The Imperceptible Immigrant

Hush!

May 23, 2025 in Life in BC, Photos | No comments

“Time says hush: by the gong of time you live. Listen and you hear time saying you were silent long before you came to life and you will again be silent long after you leave it, why not be a little silent now? Hush yourself, noisy little man. Time hushes all: the gong of time rang for you to come out of the hush and you were born. The gong of time will ring for you to go back to the same hush you came from. Winners and losers, the weak and the strong, those who say little and try to say it well, and those who babble and prattle their lives away, time hushes all”.

Carl Sandburg

This is my very favourite time of the year. I love how verdant are the woods – how lush is the undergrowth and how still are the trees once the winter winds have abated. These images from Centennial Park in Saanichton here on the peninsula.

I love that someone took the time to turn this fallen tree into a little piece of art. I love that they did so again when the first version slowly decayed and returned to nature.

Tags: nature, Photo, rain-forest, Spring, Summer, Walk

Sea Fret or Haar

September 13, 2024 in Life in BC | Permalink

On the east coast of the United Kingdom – and particularly in Scotland – it is not uncommon throughout the summer season for otherwise pleasant days to be afflicted (or enhanced, according to your predilection) by dense mists that roll in from the ocean.

Of these phenomena the UK Met Office offers the following explanation:

“Coastal fog is usually a result of advection fog which forms when relatively warm, moist air passes over a cool surface. In the UK, the most common occurrence of coastal fog is when warm air moves over the cool surface of the North Sea towards the east coast of the UK.

When this happens, the cold air just above the sea’s surface cools the warm air above it until it can no longer hold its moisture. This forces the warm air to condense, forming tiny particles of water which forms the fog that we see.”

In Scotland such cold sea fogs go by the name ‘Haar’; in the north of England they are called ‘Sea Frets’.

The west coast of Vancouver Island is well known for its sea fogs in summer, the which lead to the month of August being renamed ‘Fogust’.

Here on the east coast of the island these events are perhaps less common, but they still do take us by surprise from time to time…

…as did this one last weekend.

From our vantage point on the lower slopes of Mount Newton we can see over the top of the fog to Sidney Island and to Pender Island. The sea mist lies in between over the Haro Strait…

…or might that be ‘Haar’ – or ‘Sea Fret’?

Tags: fog, Summer, The sea, Weather

That’s logic

July 18, 2023 in Life in BC | Permalink

“Contrariwise . . . if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.”

Lewis Carroll

We are – it should be self-evident – now truly into the depths (or heights, according to your preferences) of summer.

Further – should you not have been aware of the fact – 2023 is an El Nino year. This regular but unwanted visitor – when added to the already serious effects of climate change – results in the sort of world-wide craziness that we have not encountered in my lifetime. Climate records are being broken daily – whether that be in terms of the world-wide wildfire season or of the equally world-wide highest recorded temperatures. These over-heated events seem to alternate with with vicious storms which cause flash flooding.

On the west coast of Canada it has been dry and sunny, but we have been blessed thus far in avoiding such unpleasant phenomena as ‘heat domes’ and ‘atmospheric rivers’. The wildfire smoke too is – for now at least – blowing in the other direction. I gather that it is raining in parts of the UK, though the southern European nations are currently broiling.

It is somewhat difficult, therefore, not to feel guilty when one is seated in comfort, with one’s supper, surrounded by good and friendly folk, listening to the Brentwood Bay Music in the Park of a summer evening. The crew of Victoria luminaries pictured above are last week’s offering – the long running local Steely Dan tribute act – the ‘Pretzel Logic Orchestra’. Their number includes excellent musicians who turn out for various different ensembles and they are all seasoned pros.

Don – The guitarist in the centre of the attached image – can more frequently be found running the sound at Pioneer Park, for other visiting acts. I had a quick word with him after the show this week to congratulate him on his lead guitar work – and in particular on the note perfect rendering of the Larry Carlton guitar solo from ‘Kid Charlemagne‘ (perhaps my favourite ever guitar solo).

In return he told me about the time that he met Larry Carlton!…

Dude!

Tags: Brentwood Bay, Music, Summer, Weather

Substitutes for joy

June 10, 2023 in Life in BC, Photos | 2 comments

“I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy”

C. S. Lewis

This post should have featured wild animals in their natural habitats in the Botswana bush – though perhaps not quite: “Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the plains”… as John Cleese would have it.

Instead, here are some photos of the flora in our garden:

Tags: flora, garden, Photo, Summer

A promissory note

June 27, 2022 in Life in BC | Permalink

“Summer is a promissory note signed in June, its long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January”.

Hal Borland

As gleefully explained in my last post – some form of summer appears at long last to have arrived on the west coast of Canada. It may not last long, but it is most welcome whilst it is here.

That aforementioned post also referred to the Summer Solstice – the longest day and, of course, the shortest night! At the southern end of Vancouver Island that looks like this:

10:00 in the evening. Not fully dark yet:

4:00 in the morning (us older folk often have to get up in the middle of the night):Of course – if it is summer then it must be time to entertain folk in our garden. We duly did so over the weekend – with an impromptu invitation to dearest friends to come over an to cook their dinner on our BBQ. ‘Twas really most pleasant to be able again to sit out of an evening enjoying the balmy BC climate with good friends – even if it meant something of a canter down the home straight of making the garden look presentable – the which it finally very nearly does.

On the Sunday we bobbed across the Saanich inlet on the Mill Bay ferry and once again headed up island to have lunch with The Girl’s mum and another long-standing friend. These summer pursuits are most pleasant, though there is a slight feeling of squeezing things in over this next short period, before we set off on our travels.

I took these shots as we bobbed our way back over to Brentwood Bay at the end of the day:

Tags: Brentwood Bay, food and drink, Friends, Lunch, Summer, Vancouver Island

Summer Solstice

June 22, 2022 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

Whoo-hoo!

Today – the very day after the summer solstice – the weather in Victoria BC has finally turned summery! What is more – rumour has it that the hot spell may stretch through the weekend and into next week…

Who knows – we might even get to try out our new air-conditioning unit sooner than expected!

The only downside to this most pleasant development is that it will probably simply encourage those annoying souls who will insist that the solstice is the first day of summer, in much the same way that they insist that the March equinox is the first day of spring.

Er – no! The summer solstice is mid-summers day. From now on the days are getting shorter…

Sorry – I don’t mean to depress anyone.

It is true of course that all the seasons at these latitudes tend to lag behind the movements of the sun. That does mean that September is very often seen as part of the summer, instead of marking the middle of autumn (fall). Nature very obligingly goes along with such errant notions – and it is in our nature (for most folk, anyway) to want to extend the summer months for as long as possible before winter sets in.

So… enjoy the sunshine (those who are blessed with it). I know we are going to!

Tags: air conditioning, solstice, Summer, Weather

Playing it cool

June 20, 2022 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

I gather that the UK is currently experiencing something of a heatwave. Lucky you, say I to those that reside there. Of course, excessive heat – brought about by climate change – is not a good thing at all, but then neither is an extended, unfulfilled wait for summer.

Long-time followers of these postings may recall a missive that I uploaded at about this time last year (entitled ‘Head for the Hills‘) the which contained a description of the unprecedented ‘heat dome’ under which the west of Canada was then suffering. The Girl and I retreated into the basement of our residence for a week or so to avoid the worst of it, but it was not a pleasant experience.

In a second post, a month later, I reported that we had decided to have an air-conditioning unit added to our forced-air heating system – to protect ourselves against future such weather events. In these strange times all such projects seem to take an inordinate amount of time to be effected. We finally ordered the system at the very start of this year, but the first installation date that we were offered was not until June.

Well – I can now report that we have enjoyed the required visitation, the work has been most efficiently carried out and we are now the proud possessors of equipment necessary to enable us to keep our cool in any future such events. The installation was rendered much easier by our having considered this as a possible option when the furnace was installed back in 2017 – the necessary spacing and services having been left intact should we decide to go this route.

Inside the house there is nothing new to see – unless one looks really closely at our furnace room. Outside there is a small and elegant compressor, tucked away in a part of the estate that we normally only see when cutting the grass.

Now – of course – we are eagerly awaiting an opportunity to try it out! Here we are in the middle of June and the weather has still not caught up with the season. There are few cloudless days, temperatures are still struggling to get up to seasonal norms and – though I have fired up and checked out our garden irrigation system – it is still not running to its normal schedule because there has been no shortage of rain!

I have no doubt that this will all change abruptly in a couple of weeks, when we have set out on our travels and are no longer in residence.

Sigh!

Tags: air conditioning, climate change, heatwave, House, Summer

You win some…

August 8, 2020 in Life as we know it | Permalink

…you lose some!

My last posting celebrated our recent tenth anniversary dinner at the Deep Cove Chalet at the top end of the Saanich peninsula. Though obviously meaningful in its own right this event carried an extra significance in that it was our first meal out at a restaurant since the COVID-19 lock-down took effect in mid-March. We have somewhat lost the habit of dining out and it felt slightly surreal to be doing so again. We were glad in the circumstances that we got to dine outside on the terrace; we are still not sure how we feel about repeating the experience indoors.

In any case the evening started me thinking about all of those good things that have been lost to us all in this peculiar summer as a result of the pandemic. I am not in this instance referring to those who have tragically lost loved ones, friends or colleagues (or even of those who have themselves been ill) – our hearts go out to them all and those that we know are very much in our thoughts.

No – in this case I am thinking of the everyday things that have disappeared or been put on indefinite hold and have as such left a hole in our lives. In addition to dining out and gathering together with friends we very much miss going to the theatre and the loss of the live music scene is keenly felt; at this time of the year we would normally be enjoying the weekly music in the park series in nearby Brentwood Bay.

Travel is not so much missed – the thought of flying at the moment gives me the shivers – but the pleasures of planning the next trip are. I do, of course, also miss live sport. International cricket has recently resumed in the UK – played in empty grounds and with the players essentially quarantined for the duration of the series. Rugby has yet to restart and is sorely missed. We have still not yet seen the end of the Six Nations tournament that was so abruptly truncated in March.

As is my nature I also fell to wondering if any positives could be identified from this much disrupted period. I believe that there are. Not having to commute to work is a definite plus, as is being able to spend more time at home. We are fortunate in that we have not – as have some – gone stir-crazy as a result of a paucity of things to do. We have both been busy, busy, busy… (in my case this includes the writing of many new songs and the re-writing much of my course material for the autumn).

Some people’s gardens have had more attention than they have had for a good long while and one of my great joys has been just how much more time we have spent entertaining in our garden (in a suitably socially distanced manner, of course). In some years this wonderful garden does not seem to get enough use – what with one thing and another. This year has more than made up for any previous lack.

Of course, we have not yet arrived at the hardest part of the lock-down. At the start of it we were all in a state of some shock and just wanted to hunker down and stay out of trouble. By the time we started getting really restless again the summer was upon us and there we pleasant diversions – even if only just outside our doors. Now we are heading rapidly towards the autumn and the winter – with no relief currently in sight.

I fear that it is going to be a long, hard winter…

Tags: COVID-19, entertaining, Friends, Gardens, Music, Summer, Theatre

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

Oh deer (sic)!

August 19, 2019 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

I thought I would post some images (before it was too late) of the relatively few remaining plants in our garden that have not been savaged by deer…

They are contrary ba**ards, these creatures. One year they are picky customers – turning their noses up at all manner of succulence. The next – they will (and do!) eat anything. If it’s green and has leaves – it’s lunch!

This makes planning a deer-proof garden almost impossible. If one is unable – as are we – to circle one’s little plot with a rugged deer-proof fence of some variety then one has little choice but to search out plants that deer don’t care to eat. That would be a good sight easier if they didn’t change their minds from season to season.

Purveyors of plants like to advertise particular combinations of perennials as being deer-proof. I think the deer just see this as a challenge.

“Doesn’t matter if I don’t much care for this – I am going to choke it down anyway just to make a point! Hah!”

Once one has reached the point of imagining deer internal monologues it is probably time to stop, though…