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Victoria

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Hang on a minute, lads…

September 15, 2013 in Moving to Canada | 2 comments

Photo by Ged Carroll on Flickr…”I’ve got a great idea.”

At the fag end of January 2013 I wrote – in my second ever post on this blog:

“About this time last year Kickass Canada Girl and I came up with a plan. It was a good plan. In fact, we were so impressed with it that we thought it might be The plan!”

That post was entitled “…gang aft a-gley” – a reference, of course, to the immortal Rabbie Burns’s poem “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough”. For those – should there conceivably be such – not acquainted with that timeless ode,  the verse in question runs thus:

“But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!”

I wound up my post with the observation:

“I’m sure you know the Woody Allen quip: ‘If you want to make god laugh, tell him about your plans’…”

At the time of writing I was – naturally – merely referring to our initial unforseen departure from the script – which arose both from our unexpected inability to sell our Buckinghamshire apartment and, thereafter, from the Kickass Canada Girl’s accelerated appointment to her much anticipated post in Victoria – considerably in advance of the migration date that we had originally intended. As it turned out my sentiments on that occasion proved prescient – and then some! I could have re-used the title for any number of subsequent posts as the edifice that was our beautiful strategy was systematically reduced to rubble – stone by stone. No mere chuckles for this god – he/she was definitely rolling on the floor laughing his/her a*se off!

Soooooo! You would doubtless expect us to have learned from our experiences? Ho, ho! Not us! We are such stuff as… should you slam the door in our faces, when you open it again we will still be standing there – smiling at you…

Yes – we thought that it was time once again to formulate a plan. This time – however – we are going to be a little more devious – to see if we can’t outwit the gods. Foolish we may be – but you have to give us marks for perseverance.

Here’s how it goes:

  • We have set a window. At the near end of the scale I retire at the end of the academic year in 2015 and we move to BC in the summer of that same year.
  • At the far end of the scale we aim to move to Victoria in May 2016. Under this strategy I would probably retire at Christmas 2015 – but could stay on until Easter 2016 if it were to appear advantageous so to do.
  • Either way we will look to re-market the apartment within the next 6 months – probably next spring. The housing market seems to have picked up considerably and – mindful of the UK government’s latest scheme to guarantee mortgage deposits as a way to encourage another housing bubble – it would be madness not to jump aboard the bandwagon (mixing metaphors furiously as we go) with the aim of launching into the market at a relatively high point.

That is the plan, in any case – and as we all know by now…

The title for this post comes – as you are doubtless aware – from the celebrated final scene of that classic of UK 60s cinema – ‘The Italian Job’. Michael Caine announces his ‘great idea’ lying on the floor of a coach which is balanced teeteringly on the very edge of an Alpine precipice.

Let’s hope that is not an omen!

 

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One year on…

June 28, 2013 in Life as we know it | 2 comments

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidToday is the last day of the year – in academic terms at least. At this time last year I was on the verge of flying off to Victoria (leaving for the airport straight from the School just as soon as the boys had departed) for what turned out to be my last (to date!) visit to BC.

Time to take stock…

 

A great deal has changed over the course of the year. My visit to Victoria last June/July was not to have been the only trip of the year. I was also expecting to join the Kickass Canada Girl and our lovely friends in Saanichton for Christmas – which would have been my first such in Canada and to which I was looking forward immensely. When I left BC in mid July I was thus expecting to be back before the year end and made my farewells accordingly. By the time I do visit next – this coming Christmas – eighteen months will have elapsed and many things will inevitably have changed. If nothing else, our beloved friends’ young boys will have grown (almost) beyond recognition.

The other significance of this particular day is that – had things gone to plan – this would have been my last day of term before retirement. Though I had intended to work until the end of July the serious business of education would have come to an end. Throughout these last two weeks I have been attending the farewell presentations and speeches to the Common Room of those who are moving on or retiring. I must admit to the odd twinge of envy for some of those who are hanging up their gowns and preparing for their post-School, post-work lives. It has not been easy adjourning this particular dream, though of course the presence by my side of the KACG makes up for pretty much everything. More than anything we are both eternally grateful that we no longer have to live on different continents.

The Girl herself is thriving. She loves her new job and now has the bit firmly between her teeth, already starting to build the role into something significant and substantial. She loves her rag-top roadster – in which we are intending to meander down to the Dorgdogne for a break in the sun (hopefully!) towards the end of July. She loves being able to go the the theatre and galleries in London – and she would be loving the bucolic English summer were we ever to get one!

All is good – all is good! Our lives are so blessed when compared with the travails of so many others in these uncertain times – and it is good for us to remember this.

These blessings we count daily!

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Foreign fields

July 20, 2012 in Life in BC | Permalink

One of the attractions – for the ex-pat Englishman in particular – of living in Victoria is that there is a healthy interest there in that greatest of all games – cricket! Should this latter assertion cause hackles to rise, passions to become inflamed and throats to be cleared in preparation for argument – let me refer you to this article by Sambit Bal, the editor of Cricinfo.com, from the latest edition of Intelligent Life magazine. He makes the case more eloquently than I ever could.

I have, thus far, spared the gentle reader my fondness for philosophising on the subject of the great game and in particular on its purest form  – village cricket! That joy is yet to come – quite possibly over an extended series of posts. For now let us content ourselves with discussion on the game as it is extant on the southernmost tip of Vancouver Island.

Cricket in Victoria is organised by the Victoria and District Cricket Association. There are two leagues – a weekend league which plays 45 over matches on Saturdays or Sundays – and a midweek league which plays 16 over matches, mostly on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings. There is also a Twenty20 competition, and the well known – and internationally so – Victoria Six a Side competition.

The weekend league features 8 teams, whilst there are 15 in the midweek league. It will come as no surprise that many of the players in either league have their origins outside Canada, coming primarily from the subcontinent. The midweek league teams are – in the main – sponsored by various pubs and other such establishments around Victoria and the stated aim is for inclusivity whilst still being competitive. That appeals for LBW are frowned upon in this league should give an indication of the spirit in which games are intended to be played.

There are really only 6 cricket grounds in the Victoria district and – sadly but inevitably – they all feature matting or other artificial tracks. This does enable them to be used heavily with a minimum of maintenance, but it does alter the nature of the game. Two of the prettiest grounds are those in Beacon Hill Park – which dates back to the 1850s and possibly even earlier – and in Windsor Park in Oak Bay.

This is Beacon Hill Park:

And this is Windsor Park, with its splendid new clubhouse:

On my recent visit to BC I watched one midweek game – between the Prairie Inn and a youth side called the Colts – at Stelly’s School in Saanich (nowhere near as pretty as either of the above grounds). As the school was out for the summer the outfield had been allowed to grow rather longer than is normally acceptable and the style of play could – as a consequence – best be described as ‘agricultural’!

The Prairie Inn side were pretty well organised and had some big hitters, scoring an even 100 in their 16 overs. They then ran through the Colts’ top order in the first few overs and effectively killed the match as a competition. The Colts came back well near the end, however, with their star player being a 14 year old – on his first outing for the side – who played with an admirably straight bat. The boy’s father was watching and I engaged him in conversation, remarking on his son’s obvious talent and enquiring as to whether he had been coached. The father informed me that they had only recently returned to Canada having lived in England for a number of years, and that the boy had not only played cricket at his school there but had also done well in the Surrey under 14s.

It showed…

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A salmagundi of simulacra

July 14, 2012 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

An assortment of images from Victoria and its environs…

Late afternoon on Island View beach:

An evening with a Glaswegian friend in Cadboro Bay. He rents a suite in a very fancy waterfront property. The owners – for reasons best known to themselves – spend half the year elsewhere:

On Clover Point after the storm:

Nighty night!

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Oak Bay

July 13, 2012 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

Staying – as we have been – in Oak Bay this week (for reasons outlined in this previous post) is a most interesting and illuminating experience. When Kickass Canada Girl described Victoria to me – shortly after her first visit home subsequent to our having met – it was one of the places in which she informed me she felt she could happily live. Now that I know it a little I can see why.

