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

Hal Borland

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whoo-hoo!

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

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

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

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

Sorry – I don’t mean to depress anyone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sigh!

Not so many posts ago I was grumbling about the weather here in BC and mourning the loss of a number of shrubs and other erstwhile growing things in our garden. I have a feeling – in fact – that I visited the theme in more than one post, the which only goes to show just how poorly the climate has treated us thus far this year (now that I put it like that, of course, there is a rapid light-bulb moment as the realisation strikes that this maltreatment is undoubtedly mutual and indeed causal. What goes around etc, etc…).

Anyway, the weather has perked up just a tad (with the exception of today – bah!) and I have spent considerable amounts of time (and not a little cash on new rhododendrons, hydrangeas, viburnums and a plethora of hostas) trying to cajole what was left of the garden into some sort of shape; to make it look at least a little bit cared for. As it turns out I can still only make a plea for a small percentage of the credit for the turnaround that has occurred – nature herself seeming to rebound from the hard winter with considerable vigour regardless of my efforts.

Either way, I thought you might like to see some pictures of the improvements.

Many thanks are due to two good souls who have contributed in no small degree to this renaissance. A long-time and most dear friend furnished us with three gorgeous stone Bhuddas, the which needed a good home as a result of an impending move:

…and our good Glaswegian (but also long-time Canadian) horticulturalist friend not only provided much good advice but also graciously allowed us to make use of his wholesale discount at Island View Nursery.

Our most grateful thanks to both…

It would be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to congratulate Her Majesty, the Queen, on the occasion of her Platinum Jubilee. Whatever one’s opinions on the merits (or otherwise) of the monarchy itself – or of ways that it could and should evolve – I think only the most churlish would fail to acknowledge the nature and extent of Her Majesty’s service to the United Kingdom. I doubt that we will see her like again.

I was born almost two years after Elizabeth succeeded to the throne but only a little more than six months after her coronation. My first memories of the Queen – and indeed of royalty in general – came from watching black and white Pathe News footage with my mother and siblings in the British News Theatre cinema that once graced one end of the concourse at Waterloo station in London. I have what is clearly a false memory of watching footage of the coronation – though what we probably saw were references to it in the coverage of Princess Margaret’s wedding to Anthony Armstrong-Jones seven years later in 1960. This was the first royal wedding to be televised but, as we did not acquire a TV set for getting on for another decade, mother made occasional use of the Waterloo cinema when in town to keep abreast of such events.

The Silver Jubilee in 1977 largely passed us by. We knew that there were street parties (though not in the ‘Grove’ in which my parents lived) but us young folk were too wrapped up in music, theatre and each other to pay much mind to the celebrations. It was also the time of the Sex Pistols and ‘Anarchy in the UK’ – which may have had something to do with it.

In 2002 – the year of the Golden Jubilee – I did actually engage with events, spending a day in London and joining the crowds on The Mall for the big concert that was held in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. The whole of The Mall and much of St James’ Park had been equipped with huge video screens and a sound system that was surprisingly good for such a large event. Though not in the concert grounds themselves it still felt like being part of the whole occasion, particularly when Brian May of Queen played the National Anthem from the palace rooftops and when the Queen joined us all in The Mall for the fireworks.

The following day saw a big procession from the Guildhall back to the palace after which we all watched a spectacular flypast of Spitfires, Hurricanes and a Lancaster – followed by the stunning sight of a Concorde surrounded by a flight of the Red Arrows. I was watching this part of the proceedings at home on TV and got to see the flypast twice, because my apartment in Buckinghamshire was in a direct line with The Mall twenty miles away. We were, as a result, directly under the flightpath for the parade of aircraft as they dispersed.

As for the Diamond Jubilee in 2012 I have two impressions – the first is of that wet and windy water pageant that took place largely on the Thames and was something of a damp squib all ways round. The second is that the event was totally overshadowed a little later in the year by the London Olympics. Bad planning, guys!

As for the Platinum Jubilee…? Well – it is hard not to see in it elements of the coming transition. The Queen will not see another Jubilee even should she live to be 100 and more. Here in Canada it is difficult not to feel rather remote from it all.

Many in Canada respect and love The Queen, though I’m not sure that many think that she or her successors should be heads of state for this young nation. Though something of a royalist myself I would agree with those who feel this way, but even earnest Canadian republicans are too damned polite to do anything serious about it.

