Forever Autumn

Ah, but I was younger then, and full of the folly of youthful love. Shan't tell Wife though. Just a little place I once was, and the way I once felt about a special girl. Great tune, pity that the vid gets all anthropomorphic and cuddly in the middle, but it had the best sound quality.

And another old favourite from Jeff Waynes concept album 'War of the worlds'. Thunderchild. Never fails to get me where I live.

Ah nostalgia, never as good as it used to be. Maybe it will be again someday.

The sound of chainsaws

It is a strange thing to contemplate, but this seems to be where destiny, fate, karma, whatever has brought me, yet for all this strange newness, I feel right at home. My inner comfort factor is at an all time high.

Despite the fact that I have never learned to use one, I find the sound of chainsaws comforting. As a child we lived next door to a large area of marshy woodland which was being cleared and felled to build one of the 1960's 'new towns'. From age three, I remember weekend family walks to the background noise of chainsaws and the groans and crashes of falling timber. I took my afternoon baby naps accompanied to the sharp lullaby of ripping whines and splintering crashes as tree after tree was cut down to make room for new housing. To me the sound is comforting. It feels like I belong.

et in acadia ego

This morning I took a pause whilst walking Dog along the foreshore, sat down on a large, sea washed log and the phrase drifted into my head. "And I also am in paradise" being one of the translations. The bright warmth of a Sunday morning sun on my face, Dog sitting attentively at my feet, water lapping at the pebbly shore, Gulls arguing. When I closed my eyes it felt like a perfect moment.

Wife is sitting up in bed, reading and patiently waiting for me to cook Sunday morning scrambled eggs and bacon. Thin cirrus cloud is drifting east and south. To the west and south, there are snow capped mountains sharply resolved in the clear early spring air. Down in the narrows, the Herring Run has cleared and the water is crystal clear. The day lacks urgency or anxiety. A day for sitting in the sun, sipping tea and perhaps a chilled glass of wine as a companion to a good book. A little slice of heaven.

When my turn to face death comes, I hope I can greet the old fraud with equanimity, knowing that for a fleeting moment, I too have dwelt in paradise.

Selling Britain by the kilo

There was a time not so very long ago when I thought I might return to the country of my birth. Having heard today's news I thought; "What's the point?" The politicians have sold the land of my birth down the river by refusing the people a say regarding continued and closer membership of the European Union.

I feel a little guilty about this because one of the first votes I ever made at age 18 was for Britain to remain in the then Common Market. Now that the trading bloc we in Britain were promised has turned into a lumbering bureaucratic monster that destroys the environment with it's Common Fisheries Policy and Common Agricultural Policy that brought North Sea Cod, amongst other species, to near extinction and laid waste to hedgerow wildlife in the UK, I feel that there is no point in returning at all as I had originally intended.

My feelings on the matter are a little schizoid. On the one hand I feel outraged, betrayed, and with a great feeling of something irreparably gone forever; a sensation of mourning if you will. On the other there is a burgeoning elation that since I no longer belong to Britain, I can make my place in the world anywhere I wish. I must choose, and stick with that choice.

Today has been a gloriously sunny day, and the setting sun washed the cliffs across the Narrows with a gorgeous rosy tint, softening their harshness. Flowers have found their way past the frost. Today, despite the sadness I feel for the country of my birth and it's betrayal by self serving politicians, I make my choice. My heart and home will be here, and I will learn the words to "O Canada" and mean them. I will learn to ice skate and love ice hockey. I shall make a home for the next generation and bring them here to grow and prosper. We will contribute and make our lives better than back across the Atlantic.

My choice is made. God bless Canada.

Staying away

Glad I'm no longer living in Britain. According to the on line papers the economy is on the slide, rail chaos, a thing called a Norovirus has laid over 2 million people low. Add to that the loss of civil liberties and rising cost of living, I reckon we're better off out of it.

The only thing that bothers me is that our girls have gone back to that mess. Despite the fact that we had a very crowded Christmas and New Year which sent me crawling up the nearest vertical surface, I am mildly concerned for their future; although they are as capable as we could bring them up to be. On the other hand, they have travelled half way around the globe without us fussing over them, so perhaps our anxiety is ill founded.

Have spent the day dodging back and forth on ferries to Vancouver airport and back. Wife was a bit tearful, but I leant her one of my broad and manly shoulders and let her have a little cry. Despite what all the radical feminists would have us believe, most women seem to like a good cry now and again. It seems to come more readily to them than us mere males. I don't hold with weeping just because you've seen some family off on a long flight, although I get a bit of a catch in my throat sometimes. I am concerned for their welfare of course, and overjoyed when we get notice of their safe arrival at journeys end, but tears aren't a big part of my emotional response. My own take on the matter is that if I dissolve into puddles at the drop of a hat, I'm no good diving into a phone box for a quick change into my hero costume when the need arises. Someone has to be ready to pitch in if it all goes pear shaped.

Sweet and sticky

One of the things I recall from my youth was the toffee apple. One particular shop in the small place I grew up in sold them, but after the mid 1960's they seemed to disappear off the shopping map. In Victoria the other day I came across this shop that makes a speciality of Toffee Apples. Holy Calories Batman! It was like hitting a mental timewarp sideways at lightspeed. What can I say but "oh my".

I really love this place. It's both old and new. Both stepdaughters are coming over for Christmas and they will love it too. Especially shopping in Victoria. We're going to have trouble getting them on the flight home. The RCMP may be needed to get them back on the plane.

