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iSomething…

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Kickass Canada Girl now has an iPad – to go with her iPhone and her iPod. I had intended to suggest that this made her into a fully fledged ‘iGirl’, but I discover that this soubriquet has already been appropriated for an iPhone ‘app’ of dubious merit. I will leave the exact nature of the ‘app’ to your imagination, but the fact that the original tagline seems to have been “She obeys!” clearly renders it inappropriate for Kickass Canada Girl. Maybe she’s just ‘TechnoGirl’ instead…

The iPad was a combined Valentine’s Day/going away present for the Girl. My motives are not, however, entirely altruistic since its chief purpose is to enable us to stay in touch using Skype. The time difference between the UK and Victoria is eight hours, which means that during the working day opportunities to talk will be limited. The iPad is a great deal more versatile than a conventional laptop since it can be carried easily to appointments and meetings wherever they may be.

That said, purchase of the aforementioned device did demand some not inconsiderable sacrifice on my part. Needing – for a variety of reasons – to complete the purchase in a hurry I was compelled to visit the Apple store in the Westfield London shopping mall. This accretion of retail outlets is apparently the third largest in the UK – the mind boggles at the thought of there being anything bigger – and I am so obviously not a constituent of its target audience that on the rare occasions that I have been obliged to visit the place doing so has felt like entering a foreign country. Considering the square footage of floor space therein it amazes me that there is so little of any utility on offer, this being apparently purely a pantheon to the superfluous.

The Apple temple is, of course, beautifully designed in a minimalist sort of way, in keeping with the devices celebrated therein – with white being the predominant colour (or lack thereof). The store was, naturally, packed with spellbound punters being eagerly serviced by a cloud (should that be an iCloud?) of blue-shirted Apple ants. Here was the iPad appreciation section – there the iPhone zone – to the left the racks of exquisite accessories… and up at the back – the Genius Bar!

Now – I am not a genius, but I did know exactly what I wanted. The problem was that the one thing I couldn’t see was a place to actually buy the things. There was no obvious counter – no checkout. Worst of all, there was no signage.  I wandered around looking lost, whilst the blue worker ants – having clearly marked me out as a troublemaker – carefully avoided catching my eye. Eventually I found a sparse wooden table, much like all the others in the store, but with a small wooden plaque on it which read ‘Purchases’. A bearded genius homed in on me, head throbbing with iKnowledge, eager to demonstrate the extent of his technical know-how. Was there something he could help me with?

“Yes”, I said, indicating the sign. “I would like to purchase something!”

It is – when all is said and done – just a shop…

 

 

My Canadian Valentine

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I find that my enthusiasm for Valentine’s Day has been greatly rekindled over the last few years – not least because it was on the 14th February, three years ago, that I asked Kickass Canada Girl to marry me. As should be readily apparent by now she did me the the very great honour of accepting me.

It did not take me long after meeting the Girl to reach the conclusion that she must surely be most chaps’ idea of the dream woman. Yes – she is ‘preposterously pretty’ (and that compliment came from another woman!) but consider also the following:

  • The Girl managed the (male) rugby team at college
  • She likes classic sports cars (and drives pretty damned fast herself)
  • She drinks single malts

This much I discovered on our first date. Before long I had also established that in Canada she had turned out on a regular basis for her local softball and darts teams and I have since seen for myself how competitive she can be on an ATV or a Skidoo. Now – should this give the impression that the Girl is a bit of a tomboy let me reassure you that she is all woman, not to mention whip-smart and funny to boot.

She also sets high standards, so I knew that a proposal would need to score pretty highly if I hoped for a quick answer in the affirmative.

I like to think that I am something of a romantic, and I now thought back to our first date. We met at the National Theatre – a favourite haunt of mine – before walking along the South Bank to Bankside and crossing the wobbly bridge (which, naturally, doesn’t… any more) to St Paul’s Cathedral. There we climbed to the top of the dome and looked out over the capital together.

