A Weekend

We had a weekend. The two of us, together. And the weather conspired to be super duper too.
Luvly.
We cycled, (a reasonably long way, with Whisky in the puppy trailer)we kayaked, we ate outdoors and we had a fire. I swam. We stayed outside all evening because it was just warm and wonderful.

The interwebs however, conspired against us. This wouldn't maybe have mattered but for the fact that it did manage to deliver us a voicemail that was important and needed answering, and it allowed me one outward e-mail and then that was my lot.
Ah well.
It were still a luverly weekend.

Via the F-Word blog, I see that writer and Nobel winner VS Naipaul thinks no female writer his match. Right. Clearly he simply can't read. But the interesting thing about this article is that at least the first batch of comments I read, were intelligent and anti-misogynistic.

I loved this story yesterday. Brigitte Marcelle, who had been working as a page for the Canadian Parliament, walked in, wearing her uniform, and holding a placard that read, 'Stop Harper'. What backbone!

TV, as I've said, is sparse. Not such a drag when the days are sunny and long. This evening I watched Criminal Intent, which seems to have popped back up out of nowhere.
I was reminded of the difference between the words father and mother when used as verbs. If you say someone fathered a child, it means they supplied the sperm, if you say someone mothered a child, it means they looked after them in a warm and loving way.
One of the characters said of another,
'He has Irish Alzheimer's, he forgets everything but the grudges.'

The Wrong Insomniac

It seems impossible that on Wednesday I felt better. Physically I did I suppose, Thursday, I was a wreck, emotionally. I suppose I hit a really big wave and succumbed.

And yet, although yesterday started early, it started well. One of the residents of our strata complex, let's call him Doris, has been illegally parking his taxi for...well, ever really. He has had warnings, he has been aggressive to his neighbours, he has had fines, which he doesn't pay, and the situation had to be dealt with. For two days running, Kevin, on the request of the Strata Council, had put a notice to tow on his car, then called the towing company.

Wednesday, whilst I was clearing the kitchen, I saw Doris driving his car out at 09.10. I saw the tow truck turn up at 09.25. The tow truck then had to leave because Doris's car wasn't there, it turned right, the driver waited for a couple of minutes, and then drove off. As soon as he or she drove off, Doris reappeared from the left, so clearly it was all a game of cat and mouse.

But Doris was playing his game with the wrong insomniac. At four on Thursday, Kevin was wide awake. He called the towing company. He waited for the towing company. He watched as they towed Doris's taxi away.
And then he came back to bed and dealt with his work e-mail, sending a message to his line manager, who was astonished later on, to have received an e-mail timestamped 04.30.
Still, if you are awake at 4 o'clock, you might as well make it count.

Feeling Groovy

At least, spades better than yesterday, which all in all seemed to be my worst day.

Flaming June.

So, Canada Post are poised to go on strike, at the one time when I am actually WAITING for a piece of mail which will mean I can then send one, and all of this is time sensitive.
And they really do seem unrealistic in their demands when I compare them with the great Royal Mail postal workers, and at a time when snail mail is at an all time low - which has been pointed out to them.
And really, we're in a recession, this is not the time to strike.

The whole 'killer cucumber' deal is not by any means funny, and yet, I can't help thinking how difficult it was to find any kind of veggies in Germany, especially ones that didn't begin with the letter K.
Still, I don't understand why farmers in Germany hasn't learnt from the experience of their sisters and brothers in California with the whole spinach e-coli thing from only a couple of years ago. Furthermore, it begs the question, what are German farmers feeding their cattle? Cattle that are fed corn instead of grass, have 80% more e-coli bacteria in their digestive tract, but why would this happen in Europe?

I'm feeling less groovy as the day wears on.

Summer may not yet have arrived, but summer TV has - ie sweet Fanny Adams on. Last night we watched the old Simon Schama 'History of Britain', the episode about the 14th Century, which has to rate as possibly the least enjoyable century to live in. Black Death, witch burnings because they were blamed for the Black Death, more Black Death, and the now fully grown ten-year old king getting all out of control and then quelling the Peasants Revolt, which, admittedly, was itself quite out of control.
Still, the upside of the Black Death was an end to serfdom, and if you survived it, you may have made out like a bandit in the inheritance game.

Britain has had the driest spring in over a 100 years or since 1990, depending on where you are, BC has had the wettest since records began. Such a pity we can't share weather a bit more.

In my garden, the onions are so far coming up a-plenty, enough for a whole tour-de-France I feel, but the spuds, not so much, and even the tommies, whilst numerous, are somewhat stunted so far. Be we are promised (threatened?) a long,hot summer, so they could rally.

I have finished another good read, 'Lyrics Alley' by Leila Aboulela. Seems like if you want to get something published these days, it'd better be about Africa. Lyrics Alley was set in Egypt and the Sudan, interesting stuff, I won't deny it. Now I have 'The Memory of Love' by Aminatta Forna, which is about Sierra Leone.
Good stuff.

Now I'm going to fade.

Hot and Cross

On Saturday, I spent all day in the Cathedral. This annoyed me and ultimately made me ill. It was too hot and it was airless and the seats were very hard, although that last one may not have contributed to the sore throat, fever and achyness, headache and fiery sinuses.

The morning's speaker was a woman from Kentucky, a very slick, polished speaker. The trouble was, what she was saying started my decline into anger, I feel.

She was speaking to us about parish finances.
On the one hand, she told us basically not to fret about the money we didn't have, 'the resources God hasn't given us', but to use wisely what we did have and to spend the time we save, praying and being nice to people. And you know what, if you say that in a smooth, Kentucky accent, it doesn't sound stupid for a few seconds, a bit like how Kenneth on 30 Rock can say bizarre things in an oh-so, 'this is really quite normal' way.

On the other hand, she told us we should be 'tithing'. Everyone should tithe.
'Wait!' I hear you cry, 'I remember this from history lessons, didn't they do that in the Middle Ages before taxes were formally introduced. And then taxes were formally introduced?'
Of course, good memory.
She (the very large woman from Kentucky who was dressed in bright yellow like the sun), explained to us how Jacob invented it. Mmm..interesting. She entirely left out the intervening four thousand years or however long it is since Jacob, during which time much of the world developed many systems based on the Christian Faith, which is now so deeply embedded no-one actually believes it's there, and one of those systems is taxation.

So then she showed us a little filmed sketch about a family going to a church where tithing isn't practised - ie most. The family had to fish out their dollar notes and credit cards at each stage. Oh my, how much easier would it be if we simply introduced a system of taxation, I mean tithing, was supposed to be the message. However to my now sore and cynical mind it said,
'Why are we going to church? Let's not bother, it's too much hassle, let's just go and do something that isn't so annoying.'

In the afternoon, which lasted over three hours, three hours during which time we were encouraged to go downstairs and finish off the food - the food being in fact, cakes leftover from first thing in the morning, because no lunch is provided, and unless you happened to be on the end of a row, it was nigh on impossible to get out anyway, we all wriggled around on our hard wooden chairs until close of play.

There were the Resolutions, this is really what we were there for, except one man, same as last year, wasted our time by trying to get us to 'direct' the Bishop to play nicely with the homophobes.
We didn't.
But one of the people who felt obliged to stand up and give her opinion on the subject told us that she's learnt from this morning's speaker that homosexual people hadn't been given the resources by God to have sex with the opposite gender, therefore they were not to blame. She actually said that, I promise you.