Alan White
1949 – 2022
Vangelis Papathanassiou
1943 – 2022
RIP

Alan White joined a favourite band of my younger years – Yes – in 1972, replacing the much loved Bill Bruford. Famously, Yes were about to tour the US (a tour which formed the backbone of the live album – YesSongs) and White had three days to learn their complex material. Fortunately he was no novice, being already known for his work with John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, as well as for Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Joe Cocker and George Harrison.

I first saw Yes live in London in 1975, at Loftus Road (the home of soccer club Queen’s Park Rangers). Another well known member of the band – Rick Wakeman – had left before the recording of their then latest album – Relayer – and they had invited Vangelis (who had at that point been part of Aphrodite’s Child with Demis Roussos) to replace him. Vangelis turned the band down (being, apparently, reluctant to travel) so I saw them in 1975 with Patrick Moraz on keyboards.

Vangelis – who is probably best known for his celebrated award-winning soundtracks for films such as Chariots of Fire and Bladerunner – did eventually team up with Yes’s vocalist – Jon Anderson – as the successful duo Jon and Vangelis.

It is always sad to mark the passing of one’s ‘heroes’ and they will both be sadly missed.

In my last post I mused upon the categorisation of musical genres – the choice of which is an essential task that must be tackled should one be considering offering one’s musical endeavours to the wider world. Folk like to know what they are getting!

That I am considering this now is because the Chanteuse and I are in the midst of our preparations to release into the wild our third collection of songs as Anam Danu (much more on that later) and we need to be fully prepared.

With regard to musical genres Wikipedia (naturally!) carries an extensive list of categories and sub-categories, to which I shall refer as I share my thoughts on just how we could – and perhaps should – describe our offerings.

The problem with all of this categorisation is that – as it struggles to cope with an ever evolving field – it tends towards the extremes. By this I mean that the defined genres and sub-genres tend either to be really quite specific, or far too broad to be very much use. At the top level it is not too difficult – for example – to determine what is meant by ‘blues’, or ‘country’, or ‘hip hop’ – though of course as ever the exception proves the rule. ‘Pop’ – on the other hand – is such a broad ‘catch-all’ category that it gets used to label anything that doesn’t easily fit into other categories.

The same applies as soon as one ventures into the field of sub-genres: ‘operatic pop, or ‘K-pop’ are really pretty specific. ‘Alternative’ – on the other hand – basically applies to anything that doesn’t fit into any other existing category. This can, by some definitions, include all sorts of extremely well established acts that have always just been that bit different and thus stand outside the mainstream. The term ‘indie’ is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘alternative’, though other sources consider it to be quite different.

My instinct – with regard to Anam Danu – is to stick with both ‘pop’ and ‘alternative’, but I quite like also to include the term ‘adult’. Wikipedia has list of ‘adult alternative’ artists (drawn from tracks played on Adult Album Alternative radio stations) which would seem to include most of the people that I consider to be my influences.

The trouble is – as I say – this use of genres still doesn’t really describe the music, thus obliging one to try to come up with something else – a tag line, if you like – that is a bit more descriptive.

I quite like the phrase ‘cinematic pop’ – because much of our music has a sort of filmic quality – though I see that that term has been adopted by a project which describes itself as a ‘classical crossover’ (this stuff is all so difficult!)…

Perhaps we should adopt the genre ‘adult alternative’ and say that we create ‘widescreen cinematic pop’…

…or perhaps not!

Maybe the gentle reader has other (polite!) suggestions…

Independent musicians are – in this technologically advanced era – blessed with a plethora of online resources (courtesy of the ever-present InterWebNet) by which means their musical lives and careers may be facilitated. This is especially noticeable to those who have been ploughing this particular furrow since – for example – the 1970s (Who? Me??).

I was reminded again of this fact just a week or so back as I was watching a most useful podcast authored by one of the many generous educators who now make freely (as much as anything is really free!) available their hard-earned wisdom online for the benefit of rest of us humble musical souls.

This particular lesson concerned what the author described as the second most difficult thing that aspiring musicians and collectives must do; explaining at the same time why it was critical nonetheless that they do it.

The most difficult thing is – of course – choosing a name under which to operate. Some bands split up before even getting started under the pressure of finding, agreeing and adopting a moniker that has not been used and abused previously elsewhere.