Cool tool

Wife is back home. Kaloo Kalay! Oh frabjous day! House in England is sold (Finally we hope). Oh yes, and I've found this really cool little flight tracker tool which gives you close to real time information on flights over Canada and the USA.

I had it running and keeping track of where the plane carrying my love was all the way in from where it crossed into Canadian airspace somewhere around Baffin Island all the way to touchdown at Vancouver at 5:39pm Pacific time. What was even better was that Wife managed to get on the last plane to Vancouver Island from YVR which arrived at 19:55. There was me going to tell her to catch the 9pm ferry to Swartz Bay where I would pick her up when there was no need.

I am a very happy bunny right now.

Red Cross Fridays

I enjoy my Friday afternoons delivering stuff for the Canadian Red Cross. They seem to like me too, and I have been asked to go on another course in two weeks. This time it's to do with missing person searches during disasters. Mainly administrative stuff, but it's all grist to the employment search mill. This stuff looks good on your CV, and I enjoy it as well.

On our rounds today, my oppo and I chatted about Elizabeth the golden age, Cate Blanchetts latest movie. This is the one the Vatican is up in arms about, saying that the movie is amongst other things 'Anti-Catholic'.

Sometimes methinks that all these religious types don't get it. You point something glaringly obvious out to them, and they are worse than Socialists, who take it as an extreme personal affront that you have noticed a factual error in their dogma. Perhaps it is because they are weak of faith, because those who are strong in their faith blithely ignore contradictions raised by their religion.

The point is that the movie is a fictionalised account of events during the reign of Elizabeth the 1st of England. It is a work of entertainment and therefore not something that is worth taking too seriously because film makers always take liberties with history. A lot of historical revisionists do too, but that is besides the point.

We drove past the local Islamic centre, where a number of young men were standing outside in a group, eyeing everyone who passed by with suspicion. Don't see why they feel they have to do that, as it only antagonises people. Canadians are the most inclusive people in the world, at least as far as I can see, and these cliquish little enclaves of whatever religion do themselves and their belief system no favours by behaving so defensively. Shame really.

Anyway; I'm looking forward to tomorrow night when my love returns. The dog has missed her too, and in all our transatlantic phone conversations I keep on telling her that the dog is bored with just my company, and can she hurry up and get back here please. I think I get a bit bored with my own company as well.

A little ennui

While wife is over in grey old England I'm supposed to be writing a blockbuster novel. This past couple of days my get up and go has got up and taken the week off. I've tried all my usual cures, walked the dog, read, about the only thing I haven't done is drink any alcohol. Perhaps all the alarums and diversions have overturned my motivation.

Maybe I need to try writing something totally different, just to break the spell. After a glass of wine. I'll try that.

Relief

It seems all my anxieties about Wife were just that, anxieties. She rang me at 06:30 local time from Gatwick to say she was fine and I heard youngest stepdaughter in the background, taking the mickey as usual, bless her. Must e-mail those International Law book titles to her.

E-mail from pompous elder brother suggesting I get a 'McJob'. My response to that ends in 'off'. Those jobs never look good on your CV, and we aren't that desperate. The work I do for the Canadian Red Cross is opening doors, and people are much more open to newcomers out here. The cost of living is much lower than in the UK, so our money is going further, and we are living far better than we could back in soggy old England.

Talking of which, I have to book a flight to the UK for Mothers birthday. I'm looking forward to seeing her, but not pompous brother. If he doesn't come down off his high horse soon there's going to be an argument; one of those that estranges families. I don't particularly want that, but he is becoming a nuisance. I strongly suspect the influence of evil sister in law, who has her head so far up herself she only has to blink to do an instant colonoscopy.

Any old how, Wife is going to talk to estate agents about how best to sell our house in England and release the capital therein. We have a conference call booked for first thing tomorrow morning Pacific time, so it's an early night with a book and mug of hot chocolate for me. Got to be fresh for decision making.

Sweet sorrow

This morning Wife left for sorry old England to oversee some details about our house sale and see the stepdaughters. For some odd reason I've been dreading this for days. Don't ask me why, maybe I'm getting soft in my old age. Dog hasn't seemed too worried, and he fusses at the least little thing.

As we watched the plane take off, Wife saw me on the runways edge. She waved, I waved back with tears that she couldn't see. Yes, that's right, big tough looking curmudgeonly old me had tears in his eyes. "There goes my heart." I said as the wheels went up, my voice creaking a little with the emotion. The dog pulled me back to our minivan and we went back to our new home. Wife phoned from Vancouver International airport to say all was well less than fifteen minutes after we returned.

I'm not sure what the truth of the matter is; maybe Wife and I have been in such close proximity here in what is to this Englishman, a strange land, that I felt the parting more than I should. We've handled a lot in the past few weeks and rarely got on each others nerves, even though we've been virtually joined at the hip for all that time. An hour later I am feeling calmer, but will feel better when I get the phone call to say she is back at our old place in England in the company of our two reprobates.

It's funny, of late I've felt like I'm a puppet whose strings have been cut. Now here I am, metaphorically speaking, slumped in a corner, staring at my clumsy wooden body wondering what to do next, willing the splints and pins to move like they used to at the behest of my controlling strings. Perhaps I will go out and get some cookies to have with a mug of tea and read Bruce Cooks novel "Young Will" until I feel better. Then I will go fishing down in the cove to calm my spirit tomorrow. You never know, maybe I'll catch something.