The Imperceptible Immigrant · Coming to Canada

Converted

September 14, 2015 in Life in BC | Permalink

Way back in the very earliest days of this blog I posted this missive. The main thrust of the piece (aside from providing me with an opportunity to effect an introduction to ‘Pearl‘, my gorgeous and much missed Mercedes 300SL) was to ruminate upon the Englishman’s love of – almost fetish for – his (or her) open-topped automobile. This I duly did at my usual length.

Much later – of course – the Kickass Canada Girl finally succumbed to the Anglo-Saxon obsession herself and purchased her very own ragtop roadster. She enjoyed the top-down experience so much that she determined – on our arrival upon these shores – to seek in short order another similar vehicle.

Hunting through advertisements from various online sources before we left the UK left us with the very distinct impression that our search in Victoria for a Miata (as most British Columbians still refer to them) might not be a brief one. This did not altogether surprise me, for had I not written in my original post on the subject:

“Which leads me to this observation… My perception, rightly or wrongly, is that – for a state that has a mild climate and considerably more days of sunshine than we do in the UK – British Columbians do not seem particularly keen on open top motoring. Yes, there are enthusiasts, but nowhere near the numbers that we see in England. Pickups are all well and good, but – for me – just do not hold the same appeal.“

Recent readers will be aware that – counter to our expectation – the Girl effected the location and purchase of a good low-mileage MX-5 within a week of our arrival in BC. I put this down in the first instance to our newly rediscovered good fortune, but I have since been driven to revise this opinion. In this glorious Victorian summer (with apologies to those of you in the UK) it has become apparent that convertible usage at this end of Vancouver Island is as high as it is in the south of England. Indeed, the Mazda MX-5 is to be found here in greater numbers than just about anywhere else I know.

How to explain this shift in perception – this somewhat embarrassing revision to a publicly stated former view? I can think of only two possibilities:

there has been a dramatic increase in soft-top ownership in Victoria since my earlier posting in 2012…

…or:

Victorians – unlike the Brits – only dust down and bring out their convertibles when the sun is well and truly shining. There is none of the mad-March scramble at the first hint of a break in the cloud-cover that is so prevalent in the Home Counties.

Well – I am sure that I do not know the correct interpretation. All I do know is that this is yet another sure sign that the Girl and I have relocated to the right part of the world!

Tags: British Columbia, Cars, Convertible, Victoria

One boat or many…

September 11, 2015 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

“Boats are like rabbits; you can have one boat or many, but you can’t stop at two.”

Aristotle Onassis

Given Victoria’s position on the southern tip of Vancouver Island – and surrounded as it is on three sides by the sea – it is little surprise that the city should be included in what is quite an extensive circuit of classic boating extravaganzas. The Victoria Classic Boat Festival was one of a number of events that took place in and around the provincial capital over the long weekend just passed.

I spent a few happy hours in the Inner Harbour with one of the dear friends with whom we are currently living. At some stage in his widely varied past he owned and lived aboard a 46ft Chris Craft dating from the 1960s, and it was fascinating to ‘sit in’ on his conversations with other wooden boat owners. Most of what was said went over my head, but listening to experts – in any field – is one of my favourite pursuits. At one stage our friend found himself taking to one of his boat-building heroes – Bent Jespersen – which was definitely the highlight of our visit.

I had with me the Fuji x10. I recorded some images:

Tags: Boats, Friends, Fuji x10, Photo, Victoria

Arts and crafts – 2

September 8, 2015 in Life in BC | Permalink

I have in the past within the pages of this almanac expressed my views – in what can only really be considered a somewhat intemperate fashion – of the less than optimal behaviour of some of those who attend the showings at public cinema multiplexes. This based – of course – primarily on my experiences in the south east of England.

We were lucky enough – when residing in Buckinghamshire – to live within a couple of miles of Pinewood Studios. Further good fortune was evinced in that one of our neighbours ran – in the plush screening studio therein – a members’ cinema club. By this agency we we’re able to go to the movies in a civilized fashion… comfy seats, a bar, no adverts or trailers… and no children!

We are – of course – no longer in the UK, and the Pinewood film club has in any case sadly been wound up.

You might imagine my delight, therefore, to discover in Sidney, BC, a wonderful if diminutive movie house going by the name of the Star Cinema. Perhaps all you need to know of this operation is that a couple of years back – whilst the auditorium was undergoing an upgrade and on hearing that delivery of the new seats would be delayed – the patrons were invited to bring in their own couches and armchairs to keep things going… the which – of course – they duly did.

We saw there recently the estimable Sir Ian McKellen exercising his acting chops in ‘Mr Holmes‘. ‘Serena‘ was – as you might expect – excellent. The film was adequate. It seemed to me that the writer had either not quite the courage to fully exploit the premise of the film, or was perhaps subjected to the now obligatory interference by ‘those who know better‘ – whose number includes, of course, the men with the money!

On to drama of the live variety…

I have mentioned before Victoria’s Belfry Theatre. A couple of weeks back we paid our first visit there since we moved back to the province. The play concerned was ‘Boom‘ – Rick Miller’s solo multi-media tour de force that took us through two and a half decades of the cultural history of the baby boomers. Miller is massively talented and the show was certainly a hit with the Victoria audience who – it must be said – pretty much exactly fitted the demographic featured in the work.

The past week and a half has also seen the annual Victoria Fringe Festival. As a long running attendee – as both audience member and participant – of the Edinburgh Fringe I was particularly looking forward to this event. There can be no comparison in terms of scale, of course, but I was looking for a similar atmosphere of experimentation and inclusivity. I was not disappointed.

We attended six shows in a little over a week and I can honestly say that not one of them was a complete dud – which is a better hit rate that I have sometimes experienced in the land of my fathers.

Here is my pick of the fringe:

Mike Delamont – brilliant local Victorian comedian – gave us the second part of his trilogy – ‘God is a Scottish Drag Queen‘. I feel that I hardly need tell you more about this wickedly funny show… you can use your imagination. Needless to say the Girl and I were reduced to tears at several points, we were laughing so hard. Some of the best comic timing you will ever encounter.

Englishman Rob Gee offered his exquisite one man play Icarus Dancing. Informed by his previous existence as a psychiatric nurse the piece is beautifully written and performed with the lightest of touches – both funny and affecting. If you get a chance to see it you will not be disappointed.

Corin Raymond’s ‘The Great Canadian Tire Money Caper‘ is quite simply perhaps the show with the biggest heart that you will ever encounter. Corin is a Toronto based musician and storyteller who financed the making of a live double album with Canadian Tire Money. Non-Canadians will want to know that this incentive scheme by the auto-store company turned multi-department giant has been running since the fifties. Older UK readers might best compare Canadian Tire Money to Green Shield Stamps, though in the form of a Monopoly-like currency. Pretty much every Canadian has some – but no-one ever has enough to do anything worthwhile with. Corin tells the story in such a big-hearted manner that you just want to love him. (The Girl goes all gooey at the thought, which might not be an entirely good thing!) If you live in or around Vancouver the good news is that you can catch Corin at the Vancouver Fringe. The bad news – if you are in England – is that he was at the London Fringe in June.

Right! That’s about all the arts news for now. More to follow…

Tags: Arts, Culture, Victoria

Arts and crafts – 1

September 4, 2015 in Life in BC | Permalink

Lest I should leave the gentle reader with the impression that all of our time here on the west coast of Canada is currently taken up with explorations into hardwood flooring (well – some of it is!) or trying to find the perfect bathtub…

…actually, I must needs digress at this point. What springs to mind when one thinks of the normal Canadian chap (settle down at the back there!)? Yes – that’s right – a tall, swarthy outdoor type who climbs mountains for fun, drives around in a huge pickup, hunts wild animals and skates and rows and skis, etc, etc.

So – what sort of bathtub might you expect such a specimen to require? Yes – so did I, but the standard Canadian bathtub is a mere five foot long and no more than about twelve inches deep! Scarcely enough to dampen one’s… well – you get the idea. Should you require the sort of soaker that we Brits demand – at least five foot five (if not six foot) long and a good twenty two inches deep – then one is looking at a special order. Weird – huh?

Where was I?

Ah yes – culture!

I thought I would regale you with some of the cultural and artistic events that we have attending since landing in BC. Victoria is a really buzzing place and there is a pretty constant schedule of interesting stuff with which to get involved. Should the island not provide enough stimulation on its own it is but a hop and a step to either Vancouver or Seattle.

Anyway – this is what we have been up to:

On the first day of our trip to the interior we stopped in Vancouver, partly to conduct some business but also to visit the Bill Reid Gallery. For those who know nothing about this seminal figure of west coast First Nations art I commend to you the ‘About Bill Reid’ section of the above site. Should you further wish to see an example of Bill Reid’s exquisite sculpture then you need look no further than the facsimile of ‘The Raven and the First Men’ that you will find the top of this post.

The current exhibition at the Bill Reid Gallery – ‘The Box of Treasures’ – features amongst other wonders the extraordinary masks of Beau Dick – whom I have eulogised before in this post entitled ‘A sense of place’.

I most strongly recommend both artists to you – as I do the gallery, should you find yourself in Vancouver.

Much of our cultural month – however – has been given over to the arts dramatic. More – much more – of that in part two of this post.

Tags: Art, British Columbia, Culture, Victoria

Update update

September 1, 2015 in Moving to Canada | 2 comments

In exactly four weeks from today we will take possession of our new home on the Saanich peninsular north of Victoria.

If we are fortunate – and our experiences of late seem to suggest that frequently we are so – then our goods and chattels – which have been bobbing their merry way across two oceans – should put in an appearance at roughly the same time.

We have, in fact, heard from our tranter – Bournes International Moves – that the vessel that is playing host to our container is due to make landfall in Vancouver on or around September 4th or 5th. Whereas that should leave plenty of time for our precious cargo to reach us before we complete the house purchase it must first clear Canadian customs – a process in which we need apparently have some personal involvement, the details of which we will learn more about in due course.

Should this cause only a minor delay then our goods must needs briefly be held in storage in Vancouver before making the final leg of the journey to Victoria. This has already been factored in and the necessary arrangements made to cover all eventualities.

I have previously made reference to the fact that our new home – though really in very good condition – is in need of some updating, mostly to bring it into the current century in terms of style and convenience.

Our current wish list of improvements includes the following – in no particular order:

A new kitchen
Complete renovation of the family bathroom (mine!)
Extension and renovation of the ensuite bathroom (the Girl’s)
Connection to the natural gas main (we want a gas range and gas water heating)
A modern gas fireplace for the living room
Hardwood flooring in the living room and bedroom (the Girl does not tolerate carpets well)
Installation of a new staircase to give better access from the living rooms to the garden. (This will also involve opening up one of the current external walls at the foot of the new staircase and the installation of new patio doors to the ground floor in its place)
In conjunction with the above – the re-siting and re-commissioning of the hot tub (come on – this is Canada!)
The creation from the downstairs family room, kitchen and bedroom of a new studio apartment for our guests to use (and for possible future Air-B & B-ing)

I feel sure that there will also be many other things to do, but that’s about all I can think of at the moment. Besides – that’s quite enough to be getting on with.

Though we are blessed with wonderful friends in Saanichton who put up without complaint with our squatting in their suite and imposing on their hospitality, we are reaching the limit of our patience with living out of suitcases. The next four weeks of limbo-living will probably fly by, but we are now increasingly impatient for them so to do.

Tags: moving, Real estate, Renovation, Shipping

Life lessons

August 25, 2015 in Life as we know it | Permalink

This post has been a long time coming.

Regular readers will need no reminder of the tortuous genesis of our Canadian adventure. Should the casual passer-by wish to catch up on the history of our struggle to divest ourselves of our UK property – of the Kickass Canada Girl’s abortive 2012 attempt to establish a new career in Victoria – of our brief long distance relationship and of my delayed retirement… all of the necessary information may be gleaned from the archives to this blog.

I will simply refer all other gentle readers to this post, dating from the end of April of this year. This missive – lurking under the banner “A lesson in patience” – had as its theme the notion that the entire enterprise had been an extended education in endurance.

It turns out that in this regard I was somewhat off-beam!

The post contained the following paragraph:

“As the deadline for our departure for Canada approaches with all the subtlety of a runaway train we must keep our faith, our belief in our good fortune and our fingers firmly crossed. The universe is surely planning for everything to pan out just right – at just the right moment.”

At the point of posting the Girl and I had both made something of psychological leap, deciding that we would no longer fret and strut regarding our lack of progress but determining instead that we would retire and move to Canada in July come what may! Had we not found a purchaser for our Buckinghamshire apartment – or had my Permanent Residency at that point not been approved – we would go regardless and make of the emprise what we might.

It is now a matter of history that within forty eight hours of this missive having been penned we received – and accepted – a reasonable offer for the apartment. Within little more than a week of that milestone my application for PR was also granted.

The sale of the apartment was completed a mere week before we departed on our trans-Atlantic jaunt, just in time for a six-year high in the Sterling/Canadian dollar exchange rate to gift us a bonus of around $145,000 on what we would have had, had the property been sold when we first attempted so to do.

Our good fortune in finding our dream house in Victoria has been documented sufficiently recently that I need not repeat myself here. Suffice to say that faith in our fellowship of the fortunate few, which had been somewhat eroded over the last year or so, has been dramatically restored.

What might all of this mean?

Well – there is no denying that a great deal of patience has been called for over the last four years. The ultimate lesson – however – is surely rather that one should trust in the universe to provide what is needed – when it is most needed. One may – of course – ascribe this fortune to whatever higher force one deems appropriate. Personally I just think that we are just lucky, lucky buggers!

End of story…

Tags: Canada, Luck, permanent resident, Real estate, Retirement

All and sundry

August 22, 2015 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

A final potpourri of images from our recent travels to the interior of British Columbia…

Our last night in Kamloops:

A five hour drive back to the coast the next morning took us to Horseshoe Bay, whence we took the ferry to Nanaimo – home both to the famous Nanaimo bar (look it up!) and to the Girl’s mother.

A night in Nanaimo was followed by a final drive down the east coast of Vancouver Island and a last short ferry crossing – the (slow) shortcut across the Saanich inlet from Mill Bay to Brentwood Bay.

How am I doing at selling you the delights of beautiful British Columbia?

Tags: British Columbia, Fuji x10, Holiday, Photo

Bingo!

August 18, 2015 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

I did promise that I would fill in the gaps regarding the most expeditious and auspicious purchase of our new home on the Saanich peninsular…

Well – ‘Yer tis’ – as they purportedly exclaim down ‘Zummerzet’ way (how’s that for an entirely gratuitous, irrelevant and quasi-offensive reference?).

I wrote in this post concerning our first abortive attempt to purchase a house on the island from vendors who had clearly forgotten the essential characteristic required of their role in the transaction – namely the desire actually to sell the property that they had brought to market!

When it became clear that the deal was not after all going ahead – and mindful of the fact that the paucity of new properties being offered had created a sellers’ market in which houses were moving rapidly and, occasional, selling above the asking price – the Kickass Canada Girl and I decided to revisit our criteria for choosing a new home.

This we did in part by driving around each of the areas on which we had focussed our attention, looking critically at our reasons for having chosen them and re-evaluating their potential when it came to fulfilling our dream. As often seems to be the way with us this actually had the effect of narrowing our range of possibilities, leaving us ultimately with a mere two adjacent streets within our number one area on which we were prepared to settle.

It looked as though we had made things yet more difficulty when the Girl mused that our ideal might be a house owned by an old couple that now needed fixing up.

What were the odds?

At about the time that we had finally decided to let the first house go we were out on a Thursday afternoon in downtown Victoria. The Girl has been signed up for several years to email alerts from our realtor when new properties come on to the market and – wouldn’t you know it? – a notification popped up.

A new house had come on the market – on one of our two chosen streets! We called our realtor. She was busy but checked with the vendors realtor, who was actually at the property. We could view immediately. We drove there directly, arriving no more than 45 minutes after the ‘for sale’ sign went out.

We liked what we saw. The right street – loads of space – beautiful and quiet garden – wonderful views – plenty of space for the Girl and an large outbuilding that I could turn into a studio. Furthermore, the property had been owned by an old couple. The husband had died and the wife was going back to live near family in Vancouver. The house had been looked after, but the decor and installations – kitchens, bathrooms etc – dated from the 70s and would need to be replaced.

We paid another visit the very next morning and determined to make an offer. Fearing that the vendor’s realtor might attempt to engineer another multiple offer situation we made a full price offer, and after an anxious wait we heard that it had been accepted.

Being cash buyers the only conditions attached related to the home inspection. We had already lined up an inspector for our abortive first purchase effort and he was simply switched – the following Wednesday – to the new house. He had only minor issues to report and the payment of the requisite deposit made the house ours – just in time for us to leave on our trip to the interior.

Wow!

Tags: British Columbia, Luck, Real estate

Over the mountain

August 16, 2015 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley.

Theodore Roethke

Whilst at the cabin on the lake last week we took the GX470 up into the mountains to see what it could do. Naturally I took some pictures.

This is the pretty Saskum Lake:

Here is the Lexus in its natural habitat – on the way up Vavenby Mountain.

Having crossed the mountain and dropped down into Vavenby itself we took the Yellowhead down to Clearwater and stopped for a bite to eat at the highly rated Strawberry Moose!

A little further down the highway we turned off at Little Fort and took the tiny ferry across the North Thompson.

The ferry runs on demand and can only carry two vehicles at a time. We were on this occasion the sole occupants and happily paid the ferryman the only ‘fee’ requested – engagement in a lengthy conversation before being allowed to continue up into the hills again.

We took the back route down to Barriere through Chu Chua. I have mentioned before in these posts that that The Girl is part First Nations on her mother’s side. Her band – Simpcw First Nation – is based now in Chu Chua and we passed the band office and school on the way down.

Tags: 4x4, British Columbia, Fuji x10, Holiday, Photo

Cabinessence

August 14, 2015 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

Light the lamp and fire mellow
Cabin essence timely hello
Welcomes the time for a change

Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson

The lack of posts over the last week is simply explained. The Kickass Canada Girl and I have journeyed to the BC interior to visit The Girl’s birthplace – Kamloops. For the past week we have been even further up the North Thompson valley, staying in The Girl’s cousin’s cabin on one of the lakes above Barriere.

This idyllic hideaway is everything one might expect and hope for – beautiful setting, fabulous weather, total peace and quiet and no phone or Interwebnet coverage.

it is the sort of place where you are wakened by a pair of chipmunks fifteen foot up a tree outside the window, chasing each other round and round the trunk to ecstatic squeals. Or the sort of place – as it was this very morning – where one may be awoken at 5:30am by what at first sounded like rifle shots, but turned out to be a squirrel bombarding the tin roof of the cabin with pine cones from fifty foot up a conifer!

All one can do is stumble down the short path to the dock and tumble into the lake clutching one’s toothbrush.

I think some pictures are in order:

Here are some studies of the light on the water at different times of day: