but that certain individuals infect a much greater number of others than might be expected. It would seem that this comes down to two criteria – the stage of the infection in the spreader (the which determines how virulent it is) and the particular circumstances in which that individual comes into contact with others.

The lesson to take from this is of course that the recommended precautions should be followed at all times. The chance of getting infected from any particular interaction may be lower than might be expected, but should the encounter be what has been described as a ‘super-spreading event’ then the odds will be much higher. No such chances should be taken.

Fears concerning mutations are valid, but it appears that more such occur when the virus remains in an infected individual for an extended period. Knowing this should enable – with the help of effective contact tracing – the rapid tracking down and eliminating of many new variants.

How will it all end? It seems to be the thinking that we could find ourselves in a position in which the Corona virus will need to be treated in the way that flu viruses are; that there will be a season in which routine jabs will protect us from infection. That – along with greatly improved treatments for those who do become infected – should at least enable us to evolve a ‘new normal’ that looks a fair bit more like the old one.

In short – continue to take care and stay safe!

 

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Intimations…

February 5, 2021 in Kickass Canada Girl, Life as we know it | Permalink

“Dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over…Death is not anything…death is not…It’s the absence of presence, nothing more…the endless time of never coming back…a gap you can’t see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound…”

Tom Stoppard – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

You would think that – given the unprecedented times in which we live – intimations of our mortality would be constantly lurking on the periphery of our minds… or at the very least intruding upon us – un-looked for – in quieter moments when the hubbub of the world dies away.

If it does not do so – and the behavior that we see on the news-reels suggests that it may indeed not – then that is probably because there is something in our makeup that makes us determinedly believe that – “it ain’t gonna happen to us“!

That may well be an essential mechanism for our very sanity…

There are – however – times when these things sneak up on us and give us a nasty fright.

The Girl was obliged to visit the Victoria General Hospital the other day for what is blandly labelled (so as not to frighten the horses!) – a ‘procedure’. This procedure was of the sort to which us chaps need never give a second thought, but that ladies of a certain age sometimes do. It was to be carried out in Surgical Daycare and was billed as a quick in-and-out – nothing to worry about…

…except that it was to be done under a general anesthetic…

…except that – because of COVID-19 restrictions – all I could do was to drop the Girl off at the front door and then pick her up there again later – once they had called me to let me know that she was ready to go.

The procedure was scheduled for 2:45pm and she had to be there two hours ahead of time. The procedure itself would be pretty quick but, of course, recovering from the anesthetic can take a wee while. We estimated that she could be ready any time from 4-ish to about 7-ish…

All I could do was to go home and wait.

The gentle reader will be well ahead of the curve by this point…

Yes – I did fine up until about 6:00pm, but I have to admit that as the clock ticked forward past 6:30pm – with no word at all from the Victoria General – a part of my normally satisfyingly logical mind started to run through the various alternative scenarios. However much one tells oneself that all is as it should be and that delays and diversions are to be expected with this sort of… er – operation – it became increasingly difficult not to start imagining the worst…

…and I have to tell you – that was not a pleasant experience.

All is good! Surgical Daycare called me at about 6:45pm. The Girl is fine and raring to go (within the usual bounds of taking things easy for a bit) and all gloomy thoughts have been banished once more to the outer darkness.

Strange thing – the mind…

 

 

 

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