The second most difficult thing is – you will probably be unsurprised to hear – answering that inevitable question: “So – what sort of music do you play?”. The great majority of musicians – faced with this diabolical inquisition – will mumble on for a while about how their music really isn’t like anything else on the planet, before finishing with the imprecation: “You’ll just have to listen to it and judge for yourself (Man!)”.

Whilst I certainly sympathise (as would anyone who has found themselves doing the same thing… repeatedly!) I have to agree with the podcaster, whose strongly expressed opinion was that – if one really expects members of the wider public to lend an ear to one’s musical meanderings – the least one can do is to give them the best possible idea of what they might expect to hear.

Fair enough, say I!

There are – fortunately – a number of tools that go at least some way to aiding the recalcitrant musical categoriser. The InterWebNet can provide one with a seemingly comprehensive (oh that there were truly such a thing) list of musical genres, organised as a fairly shallow hierarchy. One starts with such basic categories as ‘rock’, ‘pop’, ‘blues’, ‘country’ and so forth, before moving on to a seemingly endless plethora of sub-categories that aim to add some detail to the broad generic groupings.

So – what might that mean in the case of Anam Danu? Check back shortly for part two of this posting to find out.

I wrote recently in rather gloomy terms on the subject of the less than stellar performance thus far this year of the weather gods… at least where this corner of Vancouver Island is concerned. Spring and/or summer (assuming that they eventually do turn out to be distinct seasons) have yet to put in an appearance. Temperatures in this usually clement corner of the world continue to lurk some five to six degrees Celsius below the usual average for the time of year and the endless rainfall does seem actually to have… no… end!

…and that really sucks!

Sadly, that isn’t the end of the bad weather news.

A quick search for ‘storms‘ in the archives for this blog will reveal that during the fall and winter seasons here on the island such phenomena are regular occurrences. They cause a certain amount of mild havoc – power outages – branches falling from trees – bins overturned… that sort of thing… but beyond that they are pretty much accepted as just part of the rich tapestry that is living in a country that is yet largely wilderness. Such events, however, are considerably less well tolerated in the supposedly balmy springtime and summer seasons (not that we have seen either yet!).

Today we had an extensive and unseasonal wind storm that included gusts of up to 90Kph. We had a three hour power outage – branches fell from the trees into our newly coiffured garden – our bins were blown over!

Bah!

I was in the studio working on some music. No power = no studio, however, so that was the end of that!

The other thing that I should be doing is working in the garden; amongst other things on planting out the recently purchased replacements (more on that later) for the various flora that we lost during the unpleasantly lingering harsh winter. I do draw the line, however, at venturing forth when repeated squally showers soak one to the skin and tempest-like gusts of wind threaten to bring large branches down upon one’s tender head.

It does look as though we might get a few sunny days now, but in gardening terms it will take me all that time just to get us back to where we were before the storm. At this rate the garden will be just about ready in time for this year’s fall storm season!

I’m afraid that it didn’t take me long to get back onto the subject of the weather… did it?

Sorry!

Like everyone else’s our lives changed dramatically and unexpectedly a little more than two years ago when the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic required us to re-evaluate how we lived – what might yet be possible and what no longer was.

How we saw the outside world changed almost overnight and our relationship with it became suddenly completely different. Where once we would have thought little of hopping our way around the globe with the insouciance of seasoned travellers the outside world had abruptly become a dangerous place from which – once one had sallied forth – one might not return unscathed.

Entirely logical fears about exposure to infection meant that the bounds of our existence became dramatically narrowed – like the walls closing in on one. For a while we found it hard to countenance the thought of venturing outside our own neighbourhood – let alone of leaving the island. It was more than a year before we plucked up the courage to cross the Georgia Strait to the mainland for the first time. We mostly found ourselves only too happy to remain safely in our own little cocoon.

Further the thought of sitting for hours cooped up with other people in a metal tube over the Atlantic filled us with horror – not helped by the lurid reports of increased incidences of ‘air-rage’ over such trivialities as mask-wearing etiquette. We were clearly nowhere near ready to venture forth again into the great unknown…

…and yet – this year something has shifted.

In part this change came about because we had visitors from abroad – not once, but twice! In the first instance (as trailed in this post) dear friends from England called us with the news that they were coming to Victoria in February for a job interview. We were excited at the prospect of seeing them again but also of the possibility that they might eventually once again become neighbours. As it turned out that didn’t happen – the job opportunity proving not to be all that it was cracked up to be – but we did spend a very happy few days entertaining our friends and being briefed by them as to the essential aspects of international travel in a post-COVID world.