And the finances.
So, as well as running our own churches, which finances I can assure you are very tight, we have to contribute towards the pomp and circumstance that is the diocesan machinery. Part of that is paying for the event we were attending. Ok, so more foot shooting.

All well and good if you are being paid to be there, or could take time off in lieu, but the majority of us were simply giving up our own time for free, so aside from not providing lunch, and keeping us pinned in uncomfortable chairs, there was unnecessary time-wasting.

A man was there from the Lutheran church, 'observing'. A very dull man who simply told us what he'd seen, because we, obviously, didn't know what had happened. He actually made a joke about the word 'trenchant' because he'd been asked by the bish to make some trenchant observations, as though this was a most unusual word. Clearly he confused trenchant with banal.

Then, there was a woman whose job it was to thank everyone by name. Oh, not those of us who were there voluntarily, no, well, fortunately, but everyone who was there, just doing their job or receiving some kind of honorarium. I know, right?

I was pissed off by the end of it, when they stood up to sing another hymn I ran to the toilet and escaped, my head was pounding and I needed air and I was starting to question everything, and I mean, EVERYTHING.

Now of course, I am sacrificing my third day because it's the second day I've been ill.
And I'm grumpy as all get out.

After the Storm

And after the storm,
Run and run as the rains come
And I'll look up,
On my knees and out of luck, I'll look up.....

M (Bozo5) and I spent part of the afternoon sitting on a low wall in the sunshine, shooting the breeze. Certainly unplanned, we met at our friend Anne's house to go through some of her writing, but her daughter must have been delayed. I think maybe Anne arranged it like that, M and I have spent so many hours talking Oxygen levels, BP and heart rate (all meaning way more to him than to me) around a hospital bed, fearful, tearful, that just to sit on that wall, with the sun shining down on us, and Anne's old basement suite to our backs, was like taking a deep breath.

An Indian lady shuffled back and forth a couple of times, and the smell of skunk washed over us every so often.

They say that if you want to keep a friend, you shouldn't talk about religion or politics, and those are mostly what we did talk about for the whole time we were there. Maybe if you want to test a friendship - sometimes to destruction - those are exactly what you should talk about.

Politically, we probably have common idealogical ground, but to an outsider it would surely seem that as far as religion goes, we are at opposite ends, and yet when it comes down to it, very little separates our views.

And no tears. Until on my way back, when I stopped at Shoppers' Drug Mart, that thing that happens so frequently, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of someone who reminded me of my friend and my heart dropped like a stone.

"There will come a time you'll see,
With no more tears,
And love will not break your heart,
But dismiss your fears,
Get over your hill and see,
What you find there
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair."

Alex and the Pirates

Wild goose chase to get hold of Alex and wish her a happy birthday. I phoned her brother and sister-in-law's house and spoke to pirates. Pirates and a ballerina, but no Alex. I phoned her friends' house in London, but no-one seemed to be there.
Ah well.
In many ways it was worth it to speak to the pirates and the ballerina.


Happy Birthday my darling girl!

Pouring

Quite an odd weekend really. Four days without Kevin and Whisky, four days of weird weather, and in the middle of it, going to see my friend in the nursing home where I see her every week, only this time, she was dead.
She was well protected though. From the walls, the Hindu god Shiva smiled beatifically at her, over her bed a First Nations catcher of dreams or spirits or bad vibes, and cedar at the window, I presume to heal her. Muslims were coming later to perform some kind of last rites type deal, and tomorrow there's a three hour requiem mass. Unless it turns out that Judaism is after all the one true religion, I think she's pretty much covered.

Tuesday evening the funeral rites began. The 'Wake' turned out to have little in common with an actual Wake. It was more of an audience. The deceased lay in her casket at the front of the room, and people spoke about her, then there were snacks, but Kevin and I ducked out at that point. I had feared this, feared my own inability to consign my friend to 'memory', read-only. And feared the unscripted bit, where people are invited to come up and speak. I've experienced this before, and people do feel they have to speak, even when they have nothing to say, nothing can go on indefinitely. But it was tolerable. The family had done an amazing job of organisation, truly amazing.

This morning was the Mass. The original e-mail had advertised 'Full Catholic Mass, 11.00 - 14.00.' (Probably didn't say 14.00, but hey, why not upgrade?) Thus, again, I feared, this time feared a three hour requiem mass. In fact the Mass was over in under an hour, and then snacks.
But I had forgotten the extent to which unreconstructed Catholicism batters innocence with patriarchy. I felt dirty, unclean. Everything was male, feudal. Lord, Lord, Lord. Male priest, male servers, ten (yes, ten) pale-skinned, reddish-bearded Apostles and Caucasian crucified Jesus. Mary, mid-brown haired, fair Mary, the token female.
The priest claimed to, but in truth did not know Anne. And he then 'reminded' us that only practising Catholics could take communion, which in any case was swift, the line being given just a wafer, no kneeling, no gentle words, no wine, just wafer, move, wafer, move.
The family are lovely people, they and my friend deserved better, but hey, that's what she signed them up for.

When I got back, I received an e-mail from someone I used to work with, informing me that a co-worker had died last night. A friend. Not a close friend like Anne, but a woman I liked and valued.

And it's raining again. It never rains, but it pours.

21st May 2011

Today would have been my mum's 86th birthday.

Today my dear friend Anne died, aged 81.

I hope they'll hang out together.

Thank-you Michael for the photo.

Stray Bar

Yesterday, when I phoned the cable company to complain, a message informed me that 'an asiant would be available soon,' I listened twice to make sure I hadn't made it up.

Last week, on the Sunshine Coast, north of Vancouver, a small dog fell from the sky. It fell onto an Old Folks home, my weren't they surprised. It seems the dog had been taken by a bird of prey, presumably an eagle, I can't see that anything smaller could carry a dog, and then dropped. And before that, it had been either a stray, or horribly neglected. It's nails had grown round and into its pads and its teeth were decayed. Poor thing. Added to that the claw marks and broken ribs, and it definitely needs some TLC.

Pu-Pu and the Hat

Ye gods and little fishes, it has been a long and frustrating day, with a few twists of weird for flavouring.

The weather, for the ooh, third day in a row methinks, was glorious, a good-to-be-alive day, an oh-what-an-amazing-place-to-live day. Whisky and I had errands in Steveston, so I took him for a walk by the river whence Mount Baker can be seen in all its majesty.

After lunch however, things started to stall. Firstly, the internet was being flaky. Sometimes when this happens, a simple reboot will suffice. Sadly, the computer decided it didn't want to come to life again until Kevin had come home and sprinkled magic engineering dust on it and said abracadabra a few times. Hmmm...I really do him an injustice there, since that makes it sound easy. Anyway, resurrection did eventually take place.

In the park, Whisky saw his friends Toby and Newton, and another dog whose name is, I am told, Pu-Pu. Pu-Pu's owner was sitting on the grass wearing his 'should-have-gone-to Specsaver' glasses and one of those hats that look like a small umbrella that attaches to the head. In camouflage green.
Yesterday, there were 8 dogs and their owners, all speaking Cantonese, except moi of course, it made me wonder whether Whisky were the only dog who doesn't speak it, is he disadvantaged as dogs go?

On the way back, a boy racer in a penis extension car with the windows down was driving too fast and erratically, as they usually do, yet incongruously, the music blaring from the stereo was Nessun Dorma.

But back to today, the day that kept on giving. I took Kevin and Whisky to the Static, and our usual 45 minute journey took two hours, a semi had ploughed into the median on the freeway, so we did a mighty long stretch in first gear. Gaagh.

On the way home, I arrived in Blaine just in time for the longest train I've ever seen to be rolling along the track that crosses the main road. It looked as though it comprised all the leftover bits and pieces that were lying around in the train yard at the end of the day.

Back on the 99 on the Canadian side, late night road works were going on, the smell of skunk, mixed with tarmac, as though a steamroller had mowed one down.

And so to bed.
Goodnight.
Mwaah.

Zowie

According to Andre and Jeremy, who e-mail me regularly,thank-you lads, Uganda has caved to global pressure and abandoned its evil bill that would have allowed homosexuality to be seen as a crime, and one punishable by death. Excellent news.

I do have a fair amount of religion in my life. Religious arguments for life after death are unconvincing, and utterly dependent not on logic, but a sort of 'get out of gaol free' card known as Faith.
In short, the arguments don't work, you just have to believe it's so.
And there's a lot of motivation for believing that it is so. It's almost impossible to contemplate our own cessation, or that of people - and for some, animals, we love. And it is this that speaks to me at the moment. When I go and visit my friend Anne, I simply cannot believe that just because her body is giving up, that Anne will cease to be. The past two weeks, she has been ill again. Last week, mostly asleep, but whenever she did wake up, she was immediately Anne.

Ever wondered what happened to Zowie Bowie? Seriously, you never wondered? Well, according to a copy of The Week, that I recouped from Alex's recycling bin, he changed his name to Duncan Jones at the age of 18 and has been leading a perfectly normal life, well, granted he's a film director, but that aside, normal.

Monkeys, Zeitungen, Stupidity

Haha! At last! Blogger has been 'read only' for two days.

Yesterday, I spent a whole load of time sitting in the car in neutral and moving forward in no higher than first gear. In front of me, a sticker on the back of a car warned that said car contained little monkeys. I really would like to know whether any research has been done to find out if the whole 'baby on board' sticker phenomenon has made any difference at all to the way people drive. It just seems to me that anyone would drive as carefully as they could all the time, and if you're an arsehole driver, would this sticker suddenly transform you?

This week has seen the sudden rise to fame of a little known Orthodox Jewish newspaper, die Tzitung, by virtue of its having shown the now iconic picture of President Obama's inner circle watching the take-down of Osama bin Laden, with Hillary Clinton photoshopped out. The other amazing phenomenon is that the comments on the Jewish Techs' blog, where the story has been discussed, are so incredibly sane. One points out that this sect of Jews are 'our (their) crazies' - well we all have plenty of those, don't we? Another asks, why, if the picture of Ms. Clinton is so offensive, would they print the picture at all. Another points to another Orthodox Jewish newspaper, where a picture of Bibi Netanyahu's government, was printed with the faces of the two female ministers replaced with male faces. Quite bizarre.
Of course, the assumption is that Hillary's picture was omitted because merely showing a picture of a woman inflames the passions of men beyond endurance, and they shouldn't have to endure, natch, but my theory is that they couldn't show the horror on her face.

A 'for goodness' sake get over it' story also had mostly sane comments. Parents (white, privileged) at a school in the city of Burnaby, protested when the Principal wanted to add a clause to their anti-bullying policy, prohibiting bullying on grounds of homosexuality. One problem for them is that it marginalises heterosexuality.
'Heterosexuality cannot be marginalised,' says one commentator, since it is considered the norm and therefore dominant. Exactly.
But no-one's standing for this nonsense anyway. The students want the clause in, and say that the parents can butt out, they don't go to the school, and the Principal says he doesn't care how many people protest, he wants to be able to sleep at night knowing that he's done whatever he can to prevent discrimination.
Plus, do these parents want their kids not to be able to get on buses, as happened when the Little Flower Academy discriminated against a teacher in a same-sex relationship?

Give Us This Day.....

Our Daily Red.
Happy Birthday Sleepy, bottoms up to you!

So, we have a bit of bother at the Schloss. It involves Laurence, but I can't blog about it, though I'm fine to share details with anyone who e-mails.
Anyhoo, suffice to say, it has been and will continue to take up a fair amount of our time, energy, sleep, and peace of mind.
There have also been some rather odd coincidences, spooky stuff, however nothing so far that tops the 'Bruce' word verification when I commented on Raymond's blog when Anne was at death's door. (Bruce, Raymond, Anne and I were all part of the same writers' group and Bruce died).

I now get e-mails from an e-card company, and I thought it rather over the top that this week they have Osama bin Laden cards - until I saw the message, 'All I want is a job where my existence is as politely ignored as bin Laden's was in Pakistan'. Chortle.

The office where I got the oximeter rang up to ask for it back (I returned it bright and early last Friday), then they rang back and apologised for the previous message. It was someone else entirely they were supposed to ring. I'm guessing the results won't be waiting for me at the doc's tomorrow.

I've just read 'The Island' by Victoria Hislop. Interesting premiss, and horrifying. Until 1957, the island of Spinalonga, off the coast of Crete, was a leper colony, and the story follows the lives of two members of a family who develop leprosy and are exiled on diagnosis, leaving behind the people they love, with no hope of return.

Frightful Upstart

So, this morning, on the CBC news, so our equivalent of the BBC, the newscaster asks a young woman of 20 who has just been voted in as an MP, whether this made her frightful. Good grief. No shame, no shame.

Then Laurence showed me a You Tube video of his company, and the owners were being interviewed.
'This is a new, upstart company,' says the incompetent interviewer. I'd have slugged her for that. Well, not really, but I'd have wanted to.

Tonight, I have to sleep attached to an oximeter, this is a machine which will determine whether I have sleep apnoea. I figure it can only determine that if I can sleep while attached to it, otherwise, it'll be one long apnoea.
We'll see.

The Fire

Yesterday evening, when Kevin took Whisky out for his pre-bedtime pee, he noticed what looked like a huge bonfire behind the houses opposite us. In a manner of speaking it was. From the upstairs window we could see that some buildings not too far from where we live, were on fire. The Fire Brigade were already there, and thereby hangs a tale, because they had warned that if these particular wooden-framed buildings went up, they had been built too high for their water cannons to reach.

And unlike in any TV programme, where person A rings person B and tells them to turn on the TV and lo! They are just in time to see the exact news item their friend wanted them to see, we turned on the local news just in time to miss the item, and then the cable provider went down, followed by the power across the street.

This morning, there were lumps of smouldering charcoal in the dog park, and more significantly, on the path that runs behind the houses - this path being on the edge of peat bog. This afternoon, Cambie Road, where the fire happened, was still blocked off and guarded by police vans. The scene of the fire was still smoking.

