July 2026 – The Imperceptible Immigrant

Vernon (n̓łəłt̓pmíw̓scin̓)

July 29, 2026 by admin

In the Nsyilxcən language of the Syilx (Okanagan) people, “n̓łəłt̓pmíw̓scin̓“, means “jumping over place where the creek narrows”.

Before our recent trip to the Okanagan and beyond I really didn’t know Vernon at all. We drove through it once, as I recall, but that was the extent of my acquaintance.

The old friends in Vernon with whom we tarried a while on this trip were, by chance, the very first folks that The Girl introduced me to when she brought me to Canada way back in 2006. At that time these friends lived in East Vancouver. Some time later – having tired of the big city – they purchased a smallholding of somewhat more than twenty acres in rural Lumby in the BC interior. Here they enjoyed a bucolic existence until a couple of years ago.

Since then our friends have moved again – into a single-story dwelling in a ‘seniors’ village’ on the outskirts of Vernon. During the congenial couple of days that we spent with them they showed around the rural delights of this hitherto unknown (to me!) part of the province. Everything looked particularly verdant and prosperous and really most welcoming.

We did not actually dine at this stylish bar/restaurant overlooking the town, but the menu looked good and the views (the which we had specifically driven up to see) are spectacular.

The few days that we spend in and around Vernon were filled with fascinating diversions – for which we thank our friends most sincerely. This post is not sufficiently expansive to do justice to all of the sights that we saw, but I do want to mention two stops in particular.

The first was at Planet Bee, the which – as you may rapidly have surmised – is a fabulous honey farm. We could not resist making some purchases, not least of some of their glorious ‘Nectar of the Sun’ mead.

Pure indulgence!

We also loved the Davison Orchards. I am going to leave you to their website, as they can sell themselves far better than can I. Both of these operations (along with the Okanagan wineries – about which more in a subsequent post) exemplify the cornucopian nature of this fabulous part of the world.

I think that it may be a good thing that they are not within daily reach of our humble abode.

Kamloops (Tk’emlúps)

July 26, 2026 by admin

I have made mention on a number of occasions of The Girl’s heritage; of her birth and of her growing up in the city of Kamloops in the heart of British Columbia. Naturally our recent trip to the interior made that its starting point and a gratifying number of good folks – both family and friends – demonstrated their eagerness to re-unite with us and to catch us up with the various goings on in all of our lives.

Kamloops offers many dramatic vistas. This one is the view from the window of our room in the Coast hotel:

In addition to our rendezvous with the living The Girl and I paid a visit to the cemetery in Kamloops in which her mother and the ‘aunt’ (who raised her after her mother’s early and untimely passing) had been laid to rest in their turn. We have made this pilgrimage a number of times and the experience it is always a moving one.

This year we were not alone amongst the memorials. Some very new and delicate creatures were also taking advantage of the peace and tranquility there:

What did we miss.

July 22, 2026 by admin

‘”What did we miss?” is a highly popular colloquial phrase often used as a catchphrase in pop culture, on social media, and in the workplace. The phrase gained massive viral traction as a specific recurring meme across TikTok and Instagram, where creators use the audio/caption “What did we miss?” to express shock or confusion when logging back onto the internet after a chaotic news cycle or viral drama. Furthermore, the exact quote frequently surfaces in everyday conversation, podcasts, and television recaps when individuals are returning to work meetings or group chats and need to catch up on what transpired while they were away’.

So…

What did we miss?…

Well – it has been a very busy year thus far. Unexpectedly so. Since ‘The Immigrant’ went offline (temporarily) last month you might have wondered if all that busy-ness had finally caught up with us and that we had retreated to our sun-drenched garden – non-alcoholic beverages in hand – to catch some serious ‘Zeds’.

Nope! Not a bit of it. We set out instead on a road-trip to the interior of British Columbia, with the intention of catching up with old and dear friends and family – of prying open the portmanteau of anecdotage – and perchance even scattering a few ashes of remembrance in the light of the developments in the first episode of 2026.

The idea had been – of course. – that updates to the blog would be posted as we proceeded upon our odyssey, including – as is our wont – a plethora of evocative images designed to bring to those who have not been lucky enough to have visited the areas concerned a vivid picture of the terroir.

Well – better late than never… Watch out for exactly that over the next few posts.

Lost in the post

July 15, 2026 by admin

My apologies to regular readers – and indeed to casual ones – for the recent deafening silence from these quarters with regard to the posting of updated missives to this forum.

I wrote a couple of months back about the software update to the blog platform that I use that had the effect of making the entire online journal disappear from the face of the InterWebNet.

That missive referred to the fraught week that I spent rapidly re-engineering the site. At the point of writing I had hoped that all had now been restored and that business could continue as usual.

It became fairly quickly apparent, however, that all was not well – at least for those stalwarts who depend on the mailed ‘new-post’ digests that have long been featured on the site. WordPress was attempting to send out the new messages in the usual manner, but they were disappearing into yet another void. The best intelligence that I could muster (not to mention the largely useless hints from AI) suggested that the tightening of online procedures to try to combat spam, hacks and other exploits had – in fact – actually prevented legitimate communications from getting through.

Finding a solution not affected by such restrictions proved a difficult enough exercise, for which there continues to be precious little online (or even old-fashionably human assistance).

It is with considerable relief that I can announce that I believe that I have finally found a solution.

This posting, of course, should prove to be the proof-of (or proof-against) this conjecture.

So – fingers (etc) firmly crossed!