As the Brits amongst you will immediately recognise from the accompanying photographs, Oak Bay is a pleasant ‘village like’ community that has – visually at least – a great deal in common with the English Home Counties. For one thing, the ubiquitous evergreens give way to the deciduous, and in particular – as the name suggests – to the stout English oak… well, to the Garry oak, anyway! It speaks volumes that any damage caused to one of these splendid trees – in Oak Bay itself – results in a $10,000 fine.

In the light of all this it comes as no surprise to find that a certain breed of English ex-pat has made this enclave their home.

There is certainly money in Oak Bay – and it smells like old money. This villa is – by all accounts – merely a summer residence!

The village itself is well equipped with coffee houses, bistros, beauty salons, a plethora (for some bizarre reason) of dental hygienists and – as you can see – a pretty decent salumeria and butcher.

There is – in Windsor Park – a rather lovely cricket and rugby ground – but cricket in Victoria will feature in a future post, so I will say no more at present.

There is also one of the nicest marinas in Victoria which, I am told, boasts a pretty decent restaurant. The yacht basin itself is home to some of the tamest ‘wild’ harbour seals I have ever seen. A local lady told me that they are the former inhabitants of a marine park released into the wild when the park closed. They certainly know how to put on a show for visitors and – of course – to earn their supper in the process.

Could we live in Oak Bay now?

Cute – and faux-British – as it undoubtedly is the answer has to be ‘no’. However serene and well kept the neighbourhood is, it still feels busy – rather too full of (very proper) people and (admittedly slowly driven) cars. These days we yearn for the more open spaces of the peninsular – with little passing trade, a decent deck and views of the ocean and mountains…

…and, of course, closer to our dear and lovely friends!

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A week and a half!

July 9, 2012 in Life in BC | Permalink

Safe to say when I arrived in BC just over a week ago, looking forward to a good rest, I did not expect a week such as the one we have just experienced.

I have already made reference to the redecoration of Kickass Canada Girl’s son’s apartment. Naturally the actual painting and associated works were only a part of the endeavor. There was also much running around picking up shower curtains, light fittings and other electrical bits and bobs – not to mention waiting for plumbers and electricians and so forth.

The fact that the Girl’s son was staying with her at our dear friends’ farm in Saanichton also added a certain frisson. Quite apart from needing to move him and his belongings back into his apartment once all was ready, there was also the heightened tension resulting from the difficulty of finding space and time to oneself. Of course, those with children will shrug their shoulders and say – ‘So what? That’s how it is…’ Not having had children myself I am perhaps simply not familiar with the rigours thereof.

And speaking of which – the week was further complicated by the not unwelcome demands for attention of our dear friends’ young sons. These entailed trips to the iMax and to the cinema to see the latest Pixar – ‘Brave’ – and much playing of trains and so forth. All a total joy in any other week of course…

Finally – but by no means least – all of this coincided with a crisis at the Girl’s charity, as a result of which she endured a highly stressful week of long hours, culminating in a very long day in Vancouver on the Saturday. She was in need of a very large Martini when she finally returned from that particular jaunt.

There were points at which I really did begin to wonder just how much of a holiday this trip was going to turn out to be, but when I finally got some time to myself on the Saturday afternoon I did find the opportunity for some useful reflection. I have visited Victoria quite a number of times now, but thus far all bar one of the visits have been holidays for us both, and have been marked by the relaxed and carefree nature of our time here.

This has – therefore – been a most valuable experience, giving me as it does a glimpse of the life that I will lead here once I am no longer just a casual visitor but a permanent resident. Naturally though, I hope that – in future – any further such crises do not all occur simultaneously!

This week we are house-sitting for one of the Girl’s colleagues in Oak Bay, which will provide another new experience. The Girl also has Thursday and Friday off…

‘For this relief, much thanks!’.

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Brentwood Bay

July 8, 2012 in Life in BC, Photos | Permalink

One of my favourite places on the planet!

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Making other plans

July 4, 2012 in Life in BC | 2 comments

“Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans”

There is considerable debate as to the exact origin of this quote – before it became a John Lennon lyric… so let’s just stick with Lennon.

I really didn’t get a chance to plan ahead in much detail for this trip to BC, though some vague ideas had been floated before I left the UK. As it turns out this is just as well. Thus far we have pretty much had to make it up as we go along.

Having left School on the last day of term (making my exit – as detailed in a previous post – just as soon as the boys had made their own break for freedom) I was blessed with a reasonably trouble-free flight via Calgary to Victoria.

The only incident worthy of note – and then only for reasons of personal embarrassment (and thus amusement!) – occurred whilst I was standing by the emergency exit doing some leg stretches at 35,000 feet over the Northwest Territories. The emergency exit on the Airbus A330 features a large curved aluminium handle, nearly 2 foot wide and standing proud of the door by about another foot. Facing away from the door I had stretched my leg up behind me. When I brought it down again I contrived to catch it forcibly on said handle. I had a momentary vision of the exit door flying off into the void and of all of us travelers being sucked out into the upper atmosphere – before coming to my senses and recognising that, if such a thing were possible, they would not have built a huge protruding handle onto the door just where any idiot might accidentally catch his foot on it.

As it turned out the only casualties were my big toe – which is now a very fetching shade of black and blue – and my pride, as I almost fell into the laps of my sleeping neighbours. Attempts to pass the maneuver off as the latest in calisthenics did not – frankly – convince.

Diverting attention for a moment from my own clown-like behaviour I must take a second to grumble about the antics of some of my fellow passengers. Three examples of extraordinary (to my mind at any rate) behaviour:

  • The passenger who – when the seatbelt sign was illuminated during some mid-Atlantic turbulence – refused to fasten his belt. The stewardess told him that she would remain standing over him until he had done so, but he continued to argue for some considerable time.
  • Another passenger who – when asked during a bumpy descent into Calgary to stow his bag in the overhead locker – held up the Stewardess by arguing that it might get crushed. He seemed not to care that the plane was on its final approach and that his truculence was preventing the Stewardess from strapping herself in.
  • Finally, the gaudily attired ‘woman of a certain age’ who – as we waited for our baggage at Calgary, on observing that I was already standing on the precise spot behind the blue line that she clearly wanted to be in occupation of when the belt started – simply stepped directly in front of me and blocked my path. She did, however, receive her just reward. My bag appeared first and – as I swung it from the carousel – I inadvertently (honest!) clipped her with it. For once in my life I did not apologise!

Having arrived in Victoria somewhat weary and jet-lagged, I was hoping for something of a break. Events conspired against me and I spend two of the next three days – with a much needed break for Canada Day – helping to redecorate Kickass Canada Girl’s son’s apartment. Yes – I know that I have not until now mentioned that the Girl has a grown-up son who lives on his own in Victoria… Consider it mentioned!

Anywho – there is still plumbing and electrical work to be done on the apartment, and the Girl herself not only has to work this week but also finds that she has to attend an event in Vancouver on Saturday. Hey ho! I have booked some serious spa treatments for next Sunday, so let’s hope that the relaxation can finally start in earnest then.

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Reasons to be cheerful

May 8, 2012 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it
You’re welcome, we can spare it – yellow socks
Too short to be haughty, too nutty to be naughty
Going on 40 – no electric shocks

Reasons to be cheerful – part 3″

Ian Dury

The weekend just gone was the Mayday Bank Holiday in the UK. Normally, not having to go to work on a Monday – and consequently not needing to commute into London – would be cause for unalloyed joy. In this particular instance, however, it meant another day of staring gloomily out of the window at the rain. There was, apparently, a small tornado in Oxfordshire – but we didn’t even see that much excitement!

I did feel rather sorry – paying yesterday, as I did, a brief visit to our local market town – for the good burghers of that community. Considerable work had clearly gone into the setting up of the annual May Fayre, with stalls, stands and fun and games throughout the town. Nothing is quite so sad as the merry English fayre under inclement weather. Being English we don’t have the good sense simply to abandon the event altogether and neither is there a Plan B. Everybody turns out regardless, hip flasks full of Dunkerque spirit, and has a thoroughly miserable time tramping around the sorry-looking amusements, wishing that they were somewhere – anywhere – else.