This evening, the larger pieces of charcoal debris had been trampled and spread about.
Ahead of us we could see Whisky's friend Peanut going for a drag. Other dogs walk, or saunter, sniffing everything around, Peanut, small, but not accessory small, and certainly not an overweight dog, simply lies down and refuses to move,so that she has to be dragged along.

Since I've lived in this city, there have been some remarkable and spectacular fires, one caused by a small plane, piloted by a man with a known heart condition, ploughing into a block of flats in the centre of Richmond. Another, caused by a small plane ploughing into some buildings behind Ikea. This one seems to have no small aeroplane involvement.

This morning I visited my friend Anne. She was waiting for the doctor to come, as she has had a bad and rather rough sounding cough since Easter. The male doctor arrived, sadly, as I suspected, one of my own countryfolk, and in spite of his North of England accent, was as condescending as only we southerners can be. My friend wanted to query the dosage of one of her meds. He went and fetched the report that came with her from the hospital. My friend and I were sitting in chairs facing each other and he was standing to the side, but between us. He opened the report and turned to me,
'Can she read this?' he asked,
'Better than I can,' I replied.
It reminded me of the old BBC radio programme for people with disabilities. It was called, 'Does he Take Sugar?' because that's the way people with disabilities are often treated.
To be fair to him, many of his patients there are...well, not all there, but still, my friend is sharp as a tack and could run rings around him with anything involving words.

Beltane

...was yesterday. And a very good Beltane it was, warm and sunny enough to put my plants out, and since today it is raining, yet still warm, they look fairly happy for the time being.

The death of Osama bin Laden finds me oddly elated. I wonder who'll play him in the film? Probably Jake Gyllenhaal. This is quite the coup though, and I hope it'll go some way towards pacifying President Obama's detractors. Here is a President who doesn't waver when it comes to protecting his people, but who will honour the dead, giving a Muslim funeral service followed by burial within the time frame demanded by the dead man's faith.
I do feel (personally) let down by Pakistan though. They have not acted honourably in all of this and I don't think we should let them play in the Test Match until they've shown us how sorry they are. Maybe they could stand in the corner too.

Yesterday's sermon from visiting priest Lois, was very good. She talked about the importance of 'Doubting Thomas', who wanted proof. She emphasised how vital it was to question and to come out of our comfort zones, and she quoted Frederick Douglas, 'They want rain without thunder and lightning.' Lovely.
Personally, I like rain, but thunder and lightning are a great bonus.

Kev's Birthday Week /End of Whirlwind Tour

The whirlwind tour has ended, all too quickly, sad to say.

The rain finally gave up somewhere around Tuesday, which apart from that, was rather a downer of a day.

Wednesday however, was Kev's birthday. Alex took us to a taster bar in the evening, which was an interesting experience and enjoyed by all. Dairy Queen ice-cream cake for pud, some of which is inexplicably, still in the freezer.

Thursday, we had intended to go to the States, the border wait was reporting at 80 minutes, but we were in a great snarl up of traffic just to get to the tunnel, so at that point, and after that stress, we abandoned the trip and turned round, ending up at Havana for brunch.
We took a walk down the Drive, just for the craic.
We weren't disappointed. As we crossed a side-street, a driver was doing something unusual and potentially dangerous on the main road, and a man was standing in the street behind her shouting, 'Chinese! Chinese! Chinese!', I imagine in case the driver was unsure of her ethnicity.
We also noticed a couple of places where someone had nailed those Ikea plastic bag-holders to trees, so that people could stuff plastic bags in, and dog-walkers could take one out.
The Drive is so cool.

Yesterday, Alex had invited people she worked with to a Royal Wedding Party. I was instructed to wear a frock, and a friend was set to making bunting. Alex made lavender cocktails, which were....interesting. She had also made cucumber sandwiches and dipped strawberries in chocolate. The Royal Family are far more important when you're not living in the same country as them. Watching the service, however, made me pretty proud of my own church here. How tired and archaic the old, sexist language seemed, how the Church of England seems to be withering on the vine. I couldn't help comparing the sad old ceremony with the personalised, and meaningful one of my friends Margaret and Andrea last summer.

I do, however, have a wonderfully clean and tidy house as a result of yesterday's exertions, and tomorrow, I will be planting out my seedlings.

Easter Monday

Good Friday and St. George's day were fine, sunny and warm, really warm in the sun, but Easter Day the rain started, started in earnest. Again. I drove up for church on Easter day, spent some time with Alex and Laurence, phoned England and went back again.
As we left the Static today, puddles were turning into small lakes.

On Saturday, warm, sunny, clear, we loaded up the kayaks and drove the five minutes to the beach - where it was still sunny, but cold, very cold, and the wind was whipping up the water so that even the ducks were looking scared. We bailed and went home.

We've been re-watching the Simon Schama 'History of Britain' series. Alfred the Great gets some air time and then Edward the Confessor. You might think there was no-one in between, but in fact there were eleven kings that separated the two, seven of whom had names beginning with E. Pointless trivia I suppose, but who can't help wondering about them?
Alright, I can't.

Blood

Ah, the routine bloodwork, it comes up every once in a while. The first step is to fast for ten hours. On the one hand, not eating for ten hours hardly seems like a fast, it's a bit of a low-key one, on the other hand, I find not eating during the evening much harder than it should be.

So having done that, I tried to go to the lab place as early as possible. It opens at 06.30, so I'm there at 06.40. I'm number 30. The small waiting room is packed full of mostly Chinese people wearing pyjamas and Uggs. And for some reason, it seems that the ones who have been sent to have their blood tested, are the ones who speak no English. The woman on the desk has infinite patience, explaining over and over again the most simple things, like 'take a number and sit down'. Some have had the foresight to bring a friend or two, one of whom may speak a little English, but this naturally has the effect of making the room even more full.

And it turns out that under Canada's Constitution, although as a country we have two official spoken languages (plus International Sign Language), any Province or Territory apart from Québec, Manitoba and New Brunswick, are allowed to have whichever and however many official languages they like and they don't have to include English or French. The three aforementioned can also increase their number of official languages, but French and English must be two of them.
Thank-you Kevin for that, the link I mean, I know you're not responsible for this bizarre constitutional anomaly.

In the meantime however, before BC announces that Cantonese and Mandarin are its official languages, at which point it'll make not a blind bit of difference, since there are signs that have only Chinese on them anyway, and Canadians are notoriously bad at being told what to do, things are being right royally held up because of the language barrier.

The jhumming and boshing of the neighbours' house has now been going on for over two weeks, I think they could have re-built it in less. It has, however, been going on for so long that the dog no longer takes any notice of the noise. Small and meagre mercies.

The Home

I have been doing battle with forms and I have been being creative with writing. It's all quite tiring and the first one is trying and tiresome. The more you look at a form the more complicated it gets.

This morning when I visited my friend in her nursing home, I brought her down to the ground floor where there is a living room type of area. We sat and talked and I noticed that opposite us, three women in wheelchairs were lined up one behind the other as though they were in a train or on a bus.
After a while, an alarm starting going off intermittently. An orderly dashed out and checked to see if the lift was stuck, or a smoke alarm was going off, and then she noticed that one of the ladies in the wheelchairs, the middle one, was pulling an emergency cord on the back of the wheelchair in front of her.

