The Girl

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The world of work

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

In my post of December 15th – last year (how time doth fly!) – entitled ‘A metaphor for endings‘ – I promised updates on a number of the strands of our lives. There is one such left outstanding – the which I feel I must needs address forthwith…

…the world of work!

When The Girl and I ‘retired’ to Vancouver Island back in the summer of 2015 it had been our intention to be just that… retired! So – how did that work out?

Well – The Girl lasted all of six months before she started looking for some form of employment. The tale of her finding a job with a volunteer service in Saanich during April 2016 may be found here:

I held out rather longer – not re-joining the workforce until January 2018 – but since then we have both been willing (if variously part-time) contributors to our local community – and felt all the better for it. Being healthily provided for in the pension department it is not exactly that we needed additional funds (though a little extra is always good to have) – more that we both needed a sense of purpose and to feel that we were pulling our respective weights.

Until now…

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!).

I have now taught on term contracts at the College for six years and – in spite of trembling on the verge of entering my eighth decade (in but a few days from now) I am quite happy to go on so doing. This term I am teaching a new (to me!) course that will be offered online only. I am scrambling at the moment to put it all together, but I have no doubt that things will settle down – as they usually do.

Imagine my surprise, however, when the Chair of my department offered me a continuing post in place of my habitual two contracts a year. I didn’t see that coming and I am not entirely certain that I really care for the idea – rather enjoying being a free-spirit! I do, however, feel rather flattered to have been made the offer. I don’t need to decide until around April time – so watch this space…

As ever, it seems, very little of what has befallen us has turned out exactly as we predicted when we came to Canada.

Life does contain such riches…

Tags: college, Retirement, teaching, The Girl, work

A metaphor for endings

December 15, 2023 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Everything has seasons, and we have to be able to recognize when something’s time has passed and be able to move into the next season. Everything that is alive requires pruning as well, which is a great metaphor for endings”.

Henry Cloud

Those who are anything but the most casual of visitors to this digital bailiwick will be aware that this has been a particularly trying year for The Girl and I. The implications of our various travails will inevitably rumble on for some time yet to come, but I will do my very best not to bore on about them too much here.

However, as the prepended Henry Cloud quote aptly reminds us, we are approaching the ending of the year and the changing of the seasons. Things can and do change constantly (of which there is nothing to be afraid) and we must needs indeed carry out some regular pruning, so that the blossoms may flourish anew in the years to come.

Those here for the long haul will already be aware of my habit of looking both forward and back (Janus-like) at this juncture of the year and will be unsurprised to find me taking full advantage of that annual ritual to update the gentle reader on a variety of present topics over the festive season.

These subjects I will certainly address:

The fallout from our aborted ‘trip of a lifetime’ to Botswana back in May/June. Progress on the recovery of our disbursements is glacial – but just consider what those gargantuan ice-flows are capable of inflicting upon a landscape. It may be a grind but ‘justice’ must eventually be done.
The Girl has decided that it is time for some major changes in her life. Old doors will be closed but new ones almost certainly opened. Stay tuned for the full details.
This time last year The Chanteuse and I proposed some loftily ambitious extensions to our musical project. Whereas things are taking longer to realise than we might have hoped, we are making good progress. There is exciting news to report – the which will be the subject of a post very soon.
Each year I ask myself afresh if I wish to continue with my periodic teaching at the College. Now, I have a big birthday coming up shortly (I do not really celebrate the lesser ones) so the question is particularly pertinent. I find to my surprise that the playing field has altered somewhat since last I gave the matter my consideration.

These – and other pressing subjects – will have lights shone bright upon them in the interests of illumination.

For now – I am writing this at 10 o’clock of the evening in the arrivals hall at Victoria International airport – awaiting The Girl’s timely return from Mexico. As I am considerably less than half the chap that I can be whenever she is not around, this is not a moment too soon.

Tags: Christmas, Music, New Year, The Girl, Travel, work

Cruelly sweet

December 9, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start, when memory plays an old tune upon the heart“

Eliza Cook

Way back in the dim and distant past – in what was virtually a pre-historic era in blog-world-time – The Girl and I took a poor decision; that we would live on different continents for what now feels like an absolute age. In the event we managed about ten months, with her resident here in Victoria and I yet back in the Old Country.

What were we thinking?

