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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…
To Vancouver last weekend for a work event…
That is one of The Girl’s work events, of course. I only work from home these days – and more power to that – but The Girl’s new venture is sending her darting about hither and thither just at the moment and on this occasion I went along for the ride.
We were kept pretty busy eventing (which all went pretty well, as far as I was able to ascertain) but we still had time to dine out in a manner to which we are no longer as accustomed as once we were (probably a good thing!)
We didn’t get to do much more than that in Vancouver (unless you count a fairly brief visit to IKEA on the way back) but given that the weather was pretty terrible (blowing half a gale in the Georgia Strait) that was a good call.
When the cloud cover blew away late in the day I thought I would take some photos from our room of the early evening light playing on downtown Vancouver’s signature glass edifices. Herewith some examples:
“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.
“When it snows, you have two choices—shovel or make snow angels”
Unknown
Following a number of false alarms Vancouver Island finally succumbed to one of the snow storms that have already been prevalent in other parts of the country. In the usual manner – and for the familiar reasons – the BC capital failed to deal particularly well with what was in fact not really a huge amount of snow.
Those further east – where the winter weather is considerably more serious (snows that fall in November or December may still be lying in February or March) – are won’t to sneer at us coastal British Columbians for our general feeb-like response to this natural phenomenon. We simply smile at them and point out that the six inches of snow that fell here on Thursday will be gone by the weekend – and in four week’s time the city’s streets will be emblazoned with spring blossoms.
Yah boo sucks!
Of course, that means I have to whip my camera out sharpish and dash off a few snaps. I really like the way the snow makes these images look like monochrome ones – with just the odd Spielbergian splash of colour giving the game away.
I loved the juxtaposition of the bright saturated colours of these flowers in our dining room against the black and white of the snow outside the window.
Tags: British Columbia, Photo, Snow, Weather, winter
“Contrariwise . . . if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.”
Lewis Carroll
We are – it should be self-evident – now truly into the depths (or heights, according to your preferences) of summer.
Further – should you not have been aware of the fact – 2023 is an El Nino year. This regular but unwanted visitor – when added to the already serious effects of climate change – results in the sort of world-wide craziness that we have not encountered in my lifetime. Climate records are being broken daily – whether that be in terms of the world-wide wildfire season or of the equally world-wide highest recorded temperatures. These over-heated events seem to alternate with with vicious storms which cause flash flooding.
On the west coast of Canada it has been dry and sunny, but we have been blessed thus far in avoiding such unpleasant phenomena as ‘heat domes’ and ‘atmospheric rivers’. The wildfire smoke too is – for now at least – blowing in the other direction. I gather that it is raining in parts of the UK, though the southern European nations are currently broiling.
It is somewhat difficult, therefore, not to feel guilty when one is seated in comfort, with one’s supper, surrounded by good and friendly folk, listening to the Brentwood Bay Music in the Park of a summer evening. The crew of Victoria luminaries pictured above are last week’s offering – the long running local Steely Dan tribute act – the ‘Pretzel Logic Orchestra’. Their number includes excellent musicians who turn out for various different ensembles and they are all seasoned pros.
Don – The guitarist in the centre of the attached image – can more frequently be found running the sound at Pioneer Park, for other visiting acts. I had a quick word with him after the show this week to congratulate him on his lead guitar work – and in particular on the note perfect rendering of the Larry Carlton guitar solo from ‘Kid Charlemagne‘ (perhaps my favourite ever guitar solo).
In return he told me about the time that he met Larry Carlton!…
Dude!
Tags: Brentwood Bay, Music, Summer, Weather
“Reality is not always dark or positive. It is somewhere in-between”.
Antara Mali
It is Easter weekend and here on the west coast of Canada we are once again caught in between. Winter has tarried over-long and though we have had occasional glimpses of spring it has to be said that we have not yet truly broken though thereto. Even the garden seems unsure as to whether or not to really ‘go for it’ – or to wait for things to warm up a bit. Most of our daffodils took one look at the weather and decided not to bother with flowers this year. The tulips boldly unfurled themselves but are now looking as though they wished that they had not bothered. I have mowed the lawns a couple of times but even the grass seems to be in two minds as to where we are in the seasons’ cycle.
A quarter of the year has gone. The clocks are wondering if they made a mistake with ‘summer’ time, but the planetary movements are relentless and we are already more than half way to the longest day. Hardly seems possible, does it?