The nursing home is both hopeless and hopeful. The state of some of the people tears at your heart and makes you wonder what their experience of life is at this point. But the staff are cheerful and patient and the nursing home seems so much more lively and present than the old folks' homes of yesteryear, or maybe of Britain.

Still, not quite sure why we call it a home.

On Footwear

The reason footwear has been on my mind recently is that my absolute favourite pair of shoes are about to give up and die. I love these shoes, they are Nike slip-on trainers and are all kinds of comfortable. Sadly, I will never be able to find another pair the same, because I bought them from the outlet shop in Gunwharf and they were being discontinued.

Today my mind was once more focussed on the foot, as I waited at a crossing light whilst a woman in a ridiculous pair of heels actually tottered across the road as though balancing on something too small, and then suddenly, I really, REALLY got the whole Ugg boot thing, because following her was an almost identical woman, wearing the ubiquitous Uggs. How weather appropriate, I thought, given that yesterday we had sleet that had clearly fallen as snow on the mountains, followed by hail that stayed in piles around the frame of the windscreen. Today is sunny, but cold. The Ugg woman looked comfortable and in control of her own body space.

I'm not saying there isn't a place for sassy heels, most definitely there is, but today, on the pedestrian crossing on a main road and in the middle of the day, did not seem to be it.

As for my beloved Nikes, well, something better'll come along and I'll no doubt forget all about them, just as I've forgotten how insanely I loved my Dr. Scholls in the 70s.

And not in any way footwear related, Ben's band are interviewed on Eagle FM on Sunday night at 21.30 GMT.

Green Days

Yesterday, we watched the first episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution in LA. On the one hand, it was pitiful to see the intransigence of everyone he tried to deal with. It was as though he were an alien from another planet speaking in clicks, although, to be fair, no-one tried to dissect him. At best, a bunch of parents watched as he demonstrated how much sugar their children were eating, making tut-tut faces and then all cleared off. But what bothered me, was that I could see myself standing there, trying to convince people at my church that racism and sexism are wrong. I WAS Jamie Oliver, but on a teeny, tiny scale and without using sexism myself.

Every week, or, more accurately, at random intervals, I receive an e-mail from the Guardian's Environment section. This week's was particularly edifying.
Firstly, the World-in-Wildlife pictures were spectacular.

Then, I found the explanation of the difference between internal and external radiation quite fascinating, although the spat between the two environmentalists was disturbing.

I love the idea of seedbombs, even the instructions, the sort of terrorism one's grandchildren could do. Nice. What's not to love about random acts of environmentalism?

Lastly, I love the idea of that a whole street could co-operate in monitoring and decreasing their own energy use. Let's hope it's an idea that spreads like a seedbomb.

Alex and the Geese

Alex is here, this was a last minute plan, and I have been under a gag order until she'd surprised everyone. And she has surprised people, there has been much screaming and general...well...surprise.

The Snow Geese are also here. We took Whisky for a walk along the dyke - shows how long I have been here that I can even type that word - and the snow geese were abundant, rafts of them floating on the river, blankets of them just hanging out, and then gangs of them squawking and taking off.

In the garden, my spud bags have been half filled and spudded. At the first hint that the weather is warming up, I'll be planting my pea seedlings out, and probably some onions. I have also planted carrot seeds left over from last year. The biggest problem is that I'm following instructions on the BBC's Gardeners' World website, which has a week-by-week checklist, but temperatures are clearly higher in the UK than here right now. Unfortunately, I can't find a local equivalent.

Anarchy really isn't my thing. Just saying.

I'm entirely ready for the Royal Wedding. I have my stylist here. Easter will have passed, so I'll have my chocolate stash to consume. That's about it really. Is there a special, loud musical instrument for the celebration? No? An oversight I'm sure.

Oh, and this is how far we haven't come in the desire to just be allowed to be who we are and not to be judged on an impossible and undesirable goal.

Saturday Special

Friday morning was frosty, making me glad that my seedlings are still inside, even though I have been preparing the ground for planting when the weather warms up.

On Thursday, the general doggie mayhem caused by all the garbage and recyling trucks, was greatly exacerbated by the jhumming and boshing going on next door. No-one yet seems to have moved in, but of course, why miss an opportunity for hammering and noise? And to add insult to injury, since it was sunny, the gardener for the strata was out with his big man-toy leaf-blower, which succeeds in doing a less efficient job than a broom, whilst adding to sucking life out of the planet and simultaneously winding up small dogs (ie not just ours).

The past couple of days, I have found myself, bizarrely, having to talk people at my church out of a bit of casual anti-Semitism. And I have by no means yet won the debate, but the most ridiculous argument I have had thrown at me is, 'it doesn't matter if we do it since the congregation are intelligent enough to know we don't mean it.' What a freaking wonderful catch-all argument. Let's just indulge in the occasional sexism, racism, homophobia because everyone else is clever enough to know we don't mean it. Well guess what? that excuse is no excuse at all. The leadership of absolutely anything is supposed to be better than that and furthermore, if we do it, even once in a while, then we get tainted by it.

For the second weekend running, internet access at the Static has been as good as non-existent. This is annoying and frustrating but oh well, what can you do?

I have been mightily taken by one of Raymond's posts in which he talks about a Japanese idea that the brain works better when the head is cold and the body warm. I thoroughly concur with this, being a woman of middle years, it is my head which always feels uncomfortably warm most of the time, and at this discomfort stops me from concentrating fully on other things.

Simon Schama, whose name I have now learnt how to spell, continues to enthral me with his History of America. I think I admire Thomas Jefferson quite a lot, and many members of the Meigs family. I'm also still quite focussed on the growing horror of many Americans, particularly in the north, of the practice of slavery, whilst the south were willing to go to war to protect the 'right' of white people to 'own' other human beings. It's just quite incomprehensible to us now.

Mothers' Monday

A weekend without internet. For some unaccountable reason, it was running like a dream last weekend, and was completely dead this one. Still, we had a splendid fire, managed to find new bricks for our firepit and there was a hummingbird at our feeder.

I received a delicious selection of e-books for Mother's Day, what a fantastic surprise, especially since I didn't receive the notifications until the evening when we got back. AND....how very brill of Kobo to offer this service. I wanted to send a book as a gift to Austen, for his Kindle, they, sadly DON'T offer the service, they must be missing out on a lot of potential (and eco-friendly) sales there.

I am currently reading two books, both paper copies. One, 'Kissing the Hag' is about accepting the things that make us female, rather than trying to apologise for them, or hide them.

The other has been sitting on my desk for about two years since Austen told me it would be a good book to get. Simon Sharma's 'History of America', apparently there was a TV series based on this book, or vice versa.
But what an interesting book it is turning out to be, and what a sublime writer Sharma is. One of his opening lines is,
'"America has never been a warrior culture," just because it was Dick Cheney said this didn't automatically make it untrue,' and then we you are thinking, 'what the hell?' he goes on to show you how the founders of the country really did try to build something that was different from the warrior cultures of the Old World, and how, when it became necessary to defend themselves, (from the French who were rather put out by the signing of a peace agreement with Britain) put in place a college where future officers would learn about honour and duty and how war was not to be taken lightly.

As Sharma moves us forward towards the Civil War, he shows us a mirror. You can so easily see modern schisms reflected in the horror of slavery expressed by some, and the arrogance towards the lives of other humans displayed by others.

To feed our addiction for 'The Killing', we watched the opening of the U.S. (filmed largely in Vancouver) episode last night. It wasn't bad, although I feel as though watching the original, you were not only drawn into the mystery, but also their world, and so, in spite of an attempt to re-create even the Birk-Larsen's house and business premises, the atmosphere isn't there. The actor playing the Lund character is a good pick and yet lacks the essential brooding closed-off nature of the original. There are three poor castings in my opinion, Larsen's side-kick, (Vagn in the original), Lund's co-officer (Jan Meyer) and Lund's fiancé.

Zombie Apocalypse

Thursday, bloody Thursday. Thursday is when the recycling collection comes to us and the people across the way, and their garbage collection comes. Ergo, Whisky is in yap-frenzy mode on a Thursday.

Spring has sprung, the grass has ris, but no need to wonder where the birdies is. If you are lucky enough to be one of those people with a gas fire that vents up to the roof and comes out in a metal chimney-like affair, then you are unlucky enough to have the male Northern Flickers drumming away to their little hearts' contents on your metal vent, trying to impress the ladeez.
The daffs are still being weenies, and on the back balcony, I am preparing for planting. I am putting way more out there this year because it's the only one that faces south (ish).

The other thing that's underway is the election campaigning. Harper is looking all sour and dissing everyone, Layton is looking perky and going like the clappers in both languages and Ignatieff is making far too much sense for a politician, but again, in both languages. Where are the womenz? Yep, good question. We have one in charge of the Province for the time being, but we'll see how well the previous incumbent fucked things up for her come the next provincial elections.
This article sums up the general apathy that abounds, if apathy can be said to do anything as pro-active as abound, so in spite of the desperate need for change, we probably won't get any.

And then for me, there are the meetings, which seem to have sprung up like daffs should do, but hey, who can ever have too many meetings huh?

My friend Anne, is now in a nursing home. Partly, it's ok, because there are a number of reception rooms on the ground floor that are nice, and where the people can sit and look out at the beautiful flowering cherries whilst some kind of very vocal exotic birds squawk in their ears.
Partly, it's grim, because the upstairs where their individual (but shared) rooms are is full of people lying around the corridors and making strange noises and on occasion, forgetting to flush the loo, so there is an ambient poo smell.
And that's the thing that is most distressing. My friend has ALL her marbles, she just can't get around anymore. It's her physical self that has given up. But she's surrounded by people whose mental selves have started to shut down. This must be what the real zombie apocalypse is like.

Small Things

Ah, so many small things.

In order to feed our addiction for the Danish serial 'The Killing', we are now watching series 2. Unfortunately, the sub-titles haven't been through, or anywhere near, the BBC and so frequently have no meaning.

I was quite overcome yesterday evening, while driving home from Kits, to come upon two electronic road signs that said, 'Drive Safely', (what is the opposite of 'dumbing down'?) contrasting starkly with the two outside Surrey Memorial Hospital a couple of weeks ago which read, 'Be Prepare to Stop'. (sic).

Safe driving however, was not what we encountered coming back from the Static on Saturday night. On the off ramp from Highway 99, we waited at the traffic lights until they turned green for us to turn left onto Westminster Highway. There are two lanes at those lights, and we were in the right hand one. Therefore we were lucky enough to escape being ploughed into as a car coming from our left, ran the red light and took out the car next to us in the left hand lane.

Walking through Zellers just now, I noticed a stand for 'Women's (name of brand) Bras'. I decided not to walk around to the men's section to check whether there was a stand for men's bras. Mainly, if I'm honest, because if there are, I don't want to know.

Q & A videos on the impact of Lip Service, via Lesbilicious.

Elsinore

A few days of sun and warm enough temperatures for things to finally start growing a little, hovering around the 11° mark, today it has been up to 13°. For some reason, this spring-like weather in the actual spring has gone unanticipated by Canadian Tire. I went there today to try and get some potting compost. Their garden centre is shut whilst it is being remodelled. Last time I went, before going to England, it was shut whilst being remodelled. 'There's going to be a grand re-opening when it's finished,' the enthusiastic shop assistant assured me, 'but I need supplies now, and not only that, but I can see the bags of those supplies in your closed off area.' He gave me an 'I'm sure you understand,' type of look.
Thus, Home Depot got my custom.

Sleepy has got us hooked on the Danish detective serial, 'The Killing', or 'Forbrydelsen'. According to Google translator, this actually means 'Crime'. I like that it's sub-titled, it's nice to hear the original language. Danish sounds as though it is gargled, I can't imagine how they communicate with one another, I find it difficult to pick out individual words. I only know a few words of Danish, but what I do know has all been used in this, or almost all.

When I was fourteen, we went to stay with my parents' friends in Copenhagen, or rather København, during the summer holidays. We came back and immediately bought duvets, yoghurts and with a new appreciation for Danish pastries, known as Vienna bread to the Danes. We also brought a massive and extremely smelly Havarti cheese that didn't increase our enjoyment of the ferry crossing and long drive home.

In the serial, one of the characters is called Vagn, as was my parents' friend, and I remember the youngest son of the family, quite a large boy, and older than my sister and myself, constantly yelling something that sounded like 'Mooah!' (Mum and actually spelt 'mor'), and the children say that a lot.
The friends had a sommerhus and we went there, and learnt to be polite after a meal and say, 'tak for mal!' To my (now) embarrassment, we also learnt to say 'nej til EF', no to the common market. For some reason too, we were allowed to drink Schnapps, which burnt the lining off the back of your throat.

One of the noticeable things on the TV programme is the prevalence of smoking, even inside the house, and when we were in Denmark, my mother, a fairly committed smoker herself, was somewhat put out by the habit of our hosts of stopping after each course and smoking at the table. Of course, the average British table at that time really only ever saw two courses, the main one, and pud.

We were also taken to Hamlet's Elsinore - Kronborg Castle, although neither of us had studied Hamlet at the time, so it wasn't the enriching experience it should have been.
Our Danish obsession will end this weekend, whether we want it to or not, and I won't be buying the jumper, in spite of their apparent popularity.

Vernal Equinox

It's rather worrying when the Weather Laws as passed down from generation to generation, go awry.
I wish, I wish, I wish, that I had been able to take a picture of this, but, you know, driving, the sky coming back from Washington yesterday evening was bewitching. It was as though the whole sky to the west was on fire, and a deep, coral-coloured fire at that. The mountains to the north were tinged with pink and then further round, sparkled with snow and lights. So, Shepherds absolutely delighted or what? But this morning, do we wake up to the most glorious spring-like day EVER? No! We wake up to rain.
Well, all I can say is, the rain on the Static on Friday night was brilliant, followed by a lovely, clear, sunny day on Saturday, and that incredible, luminous moon on Saturday night. Then, of course, the sky on Sunday.

Anyhoo, I had completely forgotten that the hummingbirds come back around Saint Patrick's day and lo! They had certainly arrived at the Static. I hurried to put their feeder out, and was rewarded with the low hum of wings not long afterwards. Today I have put the one at the Schloss out. Visitors to it were infrequent last year, and yet they did come. This year, the Salmonberry doesn't seem to be showing any willing at all, and that is the only real possibility of nectar for them, so who knows, maybe we'll get more.