We then had another most pleasant communication from an old theatre friend of mine. I had not seen this particular thespist since he moved to the US way back in the last century, though we do still trade yearly Christmas newsletters between Victoria and New York. He and his partner (and his partner’s mother) were planning a trip to visit friends in Seattle and – having ventured so close – would have considered it a shame not to come that little bit further to visit us. We were – naturally – completely delighted and once again enjoyed a wonderful few days of sightseeing, dining, making (or re-making) acquaintance and – of course – of much reminiscing.

These two visitations did wonders at bringing us out of our shells a little bit and enabling us to contemplate actually heading back out into the wide blue yonder. An invitation to an event on the other side of the pond simply added to a growing conviction that it is – perhaps – once again time to think about travelling.

As they say – watch this space…

As I mentioned a couple of posts back, The Chanteuse and I are moving into the final phases of recording our new collection of carefully crafted tracks for eventual release to eager listeners. In that post I outlined the processes that we go through at this stage in order that the end product be as close to our imaginings as is humanly possible.

One of those steps is the settling on a final mix for each piece. This is where both the individual sounds are polished up as well as the overall balance between them settled upon. This is perhaps most closely the equivalent of editing the draft of a book, or perchance of using Photoshop (other brands available!) to ‘perfect’ a photograph.

There are many tools available in the world of recording with which this process may be effected – a fact that the evolution of the art into the digital realm has merely amplified a thousandfold. At the end of the day, however, the most important tools are the producer’s ears. It matters not what fancy gadgets are employed; it matters only how it sounds to the listener (the which is, of course, highly subjective).

Just as when one is trying to chose a paint colour for a room one must look at samples of the paint under many different lights – so too with music. The same mix of a song will sound completely different dependent on what audio system it is played upon and what space it is played in. When I am mixing tracks I listen to them in a variety of different ways. I listen on headphones in the studio as well as on several different types of studio monitor. I also listen to the tracks on my cell phone using in-ear monitors or earbuds.

Finally I listen to the mixed recordings on the audio system in my car. This latter is most important because – since I listen to a lot of music in the car – I know exactly how things should sound in that enclosed space. If it sounds good in the Lexus – then it probably is good!

It came as a considerable shock, then, that just a couple of weeks back the Lexus’s audio system suddenly started making hideous rasping noises whenever I played anything. Something was clearly amiss. Being a reasonably smart boy I immediately consulted The Girl (whose turf this is) to see if she might know of a concern that specialised in car audio systems.

She at once directed me to Ralph’s Radio Ltd in downtown Victoria, the which – as you can see from their card (pictured above) – has been in this business since 1949. I called the current owner, Justin Miller, who not only knew at once the details of the particular system in the Lexus but also the most likely cause of the problem.

The long and the short of the matter is that – within a couple of days and taking just an hour and a half (whilst I sipped almond lattes in a nearby coffee shop) – Ralph’s replaced both the bass speakers and the tweeters in the front part of the car. Justin showed me the bass unit that had caused most of the trouble. I don’t think I have seen a speaker quite so comprehensively wrecked. The cone had torn away from the mounting most of the way around its circumference and the coil had popped out of its mounting and was vibrating against the shell of the unit.

Needless to say it now sounds great again and I am back in the mixing business.

My grateful thanks to Justin and to his tech guys. Their customer service is excellent – they are friendly and extremely knowledgeable and they got me back up and running with the minimum of fuss and at an entirely reasonable cost.

Kudos – gentlemen!

Today is the 1st of May.

By rights we should be well into spring by now and heading rapidly towards to the balmy, bosky days of summer.

Here at the southern end of Vancouver Island the weather gods clearly did not get the memo. For the last however many weeks (endlessly, or so it feels) it has been, it is only fair to say, markedly chilly… not to mention damp to boot.

Now – if I were to be strictly fair there have been some quite sunny days and even on (rare!) occasions it has felt just the slightest touch on the warm(ish) side. Such days, however, have simply rendered the disappointment of subsequent, less passable days all the more bitter.

The garden – meantime – has blithely got on and done what gardens do at this time of year – ie. grow prodigiously, regardless of what is happening climate-wise. This is in marked contrast to its response during the winter when parts of it reacted quite negatively to what I thought was not really that bad a fall of snow. Clearly my understanding was based on some of the less appropriate of the fifty words that the Inuits apparently do not have for snow – and this was really quite, quite bad snow. That is certainly the impression given by the number of plants that turned up their toes (interesting metaphor there) and gave up the ghost (alright – stop this now!)…

Anyway – I really should be cutting the grass now instead of writing this…

…well – that’s done – and it didn’t actually rain – though it did think seriously about it!