Those whose length of service qualifies them as blog-old-timers (yes – there are a few!) will recall that her departure for the West Coast of Canada back in 2012 was indeed the spark from which this online journal took fire. Commenced as a displacement activity as much as anything it rapidly became apparent that these scribblings might be useful as a way of keeping in touch with a small community of those either related to… or long-standing friends of… this slightly odd couple with the questionable decision-making skills.

“For what reason…” – I hear you ask, somewhat warily – “is this memory playing an old tune etc, etc – at this particular time?!“

Well – I refer you to this post from December 2017 – back in the pre-COVID world. On that occasion The Girl and I both visited Puerto Vallarta together, on what was my first ever trip to Mexico. Her timeshare share (huh!) is still there and still being paid for, so it is entirely proper that she should make use of the facility… the which she is currently doing. The real question is “Why aren’t I there with her?” – looking after her and keeping her safe. The answer is – of course – that I have still the end of term to negotiate, with its concomitant group of students suddenly keener than they have thus far been to get a decent grade at the end of the course.

The Girl and I are thus once again living in different nation states – though only for two weeks this time. Whereas she thoroughly deserves the rest and recuperation after what has been a tough year – I still don’t care for the apart-ness of the whole thing.

Guess I’ll just have to ‘cowboy up‘ and get on with it!

Tags: college, Holiday, Mexico, The Girl

Happy birthday!

October 2, 2023 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Yes – ’tis that time of year again at which to celebrate The Girl’s birthday…

Hooray and hoorah!

Happy Birthday to The Girl!

It now being (suddenly) autumn here on the west coast of Canada, the weather has given up any pretense of being remotely summery. Today is gray and rainy and no day for going out or doing anything much at all.

Fortunately we already did step out – a couple of nights back – to The Courtney Room at the Magnolia Hotel in Victoria for a very splendid dinner – complete with a quite lovely bottle of St Aubin.

Yum!

The festivities will extend into next weekend when – as I have made mention of previously elsewhere – we head to Vancouver to see Peter Gabriel (and to do other celebratory things!)

What jolly japes!

Happy Birthday!

Tags: Birthday, Celebration, Dining, The Girl

The wrong week

August 28, 2023 in Life in BC | Permalink

As trailed in my recent post The Girl and I have been (and are still at time of writing!) traveling within British Columbia. This trip had several purposes – to attend an engagement organised by The Girl’s First Nation – to (re)visit friends and family – to explore parts of BC that I, at least, have not yet seen – and to compensate in some small measure for our disastrous venture abroad earlier in the summer…

In this latter regard I am reminded of Lloyd Bridges’ running gag as Steve McCroskey in the classic 80s film comedy – ‘Airplane’. As things veer from bad to worse McCroskey repeats the mantra:

”Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up smoking/drinking/amphetamines…” etc, etc

Well – it looks like this has been the wrong year for us to go out traveling!

Now – it is clearly in poor taste to make jokes at a time that other folk have been suffering terrible loses (though mercifully not in terms of life and limb) but that is fundamentally the way that we Brits cope with such things.

A week and a half ago we headed for Kelowna in the Okanagan for The Girl’s three day engagement. Those readers who do not live in Canada may not have been following recent events in BC too closely, but that Thursday was the night that the big wildfire north of Kelowna swept down over the mountain and devoured the first of the several hundred properties in West Kelowna that have since been burned to the ground.

The image at the top of this post was taken from our hotel room shortly after we arrived. By the next morning very little could be seen at all.

The engagement was cancelled late that first evening and we were advised to retreat from Kelowna the next morning so that hotel rooms could be made available for those who had been forced to evacuate their homes. We made an early dash for Kamloops whilst the roads were yet open.

Following the engagement we had planned a few nights further south in the Okanagan – at Peachland – but by the Sunday evening travel orders had been issued to prevent tourists from driving to various critical areas of the province, the which was necessary so that the emergency vehicles would not be hampered in their operations and also so that further souls would not be put at risk, adding to the heavy burden already upon those services.

We were extremely fortunate, then, in that The Girl’s cousin – who lives in Kamloops but who has a lakeside cabin in the North Thompson which has previously been featured in these ramblings – invited us to spend a few days in that smoky but relatively safe part of the province.

This offer we most gratefully accepted. Pictures and further excursion meanderings to follow…

Tags: British Columbia, Hoilday, The Girl, Travel, wildfires

Either he’s dead…

July 13, 2023 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“…or my watch has stopped”.

Groucho Marx

Back in the day – whenever that was – I would hazard a guess that more folk wore wristwatches than did not. I certainly did and as someone who spent a life in a timetable-centred environment (education in my case) these handy devices were/are a godsend. When being late is not an option knowing the time is essential.

I was at school myself back in the days of the cheap mechanical watch (and expensive ones too, of course, though not for the likes of me) and it will come as no surprise that my first watch was just such – by Timex as I recall. The quartz motion did not really make an appearance on wrists until the mid to late 1970s, followed a while later by the first digital watches. The big change – which resulted in a dramatic reduction of watch wearing – came rather later, in the early 2000s. The ubiquity of mobile devices – whence most young folk now glean their consciousness of the passing of the hours (if they do at all!) – has rendered the humble wristwatch obsolete as far as most are concerned.

Not – naturally – to me. I am uncomfortable if I don’t have a watch on my wrist and I find myself looking down at said appendage rather more frequently than I am usually aware of. Also – I am an old-fashioned kind of a guy and hold no truck with such new-fangled fancies as quartz or digital watches. I do make an exception for the automatic winding mechanism, which evolved during the early part of the last century, but that’s as far as I go.

As it happens, I don’t really care for sports watches either – so my chosen timepiece tends to be an everyday or dress watch; analogue in every sense – though it can make use of my motion to wind itself.

This watch will be familiar to those who know me – the very lovely Omega Seamaster that The Girl bought me the year we got married. She would have liked to have found me a watch fashioned during the year of my birth, but that proved too difficult – and 1966 was a good year in many ways for us Brits so it does have a good resonance.

The post linked above does chronicle – however – the problem with the routine wearing of such a lovely timepiece. The Seamaster runs splendidly – until it doesn’t… and when it stops it does so expensively. In part that is due to the difficulty of finding a watch repairer who can service and fix vintage watches and the availability of any parts required. If you reread the post you will see that the watch was repaired in 2021. Sadly it stopped again last year and awaits further attention.

Whenever the Seamaster has been ‘hors de combat’ I have reverted to the first real watch that I purchased (back in the early 1980s) – the Oris Big Crown pilot’s watch. Unlike the Seamaster these watches are not really collectors items, but they were well made and this one has given me forty years of really good and reliable service…

…until recently!

To be fair – the Oris has not stopped. If I leave it sitting on the dining room table it will quite happily run accurately and well. If I put it on my wrist – however – it will pause randomly during the day for variable periods. I suspect the automatic mechanism needs some attention, but these watches are harder than the Omega when it comes to find a willing repairer to take a look.

Of course – an unreliable timepiece is no good at all if one’s day is ruled by deadlines. As a result I have found myself obliged to purchase a new watch – for the first time since the early 80s.

…and here it is. This is a Seiko Presage ‘Zen Garden’. Not everybody’s choice, but a good solid automatic analogue watch with a better than average movement. My requirements in making that choice were that it must look pretty and give me another forty years of reliable service – the which should certainly see me out!

Tags: Omega, Oris, Seiko, The Girl, Watch

Finally!

February 3, 2023 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Clearly a day to celebrate!

Back in May 2012 The Girl was about to pay a visit to the UK so that she could attend her citizenship ceremony…

Those who have not been following this saga since I started blogging back in January 2012 may start scratching their heads at this point and wondering about the chronology… Actually, it is all quite simple. The Girl came to Victoria in March that year to take up a job opportunity that was (or appeared to be) too good to miss out on. I remained in the UK and the plan was that I would retire early in the summer of 2013 and join her in Canada at that point. Quite apart from the fact that living – er! – apart, was actually itself a very silly idea – as it turned out so was her taking the job. Later in the year it all went spectacularly tits-up and we ended up back in England for another couple of years.

However, back in May 2012 she had already applied for – and been granted – British Citizenship. The ceremony at the end of May was the end of that little chapter in this long and complex story.

The reason that I mention it at all is because her citizenship ceremony provided me with a suitable trigger to initiate my first attempt at applying for Permanent Residency for Canada – an essential prerequisite to moving here. How that process – and the whole move itself – panned out is the very basis for this online journal. Safe to say that it turned out to be quite a saga. If the details are of interest (perhaps you are contemplating such a move yourself) then searching the archive for posts in the category ‘Moving to Canada’ will reveal all – and then some!

Two rounds of PR applications (her return to the UK put the first attempt on hold) – retirement and the move to British Columbia in 2015 – a five year period living here before I could apply for citizenship – that lengthy process itself, culminating in my Citizenship Ceremony in the fall of last year – and finally, the slightly bumpy ride of applying for a Canadian passport to add to my UK one. All this has taken somewhat more than a decade to come to fruition, but today… today…!

…my passport was finally delivered!

Whooo-hoo!!

There it is at the top of the page, nestling up to my British passport. So – we are now both fully ‘citizened’ up and documented to travel…

…of which more in the next post!

Tags: citizenship, Immigrant, passport, permanent resident, The Girl

Looking back

January 19, 2023 in Life as we know it | Permalink

Ah! January…

‘Tis the time of year to reflect on the one that has just passed. Did it measure up to our hopes and expectations? Given the state of the world, did we have much in the way of hopes and expectation for it to live up to?

As ever, the best way to find out is to locate the equivalent postings from this time last year and to see exactly what – if anything much – we were hoping for…

…then we can see if any of it actually happened!

…and after that we can repeat the exercise for yet another year!

Hang on a sec while I have a shufti…

OK – here is our basic wish-list from last year – with progress reports in red:

To get to see family and friends – …yes we did… see below!
To be able to entertain again – …there was indeed some entertaining – and not all of it outdoors
To dine out – again – …hoorah! We can once again eat out (and on occasion, somewhat splendidly!)
To see some live theatre – …well, yes.. but not so much in Canada. See below:
To enjoy some live music – …once again – one event only – Barney Bentall’s Cariboo Express in November
To attend a live sporting event (preferably Rugby!) – …sadly not
To be able to travel… anywhere – …well – speaking of which…

In addition:

It is our fervent wish that we get to travel to the UK during the coming summer. Whether or not this happens will depend entirely on the course that the pandemic takes on both sides of the pond over the coming months. We are not holding our collective breaths.

…and this we duly did – emboldened by visits in the spring from good friends in the UK and from an old and most dear friend from New York. The expedition was most enjoyable, even though we did not get to see everyone that we would have liked to have seen. We got to the theatre in London and Bath – we dined splendidly and well – we finished our trip with a lovely sojourn in Paris. The downside? We came back with COVID. Oh well!

We will carry out some further domestic upgrades – air-conditioning to guard against future ‘heat domes’ – a new hot water system so that we can console ourselves with even longer baths when things don’t work out as we would wish.

…well – we did the air-conditioning – and just in time for a hot spell too. An excellent notion which works well. The hot water tank replacement is still on hold – but will get done…

Normalised work! The Girl would like to be able get back out into the wider world and to visit clients face to face again – not to mention paying a nostalgic visit to her office! I would like to teach students who can actually see my face as I do so.

…pretty well normalised as it turns out. The Girl is back doing (somewhat cautious) home visits and going into the office two days a week. Last spring I was teaching in an N95 respirator and a headset (for streaming purposes). Not much fun. By the autumn I was back to face to face teaching without a mask – even though I wore one when around the enclosed bits of campus.

More music! One positive over the last year is that I have been able to write more than enough new songs for the Chanteuse and I to put together another ‘album’. We are currently recording her vocals on these tracks and we are making good progress. Look for further pronouncements in the coming months.

…Last year was indeed a good year in musical terms. The Chanteuse and I finished our third album and at the end of August Anam Danu released ‘Soul Making‘. We were even able to have a lovely reception in our garden to celebrate the release and – for the first time – we played a few tracks from the album live to the assembled friends and supporters. The feedback we have had regarding the music has been overwhelmingly positive and we both have a very real sense of achievement.

So – in spite of all the many troubles in the wider world, 2022 was a good year for The Girl and I. What will we hope to accomplish in 2023?… Check back in a few posts’ time to find out.

Tags: Anam Danu, Music, New Year, Renovation, teaching, The Girl, Travel, work

A mixed bag

October 7, 2022 in Life in BC | Permalink

…random ramblings on a recent rag-bag of topics from the Pacific northwest…

First things first… ‘Tis once again the time of year to wish The Girl a very happy – if slightly belated (in real world, if not in blog-world terms) birthday! Yay! Happy B-day!

Life here on the west coast of Canada trundles along in its usual way. We are both busy and things are returning to some semblance of order now that the western world has decided that COVID is over and done with (even if it isn’t!). Secure in the knowledge that our multiple vaccine boosters and immunity from having had a dose of the lurgy make us a little more protected than we were before, we have on occasion stepped out to eat and to attend other public social events.

We even decided that it was safe enough to go back to the theatre – a least for a few months until the ‘immunity’ wears off. We had tickets for a play at The Belfry for The Girl’s birthday but the performance was cancelled at the last minute due to ‘illness’ (now, what could that be?). Our tickets have been rescheduled for this coming weekend, so let’s see how that goes.

Following the grim (as in cold and wet) spring and early summer, concerning which I posted at length earlier this year, the weather finally got its act together and we are enjoying a most pleasant Indian Summer. Temperatures remain in the 20s C and we have had no rain to speak of for several months. The garden could really do with some to be honest, but I guess it will come soon enough.

Apropos of very little, I feel that I should extend my commiserations to those who yet reside in the UK. Though I try not to comment on politics in these dark days it would not be – I believe – controversial to describe the UK political establishment since 2016 a a complete sh*tshow. However, even by such measures the new incumbents of 10 Downing Street might just prove be the worst and most dangerous yet.

Why do I care? Well – last week’s shenanigans wiped a considerable chunk off my monthly pension income as the chancellor carelessly crashed sterling and sent exchange rates plummeting (or soaring! – depends which end of the chain one is at). The subsequent recovery has been encouraging, but the knowledge that this ruling cabal’s dangerous ideology might well cause permanent damage is chilling to those of us who have no say in the matter.

In a strange Hitchcock-ian coda: yesterday I was out in the garden, underneath our deck (the which forms a sort of veranda across the whole width of the back of the house). It was impossible to miss the fact that – out in the stand of trees that border our property to the east – a huge and raucous convocation of birds had gathered. I could not actually see most of them, as the trees are tall and there is plenty of foliage. They were making sufficient noise, however, that it was impossible to ignore them. Quite startlingly so, in fact.

I took one step out from the cover of the deck and immediately the whole gathering took off. There must have been thousands of them (clearly of more than one species). Their parting darkened the skies for a moment or two and then they were gone – and a sudden and total silence descended.

Now – I wonder what this portends?

Tags: Autumn, COVID-19, Politics, The Belfry, The Girl, Theatre, Weather

Vancity

April 14, 2022 in Flotsam and Jetsam, Photos | Permalink

My apologies! I have of late been falling down on my blogging duties. I offer as no more than a feeble excuse that things have been in-feasibly and, perhaps, unexpectedly busy of late. The Winter term at College has been building to its climax; we have been entertaining friends from abroad (more of that in a further post) and I have been trying to get a grip on all that is going on in the garden – between bouts of (less-unexpectedly) inclement weather.

I know… poor show all round!

I did promise more on the trip to Vancouver that featured in my last post. I took some photos and, whilst they are not that exciting, I will nonetheless share them with (ie – force them upon) the gentle reader.

As I mentioned in that previous post, the purpose of the visit was for The Girl to attend a conference organised by her First Nation at one of Vancouver’s hotels/conference centres. The event was very well organised and well attended – and clearly yielded extremely positive results.

The business side of things did not, however, prevent The Girl and I getting out on the first evening for a splendid romantic dinner at Cardero’s in Coal Harbour. Whilst The Girl tucked into the scallops I enjoyed a lovely piece of European Sea Bass (not that easy to find on the west coast) and we shared a really rather decent Chablis. Nice atmosphere too:

On the Saturday – whilst The Girl was engaged in her sessions – I pretty much stayed in our room, watching the matches of the final weekend of the 2022 Six Nations tournament. Well done to the French on a thoroughly deserved (if also widely predicted) Grand Slam – and the less said about the Scots (who seem to have regressed by about three years!) the better!

This chap – outside our fourteenth floor window – seemed keen to know the scores as well:

The trip was a good one – with yet more familial contacts made by The Girl – plus the opportunity to have breakfast with a dear friend who now lives in VanCity. For my part it was actually a pretty good rest to be able to relax in a decent hotel room up in the clouds high above the west end of the city.