The Imperceptible Immigrant

The excellent gift

January 11, 2021 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value”.

Charles Dudley Warner

Even those gentle readers who have been following these jottings since the get-go would be forgiven for not recalling the various pieces that I posted way back in 2012 concerning my search for – and subsequent purchase of – my first serious(ish) camera – the much appreciated little Fuji x10. This diminutive camera is getting a bit long in the tooth these days and – though I still use it regularly – it has on many occasions been usurped by the sheer convenience of the camera on whatever is my current cell phone. The choice has, of course, been hugely facilitated by the frankly amazing improvements in such phone cameras over the last decade.

I have, however, from time to time mulled over the prospect of upgrading to a better camera – not least on the several occasions during this last year on which The Girl asked me if I had ever contemplated so doing.

“Certainly…” – I reassured her – “but it isn’t something that is on my personal radar at the moment“. Too many other things on which to focus.

The Girl – however – just loves to surprise me, particularly when she can do so to spectacularly dramatic effect. We had mutually agreed this year that our Christmas gift giving to each other would be restrained to the point of being positively abstemious. The impact was all the greater then – when after the expected exchange had been apparently completed – she completely stunned me by presenting me with a beautiful, shiny new camera.

Ladies and gentlemen – the Olympus OM-D E-M5 mk ii – complete with an Olympus 14-150mm telephoto lens!

For those interested in such things the OM-D E-M5 is a Micro Four Thirds compact mirror-less interchangeable lens camera. It has many of the features of a full DSLR but is smaller and lighter and considerably easier to carry when traveling. From my point of view it has the great benefit of having an electronic viewfinder (I wrote in my original postings on the x10 about my preference for the old-fashioned way of framing images).

The excellence of this gift does indeed lie in its appropriateness and The Girl – being who she is (excellent herself!) – does not do things by halves. She had spent a full three days online researching suitable cameras for me before venturing out to consult several of Victoria’s oldest established photographic outlets. Having finally found an ‘expert’ (hooray!) whose opinion she felt she could trust she made her decision – based on the sort of images that she knows I like to take.

Let us look a little more closely at those two images at the top of this post (you may wish to click on them to get the full effect):

These snaps of Mount Baker were taken from the same spot on our deck. The first I posted in the fall of last year. It was taken on full zoom and then cropped out of the resultant image – thus being enlarged further but with concomitant loss of detail. The second is the compete image – taken on the OM-D – at about 90% zoom.

I think that – considering the scale of the land in which we live – the gentle reader will be able easily to discern the benefits of having access to such a splendid device… once I have finished learning how to use it, of course!

Kudos to The Girl for having – as the aphorism goes – “knocked it out of the park!“.

Tags: Camera, Celebration, Christmas, Fuji x10, OM-D e-M5, Photo

Clear and present

December 2, 2020 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

Some days – particularly at this time of year – the cold morning air is so clear that we get a quite startlingly sharp vista of Mount Baker and the mountain ranges that surround it.

At such time – even though my humble camera is unable to do the prospect justice – I can’t resist photographing it…

…or posting the results!

Tags: Mount Baker, Photo, Vista

We dreamed it

October 27, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam, Photos | Permalink

“I painted it because I dreamed it
because we all dreamed it”

Marie Burdett, The Little Boy and the Painter

I promised some before and after images of the exterior decoration of our lovely house.

Ta-dah!…

Here are some before and after shots (double-click to enlarge):

The stucco colour is still light – we want the house to stay cool in summer – but the colours are much warmer. The woodwork at the front was previously stained but is now a fetching shade of ‘Stonehenge Greige’ (don’t ask – but it’s all the rage!).

More ‘after’ shots:

Tags: Home, House, Photo, Renovation

Autumn daze

October 21, 2020 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

I wrote a piece within these pages back at the start of the year (well – February!) on the general subject of my level of fitness – and what it took to keep things that way. I made reference to having just restarted attendance at the fitness class of which I have been a regular pretty much since we came to Canada.

Of course, not long after I committed those musings to the digital equivalent of print, the COVID-19 pandemic broke and everything was turned upside down. The fitness class moved onto Zoom and was executed in the safety of our own living rooms. When restrictions eased a little as the summer unfolded we reverted to meeting ‘in person’ at the Shoal Centre in Sidney (a community ‘hub’ for ‘seniors’) where we undertook carefully socially-distanced classes wearing masks and with extravagant but necessary health precautions.

These classes have continued since then, but on each day when the weather permits – ie when it is not raining or snowing! – we have taken to exercising in the park across the road from the centre. This is not only much safer but it is also considerably more pleasant.

I took most of these pictures between exercises during yesterday’s class.

Tags: Autumn, Exercise, fitness, Health, Photo

Fall Breeze & Autumn Leaves

October 13, 2020 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

A few autumnal images from recent fall walks here on fabulous Vancouver Island.

It is no secret that autumn is not my favourite time of year, but one cannot deny that the season brings many beautiful things and if one wants variety – then fill your boots! Sometimes it looks like this:

…but at others it looks like this:

Tags: Autumn, British Columbia, Photo, Vancouver Island

Garden shots!

June 30, 2020 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

High time for some more shots of things growing in our garden!…

…and possibly some other random images that I have overlooked throughout the last couple of months. Let’s see what I can find…

Tags: British Columbia, Gardens, Photo, Summer, Victoria, Vista

The Journey Home – 5

June 21, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam, Photos | Permalink

Well, here we are at the end of this short retrospective – one year on – of our 2019 trip to the UK and Greece. The Girl and I had a wonderful and memorable visit to Europe – a fine balance between spending time with loved ones and old friends, revisiting a bit of the old country and getting to wallow in glorious antiquity in a part of the world that neither of us had known well.

As is the way of such things, on our return to BC we immediately started thinking about and planning further excursions, little knowing that – along with everyone else – our future travel plans would all have to be put on ice for an indeterminate and possibly indefinite period.

The Girl and I loved Athens and you can read the notes of a year ago and view the photos that I posted here and here.

Finally – a few more images from those taken in Athens:

Tags: Europe, Greece, Holiday, Memories, Photo, Travel, United Kingdom

The Journey Home – 4

June 15, 2020 in Flotsam and Jetsam, Photos | Permalink

This time last year we had just returned from the splendid trip to the UK and to Greece that I am re-living vicariously through the medium of this journal.

The timing of this particular post is really quite apposite because – having rounded off our splendid reunion with the UK and headed south to join our cruise ship for the first phase of our Greek visit – it was no longer possible for me to publish posts to the blog, on account of the paucity and cost of the Internet connections on board ship. As a result I unleashed a stream of such postings after we returned to Canada – starting with this one.

I had visited Greece once before, though that time to a different set of islands – the Dodecanese. This time we would be mostly in the Cyclades. For The Girl this would be a first visit to any part of Greece and neither of us had been to Athens – where we would spend a few days at the end of our cruise. Much, then, to look forward to.

Now – with regard to the cruise itself the postings that I made on our return were really quite comprehensive and laden with (if i say so myself) quite lovely photographs. If the Greek islands are of interest to you do take a look around. As for this post – well – I will do my best to dig out any interesting images that did not make the cut first time around. I know that I took plenty – so I am hopeful…

These images are from our visits to Santorini, to Heraklion and Knossos and to Ephesus:

Tags: cruise, Greece, Holiday, Photo, Travel

And so to bed…

May 6, 2020 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

Several posts back in what is in serious danger of becoming a blog about gardening (a subject on which I am completely unqualified to write but which seems to be one of the few activities still open to one in these strange days) I spun a tale about the conversion of the redundant raised pond in our front garden into a new bed for plants. All that remained – I reported breathlessly – was to choose that which should be planted therein.

To give the gentle reader some broader physical context – this is what the bed looks like in situ:

As may be observed the bed is backed – and overhung – by a screen of five medium sized fir trees and surrounded by a cluster of evergreen shrubs. This whole acts as a handy barrier between our property and the road and gives the garden an agreeable degree of privacy. There is – however – a fair bit of ‘green’ going on.

What to plant there? The firs raise the acid level of the soil beneath them which limits the choice somewhat. We considered azaleas or rhododendrons (both of which we already have in fair number) or something with bright coloured flowers. The problem with the latter is that the contrast obtained thereby would last but a limited period each year.

We chose instead to offset the greenery with some burgundy/red which would provide a nearly year round contrast – and went looking for suitable low-habit Japanese maples (or acers should you prefer). Here is what we found:

The larger one is a Gloucester Red Select and the smaller one is a Red Dragon. Why did we not purchase two bushes the of similar size? Have you seen the price of these things? They will end up of similar stature and this way we get to see them grow and fill out over time whilst ensuring that they take on the shape that we want.

They both cascade nicely and will give us a pretty mound of burgundy – fading to crimson red in the autumn (fall) – to offset all of that greenery.

Now we just have to wait and enjoy the show from our kitchen window!

Tags: British Columbia, COVID-19, Gardens, Photo, projects

Let’s party

May 3, 2020 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

“Spring is nature’s way of saying, “Let’s party!”

Robin Williams

I was thinking just how lucky we are to have a spring garden. This is my favourite time of year and having a spring garden may well be a large part of that.

Then it occurred to me that I have been fortunate enough to have had – or have had access to – more than one spring garden over the years. “Mayhap” – I pondered to myself – “all gardens are spring gardens… or at least, coming hard on the heels of winter, that is the way they feel”.

Actually it matters not a jot and I thought that you – the gentle reader – might like to peruse some more images of nature’s bounty as it currently pertains in this neck of the woods.