Where was I?

Ah yes… The winter term at College has finished (there is a theme here!) and the summer term (during which for this year I will not be teaching) does not start for a few days yet. I am off duty until September, so my mind should now be turning to all manner of summer activities… which it sort of is – though a bit of a warm spell would really help things along the way.

Now – I think I have laboured the point quite enough to be getting on with and I do promise that my next post will contain no mention of the weather at all!

What weather?!

It has been some considerable time since I last gave an update within these pages on the progress of my musical collaboration with The Chanteuse; the which goes by the soubriquet of Anam Danu. In fact, looking back (with some trepidation) at the archives of this blog, I can see that it is longer than I thought since I made any serious reference to such matters. Apart from a brief mention at the turn of the year the last time that I turned in a proper report was back in August of last year – when I celebrated our return to the studio.

High time that I brought things up to date.

Last August I wrote that we had made a good start on putting together a new collection of songs, aiming to record a third ‘album’ to follow on from ‘Winds of Change‘ and ‘Winter Blue and Evergreen‘. Whereas we had indeed made a good start – having at that point penned half a dozen new songs – it has subsequently taken longer than perhaps expected to complete the collection.

It seems that I am currently able to write and produce tracks at a rate of about one a month. For an album we like to have a good ten tracks but in this case I wrote rather more – around fifteen – before we felt that we had the best combination for the new release. We are both quite picky customers and are keen to make this as good as it can be. This should give you some idea as to why these things can take a fair bit of time.

Anyway – we now have our ten tracks and we are currently recording the vocals for the final one.

So – what happens next? Well – this does:

• We carry out the musical equivalent of snagging – going through everything with a fine tooth-comb and fixing anything with which we are not completely satisfied
• We instigate the process of getting album artwork designed
• We do the final mixes for each song – which can involve a number of iterations
• We solicit feedback from a number of trusted souls – this with the particular aim of:
• Finalising the running order – which, once done, can lead to the process of:
• Mastering the album

Once we get to that point we have a ‘finished’ product and we can start work on all the other essential tasks, such as deciding our release strategy. Right now – however – that is looking a little too far ahead.

Our aim is to have our new creation ready to go for the summer!

Further to my last posting (the hilariously titled Bays Day – 1) and – at the same time – further up the east coast of Vancouver Island from Brentwood Bay…

…is Maple Bay.

Now – the fact that I have not mentioned Maple Bay before within these dribblings is because – though I have read about Maple Bay and looked at pictures of Maple Bay and know where it is – I had not – until this particular Saturday – been to Maple Bay.

Well I have now!

Just so you know – Wikipedia says this of Maple Bay:

“Maple Bay is a seaside community located in the Cowichan Valley of southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. A narrow inlet and surrounded by smooth, pebbled beaches, Maple Bay is home to marine activity all year round. Maple Bay is a small town with a population of 2,640.

The sheltered haven of Maple Bay is situated halfway up Sansum Narrows, which separates Vancouver Island from Saltspring Island, the largest and nearest of the southern Gulf Islands.”

Here are some photos…

We lunched at the Shipyard – the pub in the marina – which has a jolly splendid and slightly old-fashioned (in a good way) atmosphere:

The marina itself features this fascinating row of float homes. I can see the attraction of living in such a place – though it might be a little damp in winter.

…or one could live on the hill overlooking the bay.

Ho! Ho! The title of this post is a play on words that probably only works for Canadians – ‘The Bay’ being ‘Hudson’s Bay’ (one of Canada’s best known department stores) and the ‘Bay Days’ being their well known sale days. For the purposes of this post I am referring instead to a day trip that took in two well know (real) bays at the southern end of Vancouver Island.

See what I did there?

We recently took a short drive up island to have lunch with The Girl’s mother and with a dear friend. As is our wont when heading in that direction we started off by taking the Mill Bay ferry from Brentwood Bay, to avoid the alternative but circuitous trek south towards Victoria and then back north over the Malahat Drive.

The sun was shining as we waited for the ferry and I took advantage of the fact to add to my already extensive portfolio of shots of lovely Brentwood Bay. That – of course – means that you get to see more photos…

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.