I decided that for Valentine’s Day 2009 we would recreate that first walk, but with an additional stop at a rather good restaurant overlooking the river just north of the bridge. We had already talked about getting married and I think the Girl was half-expecting a proposal. She certainly seemed a little put out when we were seated at a table by the picture windows rather than in one of the more intimate booths at the back. We had a splendid meal and a good bottle of wine, but the conversation steered clear of matters of the heart.

After lunch I suggested that for old times’ sake we might perhaps visit the cathedral. Kickass Canada Girl didn’t seem entirely keen but agreed to go along with the idea. When we reached the spot immediately under the centre of the dome – in front of various clerics and a crowd of Japanese tourists – I made a brief speech and went down on one knee to propose in time-honoured fashion. From her reaction – the Girl didn’t know whether to laugh or cry – I took it that things had gone reasonably well.

Since then, of course, they have gone exceedingly well and I am deeply in her debt… a debt that I shall do my best to repay over the years ahead.

Picture Post

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Over the years I have had several bass guitars stolen – one from the back of a van whilst it was being unloaded outside a venue in Edinburgh 20 minutes before the start of a show! I could almost admire the chutzpah required for that particular heist, were it not for the fact that the guitar – my first professional instrument – carried a strong sentimental attachment.

The last time I lost a bass, in the early 90s, I took the insurance cheque and headed for the music stores to replace it. I was in for a shock! Bass guitar technology had changed and I found that I no longer understood it. There were 5 string basses, 6 string basses, extended range basses, acoustic basses, semi-acoustic basses… I couldn’t play any of them! The tide had ebbed and left me behind – driftwood on the strandline.

Fortunately I found a proper old-fashioned guitar shop in Richmond (that is Richmond in the UK – in Surrey… oh, let’s not get confusing!) called – as I recall – Barney Marder’s. Sadly this store is no longer with us, as it used to carry a wonderful collection of old and sometimes rare guitars. There I found a much abused Fender Precision from the mid 70s, in a battered case and with most of the original finish worn away through use. It needed a bit of work but it will – if looked after – see me out.

I am reminded of this episode now because I am looking to purchase a camera. My intention – a good one I think – is to furnish this blog with images that I take myself. Though very much a novice when it comes to photography I do want to try to capture the things that I see and that I write about. The cheap digital camera that I have been using for the last few years does surprisingly well at the basics, but I have a hankering to be able to produce the sort of images that are now so prevalent on the web.

When I was young (painful to write that in so many ways!) there were basically only two types of consumer camera – inexpensive ‘compacts’ that used film cartridges and 35mm SLR jobbies that required flight cases, multiple lenses, filters and all the rest of the paraphernalia. I naively assumed that something similar would still apply, and that to step up I would need to look for the digital equivalent of the 35mm camera – the DSLR. I turned to the Internet to see what might be available.

Another shock! Camera technology has changed and I no longer understand it. Did I want a point and shoot camera, a compact system camera, a bridge/hybrid camera, a 4/3 format camera, a micro 4/3 format camera, an entry-level DSLR, a ‘prosumer’ DSLR… or should I just use the camera in the iThing?… if I had one… which I don’t!

Clearly I have no idea at all as to what I should be looking for. I made a list of what I think are my requirements:

  • There has to be a viewfinder of some sort – I don’t like taking pictures at arm’s length
  • There has to be manual or semi-automatic control – I like to tell the camera what to do
  • There should be dials and buttons rather than just onscreen menus
  • It must be possible to shoot in reasonable closeup and at a reasonable distance
  • It must be possible to shoot in fairly low light
  • The camera should be as simple as possible (no comments please!)
  • The whole shooting match should not be too heavy – or I just won’t use it

At this point I consult my brother, who is a designer and who has used cameras professionally ever since he left college. He solved the weight/complexity problem on his first trip to Canada – in the summer of 2010 to attend our wedding – by simply leaving his Hassleblads and DSLRs behind and traveling with an old Leica rangefinder. Mind you, he has just paid an arm and a leg for an M9, so I’m not sure about using him as a role model. Still, he has promised to have a think about it and to get back to me with a recommendation. His younger son is getting Kickass Canada Girl’s car at a knock-down rate when she leaves for BC, so he probably owes me one.

Friends like this…

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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…

50 ways to leave…

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“She said why don’t we both
Just sleep on it tonight
And I believe in the morning
You’ll begin to see the light
And then she kissed me
And I realized she probably was right” – Paul Simon

I firmly believe Paul Simon to be one of the greatest ever pop lyricists, and no mean tune-smith to boot. If you know of anyone who can better the incorporation of words such as “misconstrued” or “pertains” into the popular song lyric – without being pretentious or overly clever – then by all means feel free to educate me.

Kickass Canada Girl is currently working through the 50 ways, though – fortunately for me – it is not her lover that she is leaving… or at least, only in a transitory sense! The sorting out and the packing are major operations involving much detailed planning, as one would expect when moving permanently from one country to another. It is fortunate that the Girl is good with lists. The intercontinental character of our lives over the next few years should at least give us the advantage of being able to move her belongings incrementally, without the need to make all the decisions on day one.

The leaving of friends and acquaintances is another matter. Those who have come to know and love Kickass Canada Girl – that is, everyone who has met her – now find themselves having to contemplate saying goodbye with little idea of when and where the next meeting might be. Worse still – from their point of view – I will still be here, and they will have to suffer me moaning on about my lonesome condition for the next two years. The Girl will be back, of course – she is after all married to a Scot who lives in England – but those visits will doubtless seem all to brief, much as our visits to BC currently do to me.

Naturally everyone wants a piece of the Girl before she leaves, so we are busy arranging leaving gatherings for friends, relatives and work colleagues. This – on top of winding up and handing over her current job (during a particularly busy period – inevitably!) and getting everything ready to go, is causing an understandable degree of stress. Leaving dinners and parties fall into that slightly awkward category of events that are notionally celebratory, but which – being tinged with sadness – are perhaps not as easy to enjoy as one would wish. Fortunately the Girl has a week in Mexico to look forward to before she takes up her new post, which will provide a much needed hiatus, and the prospect of which should give her the energy to be the life and soul…

For myself, I might just…

“Slip out the back, Jack”

 

Pensioned off!

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Received today from the UK Pension Service – under the auspices of the Department for Work and Pensions – a notification of the change in State Pension age. The notice contains the following priceless text:

“You may be aware that the law has changed. State Pension age is increasing from 65 to 66. This affects men and women born on or after 6 December 1953.

Our records show that your date of birth is 07/01/1954. Based on this information, the earliest date from which you could be entitled to any State Pension is 06/05/2019. This date is unlikely to fall on your birthday.”

 

You don’t say!!

 

Excepting February alone…

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“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……

O Lucky Man!

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“Smile while you’re makin’ it. Laugh while you’re takin’ it. Even though you’re fakin’ it. Nobody’s gonna know” – Alan Price

One of the reasons that I have not previously considered writing a blog is that I feel somewhat ambivalent about the motivation so to do. Creative writing – which in my case means writing plays – seems quite different. When I finish a project and launch it into the world (however insignificant a part of the world that might be) the piece ceases to be mine and takes on a life of its own. Certainly there is something of me in it, but it is not necessary to know anything about me to engage with the work.

Blogging feels more self-centered – more about me, me, me! Why would anyone want to read my ramblings? Isn’t it somewhat pretentious to imagine that anything I might say could be of any interest or value? Or am I perhaps just being a bit too self-consciously ‘English’ about it all?

The truth is that I am a lucky person. More than that – I have also been very fortunate. Opinion seems to be divided as to whether these are one and the same thing, and indeed as to whether either is simply the outcome of chance occurence or can be influenced by our actions and behaviour. It may be the case, of course, that the nature of our fortune derives simply from the way that we react to chance events.

In an unusual twist we find new age thinking – with its Law of Attraction – almost entirely in ageement with ‘science’. Richard Wiseman, professor of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, has carried out a 10 year study into the subject. His conclusions are fundamentally that those who believe themselves to be lucky invariably turn out to be so. Being open to opportunity and focussing on positive outcomes tends to lead to better fortune.

