admin – Page 64 – The Imperceptible Immigrant

Jings!

February 24, 2018 by admin

My apologies in advance. I am aware that for some readers of a… er… sensitive disposition, this may be just a little too soon! Oh well…

I have not – contrary to my custom at this time of year – made any mention thus far of the Six Nations Championship. (I have not – in fact – mentioned rugby at all of late, though in part that is because Canada have been having such a shocker – failing to qualify for next year’s world cup unless they can win next November’s last-gasp repercharge competition).

The reasons for my unnatural reticence are not hard to discover. Following Scotland’s excellent summer and autumn results against Australia and their close run encounter with the fearsome All Blacks, many commentators were guilty of getting rather carried away with their potential for the altogether more serious northern hemisphere championship.

True to type Scotland went to Cardiff three weeks back for the opening encounter with Wales and were – to put it bluntly – humiliated. Mercurial fly-half, Finn Russell, played poorly and the team lost by a disappointingly large margin. Russell was not much better the following weekend at Murrayfield against France, though wiser heads helped the team to keep its nerve in the face of a fast French start, clawing back enough points in the second half through penalties as the Gauls tired badly to win the game by a narrow margin.

At this point in the tournament there is a brief hiatus – a two week break before the third fixture. This gave the pundits plenty of opportunity to speculate widely as to the likely outcome of today’s Calcutta Cup fixture against England at Murrayfield. Last year at Twickenham the English had done to the Scots what the Welsh did this year – only more so! Much was written and posted about how the Sassenachs – in pursuit of a Grand Slam and eying a record third championship title in a row – would target the hapless Russell and embarrass the Scots, extending to more than a decade the gap since the latter had beaten them anywhere.

I feel that I hardly need write more – and indeed those interested should head for the sports pages for the full story. Needless to say, the Scots made the English look ordinary, Finn Russell turned in a Man of the Match performance and Scotland won a famous victory 25 – 13!

I will certainly be celebrating (more so because a depleted Bath also beat Sale by a point at the Rec in the Premiership) – and if Canada could follow last week’s storming win in the Americas Rugby Championship against Brazil by sneaking an unlikely away win in Argentina this afternoon… then I would be a very happy boy indeed!

Slàinte mhòr…

Woah! Where did that come from?

February 23, 2018 by admin

Flurries, they said… flurries!

Fair enough – it is the last week in February and we have not thus far – at the southern end of this fair isle – seen any snow at all (unless we missed some whilst away in Mexico!)… but I for one was certainly not expecting this little lot! I thought the only white stuff we were going to see was via the big screen from South Korea…

Oh well! I feel sure that spring is just around the corner…

Solid gold!

February 20, 2018 by admin

Of course, the very day that I post a fairly flip piece about the Winter Olympics – and about Canada’s passionate though surely understandable love affair therewith – along comes a performance to take away the breath, to steal the heart and to show up as jejune any paltry attempt at humour.

I refer of course to Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir’s stunning recapture of their Olympic ice dance crown four years after their disappointment in Sochi and their subsequent (but clearly premature) retirement.

Pushed all the way by training partners, the French couple Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron (who set a new world record score in the free dance) Virtue and Moir faced having to set a record themselves were they to retake the top spot. As the scores flashed up to reveal that they had indeed done so the Kickass Canada Girl virtually leapt off the sofa – and was clearly moved to tears.

I was in no position to offer succour as I was myself busy blubbing like a baby. In my case this was less to do with the colour of the medals or the perfect justness of their win, but was entirely elicited by the impossible beauty and passion of their performance, dazzlingly choreographed to the ‘Moulin Rouge’ version of ‘Roxanne‘.

I could not help but be taken back in time to 1984, watching the grainy TV images from Sarajevo of another Olympic ice dance final as Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean stole our hearts to the accompaniment of Ravel’s ‘Bolero‘, taking a straight sweep of perfect 6.0s for artistic merit and changing the sport utterly in the process.

Wow! Many congratulations to Virtue and Moir (and to all involved) and a hearty ‘thank you’ for the great pleasure that you bring to millions.

It’s all downhill…

February 19, 2018 by admin

Further evidence (should such be required at this stage) that The Girl and I compliment one another nigh-on perfectly might be gleaned from our respective enthusiasms (and the consequent advocacies for those who strive on our behalves) during periods of Olympian endeavour.

The average Brit (and – yes… such a creature does exist, regardless of the protestations of some of those of a more intemperate and extreme ilk) who – like me – grew up marveling that such a diminutive nation could really have instigated or developed quite as many sports and games as it did (only to then cede dominance in them to other more aggressive and single-minded races) has probably been quite taken aback by the UK’s recent Olympic performances.

In the Summer Olympics at least!…

After the usual period of pre-games cynicism and belittlement many of us rapidly become the secret sports-nuts that we as a nation perpetually breed and find ourselves watching all manner of events on TV that, but a few days previously, we not only had no idea were sports at all (let alone Olympic sports!) but further did not know that Brits practiced them to any acceptable level. When we then win some unexpected (to us at least) medal in said contest we rapidly become InterWebNet experts on the matter and claim that we expected all along that our ‘athletes’ would do well.