Last year – in mid-June – I posted a couple of items regarding the appalling discoveries of unmarked graves at a number of the former Residential Schools across Canada. The first of those pieces was an acknowledgement of the terrible discovery at Kamloops. The second was a heartfelt and affecting piece written by The Girl, who has good reason to be extremely well informed on such matters and concerning which she elaborated therein.

A month subsequent to those postings I made further reference in these pages to an overnight visit that we paid to Kamloops, though I did not, for a variety of reasons, elaborate at the time on the purpose of the trip. Since then The Girl has been spending a good deal of her time furthering existing connections with her First Nation, as well as making new ones. Just a few weeks ago we spent a weekend in Vancouver (the which will feature in my next post) so that she could be present at a conference also attended by a number of her cousins. This process is difficult but, I believe, also rewarding for her and and is something that she has wanted to do for a while.

I asked her – naturally – about how she felt regarding the events of this last week at the Vatican, during which the Pope issued an historic first apology for the part that elements of the Catholic Church played in the abuses that took place at the Residential Schools. She told me that it is a start – but that there is much more to be done.

Let us fervently hope for further necessary progress in short order.

‘Tis the time of year that nature ‘springs’ (see what I did there?) back to life following the dread months of winter.

Naturally this means that it is also the time of year that I must reluctantly drag my sorry ar*e back out into the still cold and damp outdoors in order to start to ensure that there is some semblance of order in the garden before everything goes completely berserk.

Not these pretty pieris of course…

Nor this gorgeous cherry tree. Berserk is definitely not the word.

Nice blossom there. Sad that it only lasts about a week and a half before disappearing…

March means first cut for the lawn – and the usual thoughts about feeding and liming it.

Notice the rather splendid new garden fence – courtesy of our new(ish) neighbours below. They have done a good job on it, but it does mean we will be looking at new things to plant in front of it.

Another side effect of this tidying up of the boundary between our properties is that I now have a rather splendid – and functional – compost area. I have of late been spreading the products thereof over the beds in the front garden.

Much yet to do, of course!

It is almost exactly two years since the first lockdown in British Columbia in response the then emerging COVID-19 pandemic. The post-secondary Computer Science class that I was teaching at the time had about three weeks to run before the end of term and that last burst of educational activity was abruptly moved online with but the slightest of warnings.

That all seems an age ago now – which is, frankly, somewhat dismaying.

The College rather reluctantly stuck with online-only teaching for just over a year, during which time I taught two further courses from my studio at home. I must admit to have rather enjoyed the experience. Then – last autumn – we were summoned back to campus for a somewhat nervous term teaching face to face again – but this time wearing masks.

This side of Christmas I started another new course – on the College’s other campus – in rooms with which I was not familiar… and this in the face of the rapidly-spreading Omicron surge!

Finally – this week just passed – British Columbia followed the example of other Canadian provinces (and the slightly earlier one of the UK) in revoking its mask mandates in many areas… including in classrooms.

Thus it was last Tuesday that I faced for the first time a class of which about half were wearing masks and half were not. Safe to say that I was – and will continue to be – counted amongst the number of those taking sensible precautions.

So – what does this all look like now? The guidance that we have received from reputable official sources is that – after ensuring that one has taken up whatever level of vaccination is currently available (in the case of BC two shots plus a booster) – the next most useful precaution that one can take is to wear a suitable mask for whatever activity one is currently engaged upon.

The hierarchy of mask suitability is thus (from lowest level to highest) – cloth mask (not good!) – non-medical mask – surgical mask (level 2 or 3) – a surgical mask covered with a cloth mask (to keep the mask tight on the face) – or finally an N95 (or better) respirator. I wear a surgical mask covered with a cloth mask for things such as grocery shopping, but I wear a respirator in the classroom.

In the image at the top of this post one can see (from top down) – a cloth mask – a level 3 surgical mask – 3 different types of N95 respirators. As you can see – from struggling to find appropriate equipment back in January we now have a sufficiency…

…at least for now!

We are most blessed here in Greater Victoria with there being so many splendid places to walk. Amongst this number are included favourites such as: Centennial Park in Saanichton, Island View Beach, Elk and Beaver Lakes, Horth Hill, Gowland Tod, Thetis Lake, Witty’s Lagoon, John Dean Park and Bear Hill.

Last weekend we visited a new spot – Francis/King Park – the which comprises 265 acres of lush rain-forest. I thought you might like to see some pictures: