…with apologies to those gentle readers who don’t have the good fortune to live in Victoria BC (or are currently holidaying in Mexico!)…
Click the images for the big picture!
It’s the second week of January. Must be time to take the boat for a spin!
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“Not many those mornings trod the piling streets: an old man always, fawn-bowlered, yellow-gloved and, at this time of year, with spats of snow, would take his constitutional to the white bowling green and back, as he would take it wet or fine on Christmas day or Doomsday.”
Dylan Thomas – A Child’s Christmas in Wales
Our Christmas Day constitutional was to Island View Beach. There was no snow and the sun broke through in a most pleasant manner…
Very lovely!
“…and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!”
‘King Lear’ – William Shakespeare
The first serious storm of the season ripped its way across the southern end of Vancouver Island yesterday afternoon – tearing dead wood and fresh young fronds alike from the trees, decimating the power grid and scattering bins and other appurtenances to the four corners of the earth…
It certainly seemed that way!
We lost a number of large branches from the trees that border our garden and our power was out for a little over five hours – fortunately being restored at around 5 pm just as it got dark (which it does here later than in the south of England at this time of year).
We were lucky that we got off lightly. The BC Hydro (our power provider) website shows that – 24 hours later – the southern end of the island is still subject to 256 outages affecting 33,777 customers. Our friends in Saanichton did not get their power back until midnight – by which time they were already fast asleep!
Reports suggest that the storm was quite the worst seen in the area for some seven to eight years. Tragically, one person was killed by a falling tree. BC Ferries cancelled 130 sailings on 14 routes and the ferry dock on Penelakut Island was severely damaged. On the mainland a man had to be rescued by helicopter after becoming stranded when the wooden pier at White Rock was broken in two by boats that had been torn from their moorings.
It is the norm in this neck of the woods for the winter storms to start – and indeed to be at their most severe – during November. That did not happen this year (November being particularly mild) which may well be yet another sign of the world’s weather systems being seriously out of kilter.
Bizarrely, however much damage did result the winds proved insufficient to blow away some of the less attractive inflatable Christmas decorations which ‘grace’ front gardens in this part of the peninsula!
Make of that what you will…
There are those – particularly across the pond – who think that if it is winter – and if it is Canada – then it must be snowing!
To be fair, some Canadians (though somewhat less on the West Coast) do little to disabuse outsiders of such views.
Here on the island the closing months of the year are far more likely to look like… well – like this:
This is a Canada Post post…
…and this will not be the first time that I have muttered darkly about the services offered by Canada’s postal office – and in particular the vagaries in the delivery thereof.
I still haven’t quite gotten over having our doorstep deliveries whisked away from us when we had barely had a chance to get used to them, to be replaced by an impersonal postbox stack (as decreed by the now recently discontinued communal postbox program – and if it is no longer policy why can’t we have our home delivery back?!) at the wrong end of our cul de sac (dead-end road). That I now get some much needed exercise every day and the opportunity to say ‘hi’ to our neighbours is completely beside the point.
Regular dippers in the pool of these dribblings might remember previous grumbles concerning the problems that I had getting Canada Post to stop delivering communications for one of the former owners (now deceased) of this abode – or the time that it took so long to deliver an item that I had dashed near expired myself in the meantime.
Things have been busy of late, which is how the run in to Christmas has snuck up on us virtually unnoticed this year. I realised somewhat abruptly that if I wished – as I do – to fire off Christmas cards to my nearest and dearest in the UK I had jolly well better get on with it – particularly as Canada Post’s army of workers have of late been indulging themselves in industrial action. A more cynical expat from the UK might feel almost nostalgic for the days of militant postal workers and wildcat strikes causing millions of urgent correspondences to be dumped in sacks at the back of the sorting offices (before Thatcher put a stop to all that ‘sort of thing’!) – but not me, of course…
No, my first eager move was – as ever – to trust the efficacy of the InterWebNet. I surfed to the Canada Post site and looked eagerly for the banner headline advertising last posting dates for Christmas.
There wasn’t one!
In fact, the whole site looked distinctly un-Christmassy. I used the search box to look for ‘Christmas’. I was offered some stamps!
I tried ‘Post dates for Christmas’ and was directed to a page telling me how to write a letter to Santa! I don’t know about you, but my Santa writing days are long behind me and, anyway, surely the kids these days send a text or use whatever messaging app is currently trending.
I searched on and on, but to no avail. Canada Post is not giving anything away when it comes to last posting dates for Christmas. Realising I had better get my skates on I rapidly scribbled a whole bunch of cards for the UK and elsewhere and headed for my local Canada Post office. The staff there were most helpful with regard to selling me stamps, helping me to stick them onto my cards and popping them in the box for me. However, when I enquired as to why their website was so lacking in festive spirit – not to mention essential information – they informed me that as a result of the backlogs following the strike they were not guaranteeing any delivery times – to anywhere!
There was – therefore – no point in advertising such!
Bottom line for those eagerly awaiting a card from the wilds of (west coast) Canada is that one will get to you – eventually (probably!)…
Previous advice re: holding breath is still pertinent.
Tags: Canada Post, Christmas, Modern life
There are those – it would seem – around these parts who save themselves a whole bunch of time come advent-tide by getting out their Christmas decorations at the same time that they put away their Halloween furbelows.
“Wait… what?“, I hear the Brits cry (at least – those who view/listen to too much Americana and don’t mind being a bit behind the curve!).
OK – for the average Brit (should such a thing there be) there is probably a fair bit to be unpacked from that opening statement. Please allow me to elucidate.
Halloween is certainly a much bigger deal in the UK than it used to be, and much of that is undoubtedly down to Hollywood and to American TV. We used to get pestered by the occasional trick-or-treaters, though they were usually adolescents rather than children and not afraid to throw eggs! One year a bunch of scruffy teenagers showed up demanding alcohol. I may have given them some small bottles of French beer and told them to go and play in the park… I may not. Depends who is asking!
Anyhow – when I were a nipper we had other things on our minds come this time of the year – like Bonfire Night (or Guy Fawkes Night for the purists). Instead of trick-or-treating the idea was to put together an effigy – fashioned from some newspaper-stuffed jumble sale clothes and a cardboard mask – stick it in an old pram and go door to door demanding – “Penny for the Guy“. (For non Brits a ‘penny’ was a… oh – never-mind!). When it came to larks after dark we were much more into chucking a few whizzbangs about and setting fire to dummies (or indeed to pretty much anything!) than we were into ghosts and ghouls – but it takes all sorts.
I was completely caught out this year, which only goes to illustrate the gulf between the nations. The Girl was out on All Hallows Eve and I was at home alone and unsuspecting when the doorbell rang. Upon investigation I found myself faced by two elaborately costumed but extremely diminutive boys. I could see parents hovering in the background.
“Trick or Treat?“, the slightly older boy explained.
Being unprepared – having forgotten completely what the date was – I had nothing to offer.
“Oh dear“, I said, mournfully. “It had better be trick!“.
A look of panic crossed the child’s face. This option had clearly never been requested before – the norm being simply to hand over the sweetmeats! I tried to explain to the parents about Guido Fawkes and the immolation of Catholic fundamentalists (in effigy) but I could tell that they weren’t buying it, presumably just thinking that I had put up a pretty poor show and let the side down.
I tended to agree…
Now – North Americans (in addition to trick-or-treating) are prone to decorating the outside of their houses (and their front yards and driveways) with all manner of baubles, gewgaws and absolutely enormous illuminated inflatables. They do this for Halloween as well as for Christmas and, frankly, there doesn’t seem to be much of a gap between them these days. December was still at least a week away when the first pneumatic protoplasms pumped themselves up with the fading of the light. I don’t mind a bit of jolly Christmas-tide stuff from about mid-December onwards, but I am still dashed if I know what storm-troopers from Star Wars have to do with it!
My Scrooge-like attitude will, of course, eventually dissipate and I will doubtless string a few discreet twinkly lights along the front of our abode.
I’ll post a picture when that happens. Don’t hold your breath!
Tags: Celebration, Christmas
More autumnal images. Although it has rained a fair bit in recent weeks the weather here on the island has been surprisingly mild and balmy. Today the sun shone and it was 14 degrees C! A nice day for a walk…
“October is a symphony of permanence and change.”
Bonaro W. Overstreet
Images from the Fall… (double click for the full effect!)
This peaceful neck of the woods has recently been the scene of local elections and in the weeks running up to polling day – as it the way in these parts – verges, hedgerows and lawns slowly disappeared under a plethora of campaign signs and placards urging the local electorate to get out and vote.
In this day and age – and with times being what they are – it is hardly surprising that it is not always easy to encourage people to exercise their democratic right, no matter how important it might be for them so to do. I am certainly saying nothing against our local politicians – if for no other reason than that I lack the necessary knowledge of them – but on the wider scene the political classes have done so much damage to themselves in recent decades that it should be no surprise that the whole damned lot of them have become anathema (or an anathema – to your taste!).
Now – I cannot yet in any case vote in Canadian federal elections – I would needs be a citizen so to do – but I have a feeling that I could have voted in the recent local poll. That I did not do so is a sign that I am not yet sufficiently ‘au courant’ with the ins and outs of local politics, which is certain a failing on my part that I intend to rectify before the next such occasion.
One of the more prominent placards planted on the roadside not far from here, near to one of our bigger intersections (always a relative term of course) advocated the re-election of a man who apparently goes by the name of ‘Bob’ (that indeed being his name) whose surname I will not reveal (to protect the innocent!). Having dealt with the matter of the man’s name the sign simply read:
The only Bob on the Ballot!
Given the current febrile political climate in many parts of the globe it occurred to me that this might indeed be just as good a reason to vote for the man as anything else that might have been said.
It is not often that one gets a laugh from politics these days!
Go Bob!
Tags: British Columbia, Modern life, Politics
“Walking is man’s best medicine.”
Hippocrates
We live in such a blessed corner of this bosky peninsula that we are surrounded within a few miles on all sides by an abundance of places in which to walk – many of which we have not yet had time to explore. Both of these walks – enjoyed just the other day – are within a mile or so of our front door:
This is the small but beautiful park at Coles Bay – on the west side of the peninsula.
Feeling in need of more vigorous exercise than was afforded by Coles Bay Regional Park we went on to visit John Dean Provincial Park, which lies just above us here on our slope of the peninsula’s backbone. This park is extensive and we will have to take more time to explore it properly in the not too distant future. For now it offered us a much needed workout.
Being a local high point (in the sense of altitude if no other) the park houses a variety of mysterious installations:
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