The Winter Olympics are, of course, a very different story. Save for a glorious and now long-distant chapter in the history of ice dance (a form beloved of one particular sector of society with a fervour only matched by that appertaining to musical theatre) we Brits have, apparently, no winter sports skills at all* – with the strange exception of events which involve throwing ourselves off mountains clinging to some rudimentary and entirely unsuitable piece of hardware the chief characteristic of which is, to all intents and purposes, its cheapness (and please don’t feel the need to regale me with the actual cost of these chimerical devices)!

It is at this point that The Girl – being Canadian – comes into her own.

To be found, in the main, during the summer games loitering around the back of the stands puffing away at an ‘old fashioned’ rather than exerting themselves on field or track – come the winter Canadians suddenly start taking everything incredibly seriously. Should you suggest to your S.O. that – having won a sack-load of silverware already – it wouldn’t be the end of the world should Canada actually lose the hockey (never ice hockey!) to the US, you are likely to find all bedroom privileges curtailed unceremoniously for the foreseeable future.

Canadians have a passion for all snow and ice based sports that ranks alongside any other nation on this irriguous planet. “Quelle surprise” – I hear you mutter (with a slightly smart-arsed reference to the nation’s bi-lingual heritage) – thinking perhaps to add some gibe about the Canadian climate. Well – the fact that we rarely see snow at all at this end of Vancouver Island clearly does nothing to diminish The Girl’s enthusiasm for all things Winter Olympics – and such zeal is, of course, infectious!

So… Go, Canada, go!

* I refuse to mention Eddie ‘the Eagle’…

Details, details…

February 14, 2018 by admin

I could not resist taking some further snaps of some of details of our recent renovations. I hope that my posting some of these to this forum will not try the patience of the gentle reader too far. This will – I promise – be an end of it!

Tomorrow never knows

February 11, 2018 by admin

In 2014 John Mann – actor and singer with the Vancouver based Celtic-rock ensemble, Spirit of the West – was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. He was just 50 years old.

Many of us will have had some experience of a loved one contracting Alzheimer’s or dementia and of the subsequent evanescence of personality and the dissipation of a presence that once played a large part in our own lives. Tragic and deeply sad enough in someone who is approaching the natural end of their days, we can only imagine what this might be like for one still in the prime of life, not to mention for those around and close to them who must endure the slow premature declension of a loved one.

Mr Mann’s wife – Jill Daum – is a playwright and her instinctive reaction to finding herself in this grievous position (with her husband’s full support, I should add) was to give in to her subconscious urge to allow the play that she was currently engaged in writing to morph into an examination of what it is like to find oneself in such a situation. The world premier of this brave piece – ‘Forget About Tomorrow’ – took place recently at the Belfry Theatre in Victoria and The Girl and I were present at last Sunday’s performance.

One might fear that such sombre subject matter would result in a worthy but grim night in the stalls, but Ms Daum is – thankfully – a far better playwright than that. She successfully locates (and subsequently mines auspiciously) the emotional motherlode that most writers spend their lives seeking – producing in the process a piece that can move an audience to tears one moment only to have them rolling in the aisles laughing but a few seconds later. The payload of the play is delivered all the more effectively for this skillful balancing act and the audience reaction at the close left no doubts that the target had been well and truly straddled.

Plaudits of course to Ms Daum and to Mr Mann (who contributed two songs – which may well be his last – to the enterprise) as well as to Michael Shamata, who directed with the most assured of touches, and to Jennifer Lines and Craig Erickson who play skillfully and truthfully Daum and Mann’s alter-egos – Jane and Tom. Excellence all round…

For me, however, the highlight was quite possibly the creation of Lori – Jane’s larger than life (how Canadian!) boss – played with considerable panache and dry, dry humour by the splendid Colleen Wheeler. Not only is Lori the source of much of the humour in the piece but she also manages to act as a very necessary counterweight to the emotional drama elsewhere – standing up for the everyman (everyperson?) who represents us in the face of others’ tragedies.

Following a couple of shaky seasons (in our humble opinion) the Belfry has landed three from three thus far this year.

Fight for a ticket!

Finally!…

February 4, 2018 by admin

Some before and after views of our just-about-finished renovation – before we moved back upstairs. Double click on the images for the full effect.

This is our living room:

Here is our sparkly new kitchen:

This is my bathroom… yes, it is the same room:

…and this is The Girl’s:

Master bedroom and entrance hall:

Now to clean thoroughly and to move everything back upstairs again.

Phew!

False alarm

February 1, 2018 by admin

There are many reasons to look forward to escaping from our semi-subterranean hidey-hole and taking up residence again on our newly renovated main floor. This recent experience is just one more such to add to the list.

Our basement does have a kitchen – of sorts! It is quite small and the equipment is – er – ‘old’ to put it mildly. Like some other old things in the house it does not always function as efficiently as once it did – many, many years ago when it was still full of life and charged with the vigour of youth…

Ahem! – sorry about that!

Anyway… a couple of days ago I was roasting some vegetables in the antique oven downstairs. The temperature therein always seems on the low side so I had pushed it up a notch. Unfortunately when the cooking time was up and I opened the oven door a billow of smoke was released into the room – and into the ceiling-mounted smoke detector.

Now – when we purchased the house back in 2015 we inherited with it an alarm system. An eye-watering cancellation fee persuaded us that we should stick with it. The service – which is I believe monitored from somewhere in northern America – not only provides break-in sensors on doors and windows and motion sensors throughout, but also fire and smoke alarms on each floor. When an alarm is triggered a disembodied voice hails one through the console outside the master bedroom, endeavouring to establish whether or not this be a genuine incident.

On this occasion the alarm sounded and I had to rush upstairs to converse with the distant operative. I cancelled the alarm on the console and informed the enquirer that it was a false alarm. I was obliged to give details such as my first and last names and to quote the secret password – to prove that I was not in fact an arsonist who had broken into the house. All this time the smoke was wafting around downstairs.

As the conversation finished the alarm was again triggered. I cancelled it once more and assumed that the distant overseer would recognise that this was in fact the same incident. I went back downstairs. As I was dealing with the oven I heard a call coming in on my cell phone in an adjacent room. I did not get to it before the caller rang off but was informed that a voicemail had been left. It was from the alarm company enquiring about the second alarm. I called them back at once and patiently talked the lady at the far end through the sequence of events. After a couple of minutes of conversation she asked me if I wanted them to cancel the call to the fire brigade. “Yes!” – I exclaimed urgently, somewhat perplexed that it had taken her this long to ask.

At that moment the doorbell rang. It was a fireman! Outside in the road I could see an appliance and a couple of other fire service vehicles – lights a-flashing. I patiently and apologetically explained that there had been a false alarm and that I had cancelled it and spoken to the alarm service. Apparently they had tried to reach me over the console again after the alarm went off for the second time but I was clearly already flapping about downstairs by that point.

I suppose that I should be grateful that we are this well covered – particularly given that this is a wooden framed building – but I can’t help feeling that a little common sense on this occasion would have saved a fair bit of panic on all sides.

Hey ho!

Time flies…

January 25, 2018 by admin

…like an arrow – but fruit flies like a banana!

Terry Wogan

As I write this post I am awaiting the arrival of a shock (or whatever may be the appropriate collective noun) of electricians who should be the last of the contractors to add their expertise to our long-running renovation. Hopefully by the end of the day all that will remain to be done will be further painting and cleaning.

Glancing back over the scribblings that I posted last January (a mistake I know, but it is fascinating to see how the years vary… or even repeat themselves!) I find to my great surprise that it was exactly a year ago this very day that I visited the North Saanich Municipal Offices to deliver the paperwork for the application for a building permit for our new deck – which was eventually constructed last April and May. That project was just the start of the long process of renovation which has been going on pretty much continually since then.

That set me to wondering as to when it was that we had actually engaged the designer who drew up the plans that formed the basis of said application. Hunting further back on this blog gave me the answer to that as well – it was in September 2016.

The long and the short of it – and the point of this post is of course that the long occasionally feels both short and long (if you know what I mean) – is that by the time we are done this whole renovation project will have occupied us for around a year and a half – which feels both like the blink of an eye and also an eternity!

Needless to say we are eager to crawl – blinking in the bright light of day – out of our current subterranean dwelling place to resume our former lives above ground level.

I am also – naturally – keen to take and to post to these pages a further portfolio of photographs displaying the results of our labours – that we might dazzle the gentle reader with the sumptuous fruits of our endeavours.

Hmmm – that’s quite enough of that, I think…

Food for thought

January 23, 2018 by admin

Last night a 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck the coast of Alaska near Kodiak. The epicentre was some 150 miles off the coast and 12 miles deep but the quake raised fears of a tsunami along the Alaskan and British Columbian coastlines and warning sirens were sounded in particularly vulnerable areas.

With regard to Victoria Cormac O’Brien reported in The Martlet:

“At 1:40 a.m. this morning, the Government of Canada issued a tsunami warning to residents in low-lying areas of Greater Victoria and residents on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

The warning was made via Twitter, online CBC broadcasts, and on television. Official emergency Twitter accounts for the region recommended moving away from beaches, bays, and inlets, and instead move to higher ground away from the coast. There, they should await instructions from local officials.”

When it rapidly became apparent that there was to be no significant tsunami – waves being no more than a few feet in height – the warning was cancelled and the all-clear given by 4:30am.

Now – although there are reports of early morning gatherings on Mounts Tolmie and Doug, I suspect that many people in the Greater Victoria area discovered that they had missed the warning in much the same way as did we: The Girl finding the tweets on her phone when she awoke.

Should we be worried by this?

Well – probably not. Living on the east coast of Vancouver Island and surrounded by the Gulf Islands we are probably reasonably well protected against waves arriving from the open Pacific to the west. Further, the tsunami warnings advise moving to ground at least 30 metres above sea level. Though our home is only about 500 metres from the shoreline we are a surprising 60 metres above the high tide line.

No room for complacency of course and yet another reminder of the indifferent powers of Mother Nature.

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