Our exciting trip to Africa looms ever closer but the whole thing still seems more like make-belief than reality. It will be real enough, soon enough! We (in truth, mostly The Girl) have focused our minds on the expedition to come by carefully equipping ourselves for the sort of adventure that I don’t believe either of us has encountered before (well – I certainly haven’t). Will it be a life changing experience? Time will tell (and so, of course, will I)!
I am just finishing a fairly tough term at the College, during which I have been teaching not one class but two. I feel sure that the mental exercise of maintaining overlapping schedules has been doing wonders for keeping my ageing brain sparking; a sort of fitness class for the intellect. I have certainly detected a fair bit of grumbling from that quarter – the which is pretty much how I am when it comes to physical exercise also. Ah well – at least the remuneration goes some way towards paying for our sojourn south of the equator.
Well – let us hope that things change for the better and that the year begins to feel as though it has truly sparked into life.
…Holy Moley – I can’t feel my face degrees!
The winter weather is doing its bit to make the run in to Christmas something of a challenge! Notice that I didn’t qualify that with: “Here on the west coast of Canada“. I am well aware that we are not alone in experiencing exceptional climatic conditions. We have had quite a lot to do of late (as of course have many people at this time of year) and needing to keep a constant eye on the weather only makes things more exacting.
Here are some ‘highlights’ – complete with pictures:
Last weekend we made a overnight trip up island to Nanaimo – for a Christmas visit with The Girl’s mum – stopping on the way back on the Sunday for lunch with a dear friend in Duncan. As ever we took the Mill Bay ferry to avoid traversing the Malahat (always a good idea when there is snow in the air).
We figured that the snow would start to fall at some point during this trip and sure enough it did – whilst we were in Nanaimo. We stayed overnight in the Coast Bastion hotel overlooking Nanaimo harbour – with which we are very familiar from previous visits.
We had a lovely visit with both family and friends – dined splendidly at the Nanaimo Golf Club, the Minnoz restaurant at the Coast Bastion – and, of course, with our lovely friend in Duncan. Happy Christmas to you all.
Once back in Victoria the winter storm really swept in and soon everything disappeared under about a foot of snow. This was the view from my studio window by Tuesday.
The Girl had taken most of the week off as well-earned pre-Christmas break, but the weather put paid to any notions of a relaxing run in to the festival itself. The Volunteer Agency of which The Girl is one of the mainstays delivers meals to elderly folk every week – with teams of volunteers driving routes around Greater Victoria to make deliveries to more than seventy locations. Given the weather it would have been totally unreasonable to expect these excellent volunteers – many of them elderly themselves – to be out on the roads in such treacherous conditions. It fell to a number of us folk with 4x4s equipped with snow tyres to get the food parcels out to the elderly in time for Christmas. This is – of course – is just the sort of thing at which Lorelei excels and she did not let us down. Here we are en route…
I guess the big question now is – will we get a white Christmas? Today is the 23rd and temperatures are starting to rise – though to this point they have only reached the ‘freezing rain on top of compacted snow‘ phase – so today we are going nowhere! We will see how things pan out tomorrow.
It is a pretty extraordinary thing – particularly here on the west coast of Canada – but we do seem to have skipped a season this year.
Completely…!
I know…! With climate change so much of the world’s weather seems to have lost track of what were once familiar patterns. It has become the norm to read of unprecedented weather cycles or events. The ‘new normal’ is clearly that there is now nothing normal about anything.
What a strange and unsettling time to be alive.
Regular readers of this journal will already have picked up references throughout this particular year of weather patterns not occurring as expected. The spring here on Vancouver Island was wet and cold and dank – and seemed to be stuck in that state for ever, instead of flowering into spring and early summer as is usual.
It wasn’t until we packed our bags and set off to Europe in July that the weather here in BC really picked up. One result of this was that exposure to the heatwaves that afflicted Europe throughout the middle of the year came as a considerable shock to the system for travelers like us.
When we returned to Canada summer seemed finally to have arrived. At the southern tip of Vancouver Island the season is usually warm and dry – with little or no rainfall for the three summer months. It was good, finally, to be able to get out into the garden to do some barbecuing and entertaining.
Come the dog days, however, when the temperatures usually fall away and the summer drought is broken by the first welcome showers of the advancing fall, the temperatures remained stubbornly in the mid twenties Celsius and there was no rain in sight. Serious concerns about the lack of rainfall were voiced and gardens and agricultural lands alike began to shows signs of stress. An Indian Summer can be a wonderful surprise at the end of a disappointing season, but when one follows an already extensive dry period farmers and gardeners start to worry.
