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Luck

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Getting better

April 23, 2024 in Flotsam and Jetsam | No comments

<a href="https://www.stockvault.net/data/2017/04/25/234706/preview16.jpg" target="_blank">"This work"</a> by <a>Pixabay</a> is licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0" target="_blank">CC BY 4.0</a>“I’ve got to admit, it’s getting better,
A little better all the time”

John Lennon/Paul McCartney

Some years seem to bestow upon us an abundance of joy and positivity (in the personal realm if not on the national/international stage) whereas others seem fated to to serve up a seemingly endless procession of set-backs and knock-downs. 2024 has seen a bumpy start for The Girl and I, beset with such unexpected events as the exploding shower screen – the dying Mobiliser – and a variety of other unexpected expenses.

These things are, however, transitory and my optimistic nature leads me to look for signs that our fortune is once again improving. Take the glass shower screen – for example…

It had been a while since I posted to this forum the tale of its unexpected demise. The manufacturer of the screen sent us a replacement under warranty in a gratifyingly rapid time (suggesting thereby that this was not exactly an unheard of problem for them). We had by that point also received recommendations from various sources for contractors who could repair the bath tub (damaged by the falling glass) and install the replacement screen. That nothing beyond the delivery of the new screen had yet happened was because the bath-tub-fixing guys had not got back to us; presumably because business was booming and they were being kept busy. Clearly we could not do anything else until the tub was repaired.

I finally received a call from them and we fixed a date for their technical chap to have a look at the tub.

At least – that’s what I expected was going to happen. As it turned out he took a quick look and then retired to his vehicle, returning in short order loaded with equipment. He was clearly expecting to do the job there and then! I pointed out that we had not even discussed the cost of so doing. “No problem” – he explained – “It’s all under warranty“. He further informed me that they were handling all of the paperwork and that I need do not a thing. When I made reference to being able to get the replacement screen installed he told me that they would be taking care of that also! Now, that’s what I call service!

So – we now get to go on our holiday! On our return we will be carrying from the UK a replacement Mobiliser. Yes – we bit the bullet and bought a new one. Well – we are getting old and that thing is a daily godsend for The Girl…

We firmly expect to have a splendid expedition, about which I will doubtless have much to write and many photos to upload.

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(More) slings and arrows…

July 9, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

…of outrageous(ly good) fortune.

The Girl was recently the (delighted) recipient of a tax rebate!

OK – that is not the entire story…

Since we came to Canada we have done annually that which I (at least) had never done before; use a tax accountant to file our tax returns. In the UK I always (eventually) figured it out for myself and filed online. Here, it just seems all too much trouble to try to work out our (by now) quite complex arrangements, so – for a small(ish) fee…

The slight downside of this is that one never quite knows how things are going to turn out, since the tax accountants are always looking for new and better ways to earn their dollars. This year – for example – The Girl was due a rebate and I had an outstanding tax bill to pay… except that – by the time our accountant was done – I received a hefty rebate and the Kickass One an even larger tax bill. Apparently this was the result of a tax juggling act that saved us a few hundred dollars overall (for which – many thanks!).

Naturally I passed my rebate cheque straight over to The Girl (along with the balance owing) so that she could send it right back to Revenue Canada again. Being a gentleman I also gave her an amount equal to the rebate that she would have had, had our accountant kept things simple.

Anyway…

The Girl likes to cycle. The only problem is that, because we live on the bosky slopes above Bazan Bay and because the topography of the peninsula at this point is just so, it doesn’t matter which way she heads off on her bicycle, she always has to ride up a fairly steep hill on the way home (somewhat in the manner of an Escher drawing!). Naturally this somewhat diminishes the pleasure that she gets from taking the bike out in the first place.

She determined – therefore – that she would investigate putting her rebate towards the purchase of a (nowadays very trendy) electric bicycle. Now – these come in two flavours… the fully-fledged designed-from-the-ground-up electric bike (a pretty heavy beast but with lots of power!) or the traditional bike modified by the addition of battery and motor/dynamo. The latter devices are lighter and less expensive but also less powerful, providing assistance to the pedaling rather than rendering it superfluous.

The Girl had pretty much decided on one of the lighter machines but was still at the sucking-her-breath-in-between-her-teeth stage over the multiple-thousands of dollars that would be involved, when she went for a walk with an old work colleague. At the very point of parting she mentioned in passing her bicycling intentions, only for her friend to announce that her mother had just such a machine that she was in the process of trying to sell.

Well – long story short – The Girl tried the machine – fell in love with it – struck a good deal and carried it away home…

…all of which might very easily not have happened at all!

Lucky! Lucky! Lucky! (again)…

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Lucky break

July 3, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

I have written before in these pages on the subject of luck, though my first posting on the subject was all the way back at the start of 2012. Later that same year I posted this item – entitled ‘Playing the Odds‘ – which posited the notion that much of what we consider to be good luck, or the consequence of remarkable fortune – or even of pure coincidence – actually often turns out to be considerable less so than it at first seems. You will have to go back and (re)read that article should you wish to explore further, as this current entry simply shrugs its shoulders and draws attention to another fortuitous happening – without drawing any conclusions at all therefrom.

I have not grumbled of late in these postings about the pandemic-related difficulties of sourcing all manner of essential requisites – toilet roll (in the early days), disinfectant wipes (ongoing), bleach and other such important and protective items. That is because it is clearly unacceptable so to do in circumstances such as these; there being many who are considerably worse off than are we and whose need is considerably greater.

I have also certainly not complained about the impossibility of acquiring such important items as a decent webcam! Now – you may rightly cavil at regarding such things in the same light as PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), but the fact is that shortly after the lock-down was announced across the world, supplies of such useful devices (required in particular, of course, for video-conferencing) dried up completely. It became impossible to acquire such things anywhere, with delivery dates being marked as ‘unknown’ and prices in online stores being hiked by 300% – 400% (outrageous!). Such are the ‘laws’ of supply and demand.

Now – I have a really old webcam, but the quality is poor and – though it meets my needs for doing online exercise classes – it is an inadequate tool for delivering decent online lectures (such as I will be required to do in the autumn). I tinkered around trying using the cameras on my mobile devices (which may be effected by using such cool software tools as ‘DroidCam’) but whereas these solutions do work reasonably well it is never a good idea to use a device for multiple purposes. It might seem efficient so to do but in practice having to constantly reconfigure and reconnect the gadgets inevitably leads to occasions when things do not work properly, or one runs into a simple conflict of requirements.

I was thus delighted when the Chair of my department announced to us all by email that she was going to try to source some webcams. When I replied wishing her fortune in so doing I inadvertently sent the email to all recipients. I immediately received a reply from someone who – whilst not wanting to be bothered with my (irrelevant to him) message – did want to let me know that he had seen the very device that I was after for sale on Amazon. I looked – and sure enough there was just the webcam I wanted, available in two days (via Prime) and at the original price. Naturally I immediately ordered one and was delighted to receive it the quoted number of days thereafter – on a Sunday!

I figured that supplies must simply be moving again, but when I looked a few days later the prices has soared again to unreasonable hights and the devices were again in short supply.

What to make of this good fortune? Had I not accidentally ‘replied to all’ I would not now have my chosen webcam – at my preferred price…

Lucky! Lucky! Lucky!

 

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Owzat!

July 15, 2019 in Life in England | Permalink

References in this journal of late to the great game of cricket have been conspicuous by their absence. There are two reasons for this…

The first is that – though cricket is indeed played in this most English of Canadian backwaters – it is not that readily consumed by the casual follower of the game, either as a participant or simply as one who likes to watch the odd encounter. Finding out what is happening and where takes some effort and the organisations concerned seem (to me at any rate) somewhat cliquish and unwelcoming. As a result I have seen very little cricket here.

Secondly, back in the old country the game’s governing body – the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) – following the brilliant Ashes victory in 2005 decided to do their level best to put people off following the national sport by selling the TV rights to Murdoch’s Sky channel, thus ensuring that there be no free to air coverage. The ultimate effect of this massively mistaken policy was that the recent Women’s Football World Cup garnered (for the first time) huge and enthusiastic TV audiences (around 11.7 million in the UK for the England/US semi-final) whilst those for the the concurrent Cricket World Cup languished at around the half a million mark.

When England made it through to the final – facing a New Zealand side who had somewhat unexpectedly beaten India in the semi-finals – Sky finally relented and agreed to Channel 4 showing live coverage of the event. As a result the viewing figures for the final reached 4.5 million – which numbers speak for themselves.

As for the game itself – it was a total doozy! Two very evenly matched sides battling on a pitch on which it was difficult to score at a high rate ensured that a nail-biting finish would be the order of the day. One outrageous piece of good fortune in the final over – with the ball deflecting to the boundary from the bat of the diving Ben Stokes, trying desperately to make his ground – gifted the chasing England side an unexpected four runs and enabled them to tie the scores from the last ball of the match. The ‘Super Over’ contest that followed was also tied – a statistic to delight the cricket-stat enthusiasts everywhere (of which there are yet many) and England won on a technicality (most boundaries scored).

This is to take nothing at all away from the England side who have been trying to win the World Cup for as long as I have been following the game and have finally done it.

Well done! Congratulations all round. Let’s hope that this victory draws people back to the game.

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The rice trick

November 2, 2018 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidIf you know about the rice trick then there is a good chance that you – or someone of your acquaintance – has done that which I was unfortunate/careless enough to do a couple of weeks back… to drop my mobile device into a liquid! In my case it was into a hot bath…

OK – I feel the need to explain how a Capricorn such as myself (and thus naturally cautious in all things) contrived to do something so careless/stupid. Well – towards the end of the week I find myself pretty tired these days. Thursdays are particularly hard work, starting as they do with a fairly tough exercise class, continuing with a quick shower (no time for lunch!) and a rush to the college at which I teach for two and a half hours of classes and lab supervision followed by an hour or so in my office and on occasion a meeting of some sort… and then on some Thursdays on to something else in the evening.

Come Fridays I am usually ready for some relaxation – but not until domestic chores, shopping and cooking prep are done (yes – poor me!). Anyway – there eventually comes a point at which I like to immerse myself gratefully into nice hot bath.

If The Girl is out and about – as on this occasion – I leave my mobile phone somewhere to hand in case she should call. And, of course, call she did. Unfortunately I was fast asleep in the bath at this point. Being wrenched abruptly from my hard-earned slumber by the ring tone I grabbed sleepily for the phone with wet hands, jabbed at the speakerphone button and watched horrified as the device slipped from my grasp like a bar of soap and tumbled into the tub.

Fortunately instinct cut in at this point and I whipped the phone out of the water and powered it down, before getting as much water off it as I could with materials to hand. Once out of the tub I naturally turned to that source of all knowledge(!) – the InterWebNet – and discovered the rice trick.

This is the one where one gets as much moisture out of the gadget as possible by dabbing at it and turning it this way and that, before burying it in a container filled with rice. There it must be left for 24 – 48 hours so that the rice can absorb any moisture that remains in the device. Then, if one is lucky, it can be powered up again to see what (if any) damage has been done.

Of course, it helps hugely if the device is similar to my Galaxy S7 – which is advertised as being ‘water resistant’.

The good news in this case – which I sure will delight one and all – is that my phone suffered no ill effects at all and continues providing the excellent service that it has done to this point.

Phew!!

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The luck of the… Scots?!

December 3, 2017 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidIt has long been my habit to maintain a couple of decanters of spirits for everyday purposes. One of these is charged with whatever reasonably cheap brandy I can source locally (since it is intended for mixing with ginger ale or suchlike) and the other – the teardrop decanter in the accompanying image – with whisky. I tend to prefer J & B for this one – Justerini & Brooks being a familiar Edinburgh concern and this being their signature blend.

These decanters normally reside in some splendour upon the sideboard in our dining room. During the renovations they are perched on top of a bookcase in the hall/kitchen that forms the spine of our basement abode.

Yesterday found me once again vacuuming our cosy crypt in what is an ongoing effort to mitigate the ingress of the all pervading plaster (mud) dust. I had worked my way through the hallway and into the family room that is currently doubling as our living space and a warehouse for our goods and chattels. As I dragged the machine in behind me I thought I heard a noise from back in the hall. I stopped what I was doing and went to have a look. I could see nothing amiss so determined to think no more about it and to complete my chores.

This morning The Girl was herself sorting through some of the many items that are now vying for living space in our hallway. She picked up a redundant cardboard box in which some life-essential had but recently been delivered.

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid“Why is there a decanter in this box?”, she queried. It took but seconds to determine what had happened. As I had moved the vacuum cleaner the power cord had caught around the decanter (the power socket being on the wall at dado height beside the bookcase) and whisked it off the shelves and into the open box below.

Here, of course, is where the luck came in. The box was still a third filled with packing material. The floor below is of concrete covered with a thin layer of vinyl flooring. Had the decanter hit the floor rather than the packing material in the box it would undoubtedly have shattered.

But that is not all. The decanter had come to rest on its side and the glass stopper had come loose and was lying in the box beside the decanter. I lifted them carefully out of the box and inspected them. As you can see the decanter was only about a quarter filled and – because of the vessel’s shape and the angle at which it had come to rest – not a single drop had been spilled…!

…and I feel sure that you know just how much a Scot hates to waste good whisky!

I think that calls for a wee dram…

 

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Sod’s law

September 20, 2017 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Image by Jeff Dahl on Wikimedia.orgI wouldn’t mind betting that the anecdote that forms the basis of this post will ring a bell with many who read it – with similar circumstances being quickly brought to mind… because – after all – that’s just the way life is!

Way back in the early 1980s the BBC produced a six-part adaption of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘school’ novel – ‘Stalky & Co’. The piece translated well into six thirty-minute episodes because it had in fact originated as a set of individually published stories that Kipling had subsequently fleshed out into book form.

I enjoyed the stories enormously, being set in a boys’ boarding school (based on the United Services College in Devon which Kipling had himself attended) and featuring as they do a gang of juvenile protagonists who display a know-it-all, cynical attitude to patriotism and authority which was – naturally – right up my street. I subsequently bought the book and it is one of those that I still revisit on a regular basis.

At some point it occurred to me that it would be good to own a copy of the BBC series on DVD as well. Unfortunately, the usual investigations on the InterWebNet revealed  that the BBC had not thought fit to release the series, though I did find an online petition (the which I quickly signed) urging the corporation so to do.

I thought no more about it; the years passed and ‘life’ happened!

Then, at the end of July this year – whilst pursuing an online link on a related topic – I discovered that the petition must have had an effect, because the series had finally been released (in a very stripped down form – ie, just the media with no add-ons) and could be purchased from Amazon in the UK. I did so immediately and then sat back to await further news.

After a while I received an email telling me that the DVDs had been dispatched and should be delivered to me in Canada by 17th August. That date came and went with no sign of the goods. Being familiar by this point with the vagaries of Canada Post I thought I should leave things for a while, but finally – after another month had passed – I decided to contact Amazon. Those who have had reason to do such a thing will know that it takes considerable effort as the company goes out of its way to make it as difficult a possible, but I persevered and a few days ago awoke to find an email from Amazon UK acknowledging my query, apologising for my delivery clearly having gone astray and promising to send out a fresh copy.

As I probably hardly need add… when I visited our post box at the end of the street later that very same day – sure enough – there were the missing DVDs!

Hmmmmm!

 

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Farther up the shore

February 11, 2016 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

“The secret of success is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.”

Cyril Connolly

On a delightfully balmy mid-February day we parked the car on the outskirts of Sidney and walked along the seafront into the town. It was impossible not to marvel at the beauty of this exquisite enclave in which we are fortunate enough to reside. I therefore make no apologies for placing before the gentle reader – for his or her delectation – some selected snaps of this sumptuous shore.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

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Life lessons

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

imageThis 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…

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Bingo!

August 18, 2015 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

imageI 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!

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