I don’t doubt this, but I do believe that my life experience also contains much good fortune that has been entirely outside my influence.

  • I am a boomer – one of the most blessed of generations.
  • I grew up in the sixties. Whatever re-evaluation there might have been of late concerning that golden age most of us are deeply grateful to have lived through it.
  • Despite having no idea what I wanted to do with my life I have had a fascinating career and have had the good fortune to work in some very special places and with some special people.
  • I have met many wonderful, clever and fascinating people, with some of whom I have been married, had relationships or developed friendships.
  • I have always been able to indulge my creative impulses and have met others with whom to do so.
  • I have always been in final salary pension schemes – though that was never something I looked for. I joined my current scheme a month before it closed to new members. This, naturally, is of particular import now.

…but, of course, most of all…

  • I met Kickass Canada Girl. She came eight and a half thousand miles to find me and, but for the most fortuitous of circumstances, we might never have met. As all my fortune and happiness is bound up with her I would say this was spectacularly lucky!

I suppose my fear is that, having been this fortunate, I should just shut up and keep quiet about it. This does raise the question of what is the appropriate reaction to being lucky. Should I feel guilty that there are many in the West worse off than I am? Should I feel even more quilty that many in the rest of the world are far worse off than 99% of us in the West?

Perhaps the best response is to celebrate all good fortune, my own and others, and to do my whatever I can to increase the happiness of those that I know and those that I meet, as well as – wherever possible – those that need it most.

“If I am only happy for myself, many fewer chances for happiness. If I am happy when good things happen to other people, billions more chances to be happy!” – The Dalai Lama.

…gang aft a-gley!

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(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!

Funny time to start a blog

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photo by Brooks Elliott on Flickr

I recently turned 58. Not a major milestone in itself, you might think, but this particular year – 2012 – carries the promise of significant change – and not just for those with an interest in the Long Count calendar.

I have not blogged before. I am not on Facebook. I don’t tweet. I don’t own an iAnything…

This might give a misleading impression. I should own up to having worked in IT for over three and a half decades and to being an IT Director (amongst other things) – though the story of how an arts student came to be so is vaguely interesting in its own right. I write… sometimes for reward – mostly through the need to create. You are probably familiar with this.

This blog will be the record of the latter part of a journey that started 7 years ago, and which will – if all goes to plan (ha!) – culminate in my retirement and move to Canada during 2014. A journey that takes getting on for a decade to complete may appear for much of the time to be making no progress at all but, like the sands in an hourglass though little movement may be manifest my presence here is slowly slipping away even as it grows in Canada.

This journey started in London early in 2005 when I met Kickass Canada Girl. Yes – I know that all Canadian girls kick ass (though I didn’t know that at the time) but even by Canadian standards – this girl kicks ass! She had come to London for a job with the intention of staying maybe a year or two, or perhaps even of moving on to New Zealand. So much for that plan…

At the point at which things turned serious – or turned more serious – and we started talking about moving in together, she asked of me just one thing:

“Will you promise – at some point in the future – to consider… just consider… moving to Canada?”

“Of course”, I said – in the way that chaps do when they perceive a thing to be so far in the future as to not really require consideration at all. After all, I was going to die before I got old!

Then we went to Canada and I fell in love with BC and met all of Kickass Canada Girl’s friends and relations and fell in love with them as well and in 2010 we got married – in Victoria, naturally – and now… we are planning to move our home there.

So why start writing a blog now?

Well – in just over a month from now Kickass Canada Girl goes back to BC to take up her new post as Executive Director of a charity in Victoria. For a number of reasons (in-feasibly decent pension scheme – way too old to get a job in Canada) I will have to stay in the UK until I am at least 60… to be precise, until the end of the academic year in June 2014. The prospect of living on different continents for nearly two and a half years – even taking account of frequent visits in either direction – does not fill either of us with joy, though the goal will, of course, make it all worthwhile.

As I say – a significant change… and one that I want – somehow – to document.

Hence this blog…

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