Naturally, when the weather finally broke in late-October it did so in true ‘wet’ coast style – with yet another Atmospheric River providing us with many days rainfall in a few hours, accompanied closely by the autumn’s first wind storm.
Then, as we crossed into November, the temperatures dropped abruptly – as did the first snowfall of winter. I know that some gentle readers will still – even after all this time – cling to the notion that the whole of Canada is a snowy wasteland for much of the year. There are indeed some good reasons for so doing. Here on the west coast, however, that is not the norm; winters in Victoria are not unlike those in the south east of the UK for most years.
So – we seem to have skipped autumn (fall) this year and gone directly from late-summer to winter. I’m not sure what Mother Nature will make of all this, but I have a feeling she will adapt to it with rather more sang-froid than do we.
Brrrrr!
Tags: British Columbia, climate change, Fall, Snow, Weather, winter
…random ramblings on a recent rag-bag of topics from the Pacific northwest…
First things first… ‘Tis once again the time of year to wish The Girl a very happy – if slightly belated (in real world, if not in blog-world terms) birthday! Yay! Happy B-day!
Life here on the west coast of Canada trundles along in its usual way. We are both busy and things are returning to some semblance of order now that the western world has decided that COVID is over and done with (even if it isn’t!). Secure in the knowledge that our multiple vaccine boosters and immunity from having had a dose of the lurgy make us a little more protected than we were before, we have on occasion stepped out to eat and to attend other public social events.
We even decided that it was safe enough to go back to the theatre – a least for a few months until the ‘immunity’ wears off. We had tickets for a play at The Belfry for The Girl’s birthday but the performance was cancelled at the last minute due to ‘illness’ (now, what could that be?). Our tickets have been rescheduled for this coming weekend, so let’s see how that goes.
Following the grim (as in cold and wet) spring and early summer, concerning which I posted at length earlier this year, the weather finally got its act together and we are enjoying a most pleasant Indian Summer. Temperatures remain in the 20s C and we have had no rain to speak of for several months. The garden could really do with some to be honest, but I guess it will come soon enough.
Apropos of very little, I feel that I should extend my commiserations to those who yet reside in the UK. Though I try not to comment on politics in these dark days it would not be – I believe – controversial to describe the UK political establishment since 2016 a a complete sh*tshow. However, even by such measures the new incumbents of 10 Downing Street might just prove be the worst and most dangerous yet.
Why do I care? Well – last week’s shenanigans wiped a considerable chunk off my monthly pension income as the chancellor carelessly crashed sterling and sent exchange rates plummeting (or soaring! – depends which end of the chain one is at). The subsequent recovery has been encouraging, but the knowledge that this ruling cabal’s dangerous ideology might well cause permanent damage is chilling to those of us who have no say in the matter.
In a strange Hitchcock-ian coda: yesterday I was out in the garden, underneath our deck (the which forms a sort of veranda across the whole width of the back of the house). It was impossible to miss the fact that – out in the stand of trees that border our property to the east – a huge and raucous convocation of birds had gathered. I could not actually see most of them, as the trees are tall and there is plenty of foliage. They were making sufficient noise, however, that it was impossible to ignore them. Quite startlingly so, in fact.
I took one step out from the cover of the deck and immediately the whole gathering took off. There must have been thousands of them (clearly of more than one species). Their parting darkened the skies for a moment or two and then they were gone – and a sudden and total silence descended.
Now – I wonder what this portends?
Tags: Autumn, COVID-19, Politics, The Belfry, The Girl, Theatre, Weather
Whoo-hoo!
Today – the very day after the summer solstice – the weather in Victoria BC has finally turned summery! What is more – rumour has it that the hot spell may stretch through the weekend and into next week…
Who knows – we might even get to try out our new air-conditioning unit sooner than expected!
The only downside to this most pleasant development is that it will probably simply encourage those annoying souls who will insist that the solstice is the first day of summer, in much the same way that they insist that the March equinox is the first day of spring.
Er – no! The summer solstice is mid-summers day. From now on the days are getting shorter…
Sorry – I don’t mean to depress anyone.
It is true of course that all the seasons at these latitudes tend to lag behind the movements of the sun. That does mean that September is very often seen as part of the summer, instead of marking the middle of autumn (fall). Nature very obligingly goes along with such errant notions – and it is in our nature (for most folk, anyway) to want to extend the summer months for as long as possible before winter sets in.
So… enjoy the sunshine (those who are blessed with it). I know we are going to!
Tags: air conditioning, solstice, Summer, Weather
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