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The Girl

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As if by magic

March 21, 2026 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidWay back in the mid-70s – when I was a considerably younger man than I am now (just about into my 20s in fact!), I had a friend with whom I have since completely lost touch. Given all that has happened since those far-off days (not least the fact that I now live on a different continent) that is really not very surprising.

At the time this friend was also the sound and lighting man for the first band in which I played. Handily he was – by trade – an electrician.

One day, when he and I were constructing something music related (building bass bins for the band’s PA, probably) he gave me a metal biscuit tin; the very one that can be seen in the illustration that heads this post. This tin was full of assorted screws and nuts and bolts that he had collected during his training and his time as an electrician. If ever I needed a screw for something all I had to do was to dig into the tin and I could be sure that I would find something that would be just the job.

The reason that I mention this now is because – as we were making progress with clearing out The Girl’s step-mother’s condo up in Nanaimo – we found some small jars containing random screws – the which I thought I would add to my collection.

As I duly did so it occurred to me that – though taking screws out of the tin is something that has happened repeatedly throughout the decades since the mid-70s – I have only very, very occasionally put anything into it. In spite of this – and here is where the magic comes into it – the level of screws etc in the tin is virtually identical to that which has been the case ever since I was gifted the collection more than fifty years ago.

Spooky – huh?!

 

 

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Passing the baton

March 15, 2026 in Life as we know it | Permalink

<a href="https://www.wannapik.com/vectors/18027">"This work"</a> is licensed under <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CC BY-NC 4.0</a>As a matter of self-discipline I have for some years now tried my best to post to this journal at least once a week. Eagle-eyed observers will have noticed that I have – of late – fallen down on the job somewhat.

On this occasion there is good reason for such lacklustre performance. I hope that the gentle reader will indulge me if I meander around the houses a little by way of explanation…

Back in the dim and distant past – on March 7th 2014 to be precise – I posted to this forum a missive entitled ‘The Music of Time‘. As is my habit that post too danced around its true topic for a while, before heading for the home plate. The subjects of this creed were a pair of engagements on consecutive days in March 2014 with which The Girl and I had been involved. Remember that we were yet living in the UK at that juncture – and neither of us had reached the point of retiring (for the first time!). The key element of that posting ran as follows:

“The first of the weekend’s events was the memorial service for a very long-standing acquaintance – my oldest-friend’s wife’s father – whom I have known for more than four decades. He was, of course, of my parents’ generation – of whom in our circle only a very few now remain. He enjoyed a good life and the occasion was very much a celebration thereof rather than being overly solemn. None the less, such acts of remembrance always invite a degree of introspection regarding the transience of our existence – this one being no exception”.

A dozen and more years have passed since that gathering and you will doubtless be unsurprised to hear that of those of my parents’ generation who were closely connected to us in the UK – by familial bonds or by mutual friendship – there are now none left alive. Little less surprising will be the fact that on this side of the pond – with a few exceptions – the same applies (The Girl is four years younger than I!).

Sadly there is now one less. Last week The Girl’s step mother passed away in Nanaimo here on Vancouver Island. This wonderful woman – at the age of 89 and having endured years of chronic pain – checked herself into hospital on a premonition that her time was approaching.

I met this splendidly independent and indomitable woman (who would think nothing of disappearing into the desert on her own for weeks at a time) when The Girl first brought me to Canada in 2006. She and the Girl’s father then lived in Nanaimo, but they had previously lived on Gabriola island (when not voyaging to Desolation Sound and beyond on one of their boats – ‘The Kindred Spirit’ or ‘Halcyon II’). The Girl and her step mother had a great deal in common and they were very close.

The Girl being the sole executor of her step mother’s estate we are now having to spend much time in Nanaimo, sorting out the issues of the estate. For her this we are happy to do.

Rest in Peace – Alice June Dawson.

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The diplomat

October 4, 2025 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age”

Robert Frost

My last post (on the subject of the respective anniversaries of my first meeting with The Girl, of our subsequent wedding five years later and of the completion of the purchase of our splendid west coast home a decade ago) made no reference to yet another very important and particular celebration that occurs at this point in the year… that of The Girl’s birthday! The omission was because – as of the date of posting – the day concerned had not yet arrived.

Well – it has now done so and indeed the day has come and gone, with appropriate festivity and indulgence. As is usually the way with such events, however, a single day is nowhere near enough to squeeze in all of the necessary celebration. We are currently, therefore, traversing the well-deserved ‘Birthday Week’ with its full program of gatherings, visits and general good cheer.

Hoorah for the Birthday Girl, say I… and many, many happy returns!

Happy birthday!

 

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Like birthdays

September 29, 2025 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Anniversaries are like birthdays: occasions to celebrate and to think ahead, usually among friends with whom one shares not only the past but also the future”.

Zbigniew Brzezinski

Before I get stuck into the list of subjects that I have been ignoring for the past couple of months (as discussed in this last post) here is one more topic that I really should have touched upon before now.

For The Girl and I, 2025 is something of a year of significant anniversaries. When we moved to Canada back in 2015 we stayed initially (and for for several months!) with friends of ours here on the peninsula. This gave us the opportunity to search for a new home of our own – but also gave time for the shipping container loaded with all of our worldly possessions to traverse the globe before catching up with us here on the west coast.

During the summer of 2015 several months of feverish but abortive house hunting left us wondering if we were going to find ourselves with a container full of treasures but nowhere to put them. Several offers on properties fell through before we finally placed an offer on what is now our lovely home, following a single viewing on the very day that the house hit the market

A glance back at my calendar for the period reveals an event on the 29th September that is simply titled “House!“. Yes – this very day is tenth anniversary of our moving into our Canadian home.

Back at the end of July this year there was another significant celebration for The Girl and I – that of our fifteenth wedding anniversary. That event is irrevocably tied to yet another celebratory occasion – this year being the twentieth anniversary of our first having met.

I firmly believe that it is fitting to acknowledge our great good fortune by marking these milestones – even though it does also make one realise just how quickly the time is passing.

We are most grateful to have things to celebrate – and friends with whom to celebrate them – in the face of all of the troubles in this precarious world.

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Birds of a feather

January 24, 2025 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Are you one of those good people who find themselves mildly annoyed (or even a little nauseous!) when long-term couples regale all and sundry with overly eager descriptions of their togetherness – their single-mindedness – their soul-matedness – their inability not to finish each others…

…sandwiches! (joke courtesy of The Simpsons – May 1st 2005).

Should that be the case my advice would be to skip this post and go on to the next one (though you may need to wait a day or two for that one to appear).

This post is about one of those incidents. You have been warned…

A couple of weeks back I went into our local town – Sidney by the Sea – to purchase some comestibles. I suggested to The Girl before departing that – should anything that we had overlooked in our list-making occur to her whilst I was out – she should text or phone me to let me know. This is pretty much par for the course these days for us ‘old’ folks.

As I entered Sidney I recalled that I was in need of a particular dietary supplement. Since I would be passing close to a local health shop it would make sense to stop there and to purchase said item before continuing. This I duly did.

Whilst in the health food store I thought I had better have a scout around in case anything else occurred to me as being a missing essential. I came to a stop in front of the Golden Flax Seeds. Now, because I assist The Girl in the preparation of her daily smoothie I was aware that she was running short of this particular ingredient. Should I just get her some – or should I call her to check?

I chose the latter course (this is not my first rodeo!).

To my surprise The Girl did not pick up the phone. Hmmm! The best laid plans, etc. What to do?

I decided to send her a text. I opened the messaging app so to do only to discover that a new text message had just arrived… from her! It read, simply:

”Golden Flax Seed!”

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Simpcw Days

September 26, 2024 in Life in BC | Permalink

To the North Thompson last week for the annual gathering of the First Nation of which The Girl is a proud member.

On Thursday last I drove up to the North Thompson to join The Girl (who had flown up a few days earlier) in a long weekend of re-uniting with family, participating in cultural and outdoor activities and gratefully and humbly attending most meaningful traditional ceremonies.

My weekend did not get off to an entirely auspicious start since – having disembarked from the ferry at Tsawwassen at about 10:30 in the morning – what is normally a five hour journey ended up taking seven hours… the which included just two 10-15 minute comfort/food breaks.

With the roads being very busy anyway and the Trans-Canada highway subject to considerable amount of construction work, one (or more) accidents within the road-works caused the highway to be temporarily closed. Three lanes of huge semis (articulated lorries) and pickup trucks (trucks) were filtered down to one lane… before we were booted off the highway altogether, with no helpful signage to guide us to where we might re-join the route. A temperamental sat-nav in The Girl’s Mazda didn’t help and I had to resort to following the biggest truck in the hope that it was going the same way as was I.

By the time I finally reached Barriere I was well and truly ‘toast’…

…all of which was immediately forgotten first thing the next morning when we clambered eagerly aboard an old yellow school bus to head off on a whitewater rafting excursion down the bottom seven kilometres of the Clearwater River. Whitewater rafting has long been on my bucket list and the experience was – as expected – a huge blast. I had hoped that some promised photos of our exploits – taken by the whitewater rafting team – would have arrived by now and could accompany this post. Never mind! Maybe later…

As indicated above I felt greatly honoured to be able to observe the ceremonies and rituals that occupied the last morning of our stay. I have read a fair amount about such things since coming to Canada but to be present at one was really most affecting. The Girl was nominated (thank you to her generous nominator) to be one of those honoured in the blanket ceremony – the which was completely unexpected…

…though well deserved!

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Logistics

April 7, 2024 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Logistics by <a href="http://www.nyphotographic.com/">Nick Youngson</a> <a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC BY-SA 3.0</a> <a href="http://pix4free.org/">Pix4free</a>In my last missive I told the sorry tale of the Mobiliser that has ceased to mobilize!

The Girl ain’t happy – and when The Girl ain’t happy… well – you can join the dots for yourself.

So – what is to be done?

Naturally, I contacted the small English firm who make and sell the device. I sent them a recording of the machine’s death rattle and explained the symptoms. They were most helpful and – sight unseen – hazarded a cautious guess at what the problem might be (servo motor gearbox). They even gave me a ball park (and somewhat heart-stopping) figure for fixing the beast…

…if we could get the Mobiliser back to the UK.

Now – this thing folds in half and we sensibly kept the big cardboard box in which it came, but when packaged up the thing has dimensions of:

length: 46″ – breadth: 27″ – depth: 9″

…so – it isn’t small – and it weighs 40lb!

Canada Post were helpful – but quoted us a figure of around $800 dollars for the one-way trip. I swallowed hard, but that was as nothing compared to Fedex who quoted me double that amount (and are probably amongst the cheaper carriers). Canada Post man also suggested that I try Air Canada Cargo – which I thought was a good idea. They would have been happy to help, but pointed out that getting the box back to Heathrow is only half of the battle. Once there one has to hire a broker to get the thing through customs.

“The cheapest option” – opined Canada Post man – “would be to take it there yourself“.

Now – as it happens The Girl and I are heading to the UK in about two and a half weeks time. The trouble is, we are not going to the south east – where the company is based – but to Scotland. If all goes to plan we should be at Heathrow for about six hours as we transit from west to north. Perhaps there is a way of arranging a hookup with some helpful person who could relieve us of this weighty package and see that it gets to the manufacturer… then, three weeks later, could get it back to us on the return journey!

This is the sort of plan that works fine in practice but contains all sort of traps and gotchas that can throw the whole thing into chaos and confusion. “But surely” – I sense you thinking – “air travel these days has become so routine and prosaic that all such things must be feasible“. All we need to do, you might think, is to cast our minds back to our recently travel experiences to set our minds at rest… Oh!!…

Contemplation and negotiations continue. We are determined  that we must come up with some solution, because The Girl is sorely (see what I did there?) missing her regular treatments.

Look out for further installments….

 

 

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Tempting the gods

March 28, 2024 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“There is such a thing as tempting the gods. Talking too much, too soon and with too much self-satisfaction has always seemed to me a sure way to court disaster. The forces of retribution are always listening. They never sleep”.

Meg Greenfield

Just a few short posts back – in an offering entitled ‘Make it beautiful‘ – I ventured a short disquisition on the subject of permanence and impermanence. I wasn’t being particularly provocative – or so I thought. Apparently the fates saw things differently and no more than a couple of posts later I found myself having to relay the tale of our exploding (or more likely imploding) shower screen in a post titled ‘Synchronicity‘.

That particular mess is going to take a while to clear up (figuratively speaking!). The manufacturers of the screen rapidly ‘fessed up to what was most likely a manufacturing fault by the simple expedient of sending us, in short order, a replacement under warranty. I got in touch with our excellent contractor who had overseen our original renovation and came away with a list of contacts to get the bath re-surfaced (lots of pits and scratches from the falling glass) a man to install the new screen and another to put us in a new hot water tank (not directly related but I did mention it in the first post above).

The problem is that these things must be done in the correct sequence… nothing can happen until the bath is restored, and the bath restorers clearly have enough work on to take them through to next Christmas. I am still awaiting a call-back…

I had hoped that things would now settle down on the bad news front. Sadly, it seems that the gods are not finished with us quite yet.

A little over a decade ago – whilst The Girl and I were still resident in the UK – we purchased a device that the manufacturers describe as a ‘spinal mobiliser’. It is a sort of massage machine upon which one lays and which – by means of a system of rollers – stretches out the vertebrae whilst simultaneously massaging the surrounding muscle tissues. We came across this thing at (of all places!) the Windsor Horse Show. Horsemen and women are, it seems, much in need of such treatments after a heavy day’s competing in the saddle.

Now, as long as I have known her The Girl has suffered from Sciatica. There at the horse show she hopped (gently) up onto the demo device on the stand and immediately fell in love with the relief that it provided. The machine was an expensive beast – costing several thousand pounds even back then – so we hired one for a month to be sure that it was worth the outlay.

The answer being greatly in the affirmative we scraped together the monies and made the investment. When we later came to Canada the machine came with us (there being no equivalent over here, apparently) though we were obliged to purchase a big step-down transformer because the device only ran on 220V.

It would be an understatement to say that the Mobiliser has served us well and it has more than paid for itself. The Girl uses it most days and it is quite common for those visiting us to jump aboard as well. It was, thus, was a considerable shock when – just over a week ago – the machine emitted a plaintive rattling sound and gave up the ghost.

So – we now have something else that requires fixing. I shall have more to say on the subject in my next post.

Needless to say – The Girl is not happy.

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Synchronicity

March 3, 2024 in Life as we know it | Permalink

A couple of posts back I was musing upon the permanence/impermanence of things – including those items of domestic appurtenance with which we surround ourselves.

My last post concerned the domestic refurbishments/renewals we have recently effected to enhance our living spaces.

What odds then that this next post must needs concern a matter that touches on both of those last two topics. As the saying goes in London (on the subject of the London omnibus):

”You wait fifteen minutes and then three come along at once!”

Last weekend The Girl flew off to Prince George (for non-Canadians: in BC but way up north and still in the middle of winter) for a work event. She did not return until late on Wednesday evening.

The day before her return I had, in the morning, attended my regular fitness class – and had upon my return home made myself a cup of coffee, the which I was enjoying whilst checking my emails at the very peninsula in our kitchen at which I am writing this missive.

All of a sudden there was an almighty crash from somewhere close at hand, though I was unable to ascertain immediately whence the sound had emanated. Naturally I at once set off around the house to see if I could discover the cause of this loud report. The Master Bedroom was clear, but when I entered the en suite bathroom I came face to face with this:

Wow! The inner fixed glass screen of our bath/shower had shattered into a gazillion fragments, most of which had fallen into the bath. There followed an extensive and delicate operation to remove all of the glass debris from the room. Naturally it had gone everywhere.

The very next thing to do was to question the InterWebNet as to how such a thing might have happened. We had the shower screen installed when we renovated the house in 2017, so it is not that old. Google informed me that such happenings are not exactly rare – though the odds of being hit by flying glass whilst in the shower are apparently a fair bit less than those of being struck by lightening.

There is – it seems – always a cause for such a calamity, be that a manufacturing defect or damage caused to the screen during installation. Tempered glass is, of course, effectively under constant tension and a small flaw can spread suddenly and explosively… as we have seen.

Now, of course, we will have to battle to get the screen replaced. Sigh!

I was just very glad that The Girl was not at home – and certainly that she was not in the shower. I am also very glad that I was at home. I don’t go into the en suite (the which is The Girl’s bathroom) except to hoover it – and had I not heard the crash the first we would have known about it was when she arrived home at 11:30pm from Prince George and went into her bathroom to prepare for bed. That would definitely not have been a laughing matter.

Phew!

 

 

 

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Getting started

January 26, 2024 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Start by <a href="http://www.nyphotographic.com/">Nick Youngson</a> <a rel="license" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/">CC BY-SA 3.0</a> <a href="http://pix4free.org/">Pix4free</a>If you have a dream, you can spend a lifetime studying, planning, and getting ready for it. What you should be doing is getting started.

Drew Houston

In these recent posts – ‘Adjusting the Sails‘, ‘One and One and One is Three‘ and ‘The World of Work‘ – I sought to bring the gentle reader gently up to date with how things had come to rest for The Girl and I at the culmination of a particularly – er – ‘eventful’ year (though aren’t they all nowadays!). What I have not yet done is to peep out from underneath the metaphorical duvet – to see if I can detect good news anywhere betwixt where we are now and the distant horizon of 2025.

So – this is what we know currently about what 2024 has in store for us…

In terms of travel 2023 was – for us – a complete shocker. Without incessantly ploughing the same furrow it is worth reminding ourselves that there was a point last year when we seriously thought that our travelling days were over. Not so – you will be happy to hear. We are already well advanced with the planning for another expedition for April/May this year.

“Which exotic part of the globe will you be visiting?” – I hear you cry. Well – I’m sure we all have our own definitions of ‘exotic’. This is one of ours.

The Girl and I have for a considerable while now felt drawn to visit the mystical realm of Scotland. Even casual viewers of these witterings will be aware of my love for – and great pride in – the home of my ancestors (the which I inherited from my father). My family travelled many times to the highlands for holidays just as soon as we were old enough. My father was a great hill walker and he and I (and sometimes my younger brother) climbed many a peak in different parts of the land. I have regularly over the years visited both Edinburgh and Glasgow for work and – with my theatrical hat on – ventured to the Edinburgh Fringe on more occasions than I can now enumerate.

The Girl has toured parts of Scotland just once before – with a good guide and great friend – but she and I have not been there together and we feel a very strong urge so to do.

Anyway – more on that trip as it unfolds…

In ‘The World of Work‘ I wrote:

“During the autumn just past The Girl reached the conclusion that her eight years at the volunteer service was enough. As it happens the service was undergoing some restructuring and she was able to do a deal whereby she would hand over the reigns to a full-time replacement, with a negotiated package that would enable her to take some time to figure out what – if anything – she wanted to do next. She is thus once again retired (for now!)“.

Following what might just be the shortest retirement ever… The Girl has just this week started an exiting new venture, about which I can currently reveal nothing at all, but concerning which I suspect a great deal will be said in the months to come. Watch – as they say – this space!

I have already dropped huge hints about creative developments in the musical department. We are firmly expecting a new album to put in an appearance at some point this year – and if we could play live somewhere to welcome it, then that would be splendid.

As ever at this time of the year there are many other exciting prospects bubbling under and – though there are also many very good reasons to feel nervous about 2024 – I like to approach the year under an umbrella of optimism. (Google assures me that – somewhat to my surprise – I am not the first to coin that particular euphemism. Oh well!).

Very best wishes to you all for 2024.

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