Kickass Canada Girl informs me that the next public holiday in Canada is in another couple of weeks time, when Victoria Day is celebrated – in honour of Queen Victoria’s birthday. This is so splendidly bizarre a notion that it could almost have been designed purely to make the British feel more at home… which maybe it was. Wikipedia has this:

Following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, May 24 was by imperial decree made Empire Day throughout the British Empire, while, in Canada, it became officially known as Victoria Day, a date to remember the late queen, who was deemed the “Mother of Confederation”. Over the ensuing decades, the official date in Canada of the reigning sovereign’s birthday changed through various royal proclamations until the haphazard format was abandoned in 1952. That year, the Governor-General-in-Council moved Empire Day and an amendment to the law moved Victoria Day both to the Monday before May 25, and the monarch’s official birthday in Canada was by regular vice-regal proclamations made to fall on this same date every year between 1953 and January 31, 1957, when the link was made permanent by royal proclamation. The following year, Empire Day was renamed Commonwealth Day and in 1977 it was moved to the second Monday in March, leaving the Monday before May 25 only as both Victoria Day and the Queen’s Birthday.

Got that?

This all reminds me somewhat of my previous school which celebrates, as its major open day each year, King George III’s birthday – the 4th of June. For a variety of (doubtless) very good reasons – mostly to do with public examinations – this day never actually falls on June 4th, but is usually several weeks earlier in late May. It is still – needless to say – called ‘The 4th of June’, which can be confusing to the general public since street signs are put up advising of traffic restrictions for… ‘The 4th of June’!

 

Now – all this rain, grey cloud and the current miserable climate are no doubt responsible for us all suffering from SAD. This apparently genuine condition was defined and named by Norman E. Rosenthal and his colleagues at the National Institute of Mental Health in the US in 1984. They must have been tickled to bits when they came up with that particular acronym. Nice one chaps!

I, however, have good reason right now not to be sad (see what I did there?). In a few weeks time the Girl is going to be paying an unexpected visit to the UK, for reasons that I will expand on later. Whoopie! She will be here just in time for our next public holiday at the start of June which, this year, coincides with the Queen’s Jubilee – for which we get an extra day off! Celebrations all round – but let’s hope that the weather has also perked up by that point.

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…what we get!

May 3, 2012 in Life in England | 1 comment

“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.” – Mark Twain

I added to this blog – some short while ago – a ‘Today’s Image’ feature. The intention was that I would regularly upload and display images captured day by day with the Fuji x10, which I now carry with me as a matter of course.

Those reading this post in real time will observe that the current image is of a rather splendid clock. Residents of Victoria will recognise it as being one of the predominant features of the atrium of the Bay Centre in that fair city. Now – clearly this must have been taken some weeks ago, before I returned to the UK.

The reason for the image not being more up to date is that the weather in the UK since I returned can only be described as ‘shocking’, and I have not felt moved to go out looking for photo opportunites. This has been the wettest April for a hundred years – indeed the wettest since records began. We have now moved into May and are all deeply disappointed to discover that the weather is no better. I struggle to recall the last day on which it did not rain, or indeed on which we were not overshadowed by the regulation thick blanket of grey cloud. Depressing!

So bad are things that the cricket season – which should by now be well under way – has seen virtually no play throughout the first three weeks. The only positive – from the reader’s point of view – is that you have thus far been spared my ramblings on the subject of that great game.

So much rain has fallen in the past week that some areas in the west of England are in serious danger of flooding, and the papers have been full of images of rising water levels as rivers burst their banks.

And yet…!

England is in the grip of a drought! Though April was washed out, March was one of the driest on record – as have been, in fact, the last two winters. The aquifers are at an extremely low level and it will take many months of rain for them to be fully replenished. The papers are carrying – alongside the photos of flooded fields – headlines warning that we may, by the end of the year, see standpipes in towns and villages as the water supply is cut off.

Only in England!

When referring to the weather in Victoria, Kickass Canada Girl is partial to the familiar quotation – “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute”. This saying apparently originates in New England and – contrary to some popular belief – was not actually said by Mark Twain. I do myself like the variable Victorian climate (which is clearly a good thing) as it seems to me to elude the dreary inevitability inherent in much English weather.

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