Amateurs

On the one hand, some people criticise the Nanny State that wants to interfere in the lives of its citizens, on the other, they want that same Nanny State to come and rescue them from the Middle East, Japan, Mexico, whichever human-made or natural disaster they find themselves stranded in the midst of. Get on the planes that are still flying, people.

Earning the title of complete bunch of amateurs, Harper's government are currently having to distance themselves from Minister Bev Oda who has stopped Canadian funding to the international aid group, Kairos. She did this by having the two other people needed to authorise payment, sign the document that gave that authorisation, then getting her aide to insert the word 'not' in it. I mean adolescent or what? Not only that, but instead of falling on her own sword in a welter of shame, she is trying to defend this outrage.

To add insult to injury, well not really, but still, adding to the whole rank amateur feel of the thing, Canada's most prestigious and publicly owned news channel, CBC, can't even speak or spell the Queen's English when reporting on it.
"...she is in contempt of Parliament over her earlier explaination for the defunding Kairos"
Wtf?

Yesterday, I was expounding the theory that if you're good at something, nobody notices, or it just looks easy. It's not easy to teach a class of 30 adolescents, but it can look like it is with an experienced teacher. Likewise, you go into a fairly ordinary restaurant in France, the sort that seems like it's in someone's back or living room, and the service just happens without your noticing, quite a pleasant contrast to what you often find in North America, where you are oh so aware of the server because they're in your face every ten minutes whining about wanting to know how you're liking your meal.
Our music director at church is a fabulous musician, but you don't notice necessarily, because it just all sounds perfect, nothing off key or out of synch, it just dovetails with everything else.

Ok, but these blokes are amateurs in the original meaning of the word, and that is a good way. Kevin showed me this the other day, and while I was watching, I couldn't help thinking that Kev could be in this group. Maybe it's just the West Coast garb, but maybe it's because he is quite the singer.

Milko

The great British tradition of having pint bottles of milk delivered to the doorstep before you get up every morning, has long been the subject of humour. If you were up early enough in the morning, you could see the little electric milk floats keeping Britain healthy and ensuring that there was at least always milk for the breakfast cereal and tea or coffee. I'm sure there was even a time when the vehicle was horse drawn.

Looking for a picture of a milk float, I found this article, by a Canadian.

I received an e-mail today that was a collection of notes that had been left out in the milk bottles, for this was indeed the way we used to communicate about our milk needs. They made me laugh and I can absolutely believe them to be real notes.

Dear milkman:

I've just had a baby, please leave another one.

Please leave an extra pint of paralysed milk.

Cancel one pint after the day after today.

Please don't leave any more milk. All they do is drink it.

Milkman, please close the gate behind you because the birds keep pecking the tops off the milk.

Milkman, please could I have a loaf but not bread today.

Please cancel milk. I have nothing coming into the house but two sons on the dole.

Sorry not to have paid your bill before, but my wife had a baby and I've been carrying it around in my pocket for weeks.

Sorry about yesterday's note. I didn't mean one egg and a dozen pints, but the other way round.

When you leave my milk knock on my bedroom window and wake me because I want you to give me a hand to turn the mattress.

Please knock. My TV's broken down and I missed last night's Coronation Street. If you saw it, will you tell me what happened over a cup of tea?

My daughter says she wants a milkshake. Do you do it before you deliver or do I have to shake the bottle?

Please send me a form for cheap milk, for I have a baby two months old and did not know about it until a neighbour told me.

Please send me details about cheap milk as I am stagnant.

Milk is needed for the baby. Father is unable to supply it.

From now on please leave two pints every other day and one pint on the days in between, except Wednesdays and Saturdays when I don't want any milk.

My back door is open. Please put milk in 'fridge, get money out of cup in drawer and leave change on kitchen table in pence, because we want to play bingo tonight.

Please leave no milk today. When I say today, I mean tomorrow, for I wrote this note yesterday.

When you leave the milk please put the coal on the boiler, let dog out and put newspaper inside the screen door. P.S. Don't leave any milk.

No milk. Please do not leave milk at No. 14 either as he is dead until further notice.

Ofwat and Broccoli

A fine day! A FINE day I tell you. I was able to open the windows - pretty important as it happens, since I'd blanched and frozen a load of broccoli, and the smell was hovering up in the bedroom. I was able to go outside and start tidying my balcony boxes. I have seeds germinating indoors, I have seeds refusing to germinate indoors. We're forecast another partially sunny day tomorrow, so I'm hopeful of more outside time.

In spite of that, we are still not seeing much in the way of flowers. March is halfway through and there is nary a daff. A few crocuses here and there but that's about the extent of it. Ergo, I offer some snowdrops from Winchester. Ah, Winchester, beautiful, beautiful town.

This evening is my meeting-free evening. Divine.
However, I have spent my day and evening firstly visiting my friend in hospital and then by doing paperwork. My last letter of the evening has been sent to Southern Water, who have tried sending me a bill, for a flat I moved out of seven years ago and which I in any case, paid monthly by direct debit. It also found its way to Austen's address, at which I have never lived. Quite a mystery. My first thought was to simply contact the water industry's watchdog, Ofwat. This was also my second thought when, after the most basic google search, Kevin discovered that Ofwat had fined Southern Water 20 million pounds in 2006, for fraud relating to customer service. However, Ofwat tell you to try contacting the water company first, so I have done so.
Watch this space, as indeed, shall I.

Euphemistically Speaking

Friday's border crossing was golden, in that all the people we spoke to or who dealt with us, spoke to us respectfully and they were efficient.

The weather god seems to have much rain in stock that she is trying to get rid of. I understand that of course. I went swimming anyway, you can never be too wet. Or at least, my skin hadn't osmosisised and crinkled, so up to that point I wasn't.

I'm always interested in which things we pay attention to and why, and in some ways, more importantly, which we don't. Japan has us all riveted. Here, anyone is quite likely to have a number of friends and acquaintances who have family there, but then if you compare that with the apathy that seems to be shown to anything that happens in Pakistan, that alone can't be the answer. Everyone in Britain is likely to have any number of friends with family in Pakistan, and thus everyone really knows that the average Pakistani family doesn't harbour terrorists and are in fact just ordinary British people.

No, I think we here, at the very least, are looking so keenly towards Japan, and having such empathy, is that we fear it could be us next. Just as in Japan, our buildings are constructed with earthquakes in mind. Our city councils have departments whose reason for being is ever-readiness for that or some other disaster. We live with the knowledge that 'the big one' is not an if, but a when.

But enough about global crises, let's talk about toilets. Now, I would generally argue that Brits talk about their bodily functions more than most, but not, I am beginning to believe, more than Canadians.
Last night, at my writers' group, someone asked about the meaning of the word 'ablutions'. This now gives me three words that Canadians use to mean toilet related, that actually have a much wider meaning.
The first I cam across was 'constitutional'.
The OED gives us this definition and this is indeed the way I would use it,
"noun, a walk taken regularly to maintain or restore good health."
Apparently here it means having your morning poo.
The second one, 'outhouse'
OED
"noun a building such as a shed or barn that is built on to or in the grounds of a house. "
Apparently here it means an outside lavvy.
And finally, 'ablutions'
OED?
"noun
(usually ablutions) formal or humorous

*
an act of washing oneself:the women performed their ablutions "
Apparently here it means going to the toilet.

So what's occurring? Well, I think it's down to euphemism. I think at some point, all of these expressions in their actual meaning, have been used euphemistically to talk about the lavatorial, and then the euphemistic meaning has been used more than the actual one.
When we were little, our parents would sometimes ask if we needed to 'wash our hands', meaning go to the toilet. Fortunately, the euphemism never became common parlance, because that would have been most unfortunate in the way that nowadays, if monkeys misbehave, you can't actually spank them, euphemistically speaking that is.

Driving Rain

It was a dark and stormy night, and the Captain said to the Mate, 'give us a tale,' she said and the tale she told was this, 'it was a dark and stormy night....,'

Well, cor blimey, love-a-duck, there has been an awful lot of weather about today. And as well as weather, there has been a fair amount of things-not-going-according-to-plan.
The plan was this.
Cross the border and get the old visa waiver renewed, since today was the day it ran out. What could possibly go wrong? The guard screwed up his eyes and said, 'I wouldn't go in there, it's up to you of course, but it's all backed up and we're short staffed,'then he sort of squinted sideways at Whisky, who was making a lot of very irritating noise in the back.
'Ok,' I said, and drove off to the Static, promising to come back tonight, and lo, I did.

It was a constant bloody battle to keep the car going in a straight line, it was so blustery, and the sky was full of birds, just playing at being birds buffeted by the wind and enjoying every minute of it.

I went to the first of three supermarkets and slipped in the mud.

Back at the Static, I took Whisky for a walk, and we were almost knocked off our feet by a loud bang that sounded like gunfire. A man popped out of his RV and asked me what it was.
'Dunno, trailer just pulled away, maybe it was a backfire,' said I, and he seemed willing to take my word for it, although I didn't really know.
Another man pulled up in his truck and asked me what the noise had been. I repeated my theory.
'Oh, thought so,' he said, not looking at all like someone who thought a vehicle had just backfired.

I'll have to get my visa waiver tomorrow. At least if they let me back in, we'll have plenty of food.

International Women's and Pancake Day

I have always loved pancake day, although I don't love it so much when I have to make the pancakes, and even less when I can't just pop down the Co-op and buy a big stack of ready-to-heat ones for a couple of bob. Oh alright then, a couple of quid.
I have of course, consulted Delia. I have done everything she has told me. It's not that I've never made them before, just that I only do it once a year as a general rule.

In the garden, things don't seem to be anywhere near as growy here as back in England. There, daffodils and violets abound, here, bulbs are pushing scared greenery through the soil.

The jetlag is in play. I fell asleep last night, sitting on the sofa watching telly, and well before nine o'clock. This morning however, I wasn't wide awake until around half past five, it had been three the previous night.

So, International Women's Day. Well played Dame Judi Dench (genuflect) and Daniel Craig, for using their roles in the James Bond films, for good.

From the Feministing website, I shamelessly repost the link to the Jane Austen drinking game, one drink for, 'Conceited Independence' and another for 'Small Dog'. Sadly, at my womanly time of life, that's about all I can manage. I'd love to be able to get as far as the 'chug' section, and I daren't enter the 'Womanly Skills' part, for fear of being the last to raise my little finger whilst holding the glass.

On the theme of the moment, how Feminism makes life better for men, writer Taylor, on Gender Focus, takes the so-called author of the so-called humorous, and completely blank book, 'What Men Think About Apart From Sex', quite firmly to task for portraying men as just that shallow and feckless.

Penultimately, 'The Rise of 'Enlightened Sexism' ' by Susan Douglas who quite rightly burns the part of the establishment who try to get us to buy into the 'you can have it all and you have arrived' myth.

And finally, although I have already written about it, the DVD of 'Made in Dagenham' isn't out until the 28th March, but however you do it, see it, it is beyond brilliant. My favourite speech by Miranda Richardson as Barbara Castle, in response to her lackeys trying to dissuade her from meeting the machinists, on the grounds that it would give their cause credence, goes thusly,'

"Credence? I will give credence to their cause. My god! Their cause already has credence. It is equal pay. Equal pay is common justice, and if you two weren't such a pair of egotistical, chauvinistic, bigoted dunderheads, you would realise that. Oh, my office is run by incompetents and I am sick of being patronised, spoken down to, and generally treated as if I was the May Queen. Set up the meeting! "

Until Next Time

Yesterday we bid farewell to England, this is what I wrote at the fantastic new Terminal 5. Not so state-of-the-art that it has free wi-fi however. Pull your finger out BAA, there's absolutely no excuse for not having free wi-fi, especially as you keep people hanging around with no explanations.

"Great Britain, the Island of the Mighty, it changes, it morphs, it welcomes and it spits out. Here we are on the way back to Vancouver. We have planned plenty of wiggle room into the various stages of our journey.

We eschew breakfast, choosing to fast before flying. Fast, pshaw, we’ve eaten enough ‘British Tapas’ (buy a ridiculously mis-matched selection of the Co-op’s ready meals and then share) and pudding tapas, (same but with puds) to keep the peristalsis going all night. Downstairs, Holly is confidently reading poems from ‘When We Were Very Young’, a well-used and loved book from the look of it. I notice that it’s the copy that Karen and Steve gave to Edward at his christening.

There is an earlier-than-planned train at the platform at Havant station, but we miss it by fewer than thirty seconds.
When we do get the train, the planned-on one, both toilets are out of service, thus, arriving at Woking, I have to make for the ladies’. Both cubicles are taken. From one, I can hear a woman having a loud conversation, I presume on her mobile phone, about visiting someone in gaol. I try to make my presence known by shuffling about and eventually the door opens. Two women come out. Neither washes their hands. This causes us to miss the bus, again by fewer than thirty seconds, but we still have plenty of time to spare.

As we pull out of Woking, the Mosque is letting out. Several men dressed like Baber Siddiqi, make me realise that Little Mosque on the Prairie has replaced apprehension with affection.
At the airport I notice that the disabled toilets no longer have big signs proclaiming them as such. What joined up thinking, those signs simply aren't necessary.

We wait and wait at the Departures gate, boarding time comes and goes, departure time comes and goes and not until twenty minutes after the time we should have left, do we get any information. The aircraft has had to be changed because of a freak food trolley accident. It doesn't seem very likely."

The flight was more tolerable, the seats better than before, the entertainment system is on Video on Demand, so we were able to watch as many films as we liked. We saw 'The King's Speech', Helena Bonham-Carter was beyond brilliant, 'Black Swan', - engaging, and 'Made in Dagenham'. This is a must-see, in fact, I will watch it again. Fecking supreme. And Miranda Richardson as Barbara Castle was inspired casting.
But it was still unbearably hot.

Whisky had been brought to meet us by Kevin's parents. Both Laurence and Whisky were happy to see us. Now there's just the reverse jet-lag to deal with.

Overnighter

Yesterday afternoon, I went to Woking to visit Ben. All good. We had lovely food from Sainsburys and an 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' marathon.

This afternoon, I attempted to get back. Not so good. I arrived at Woking station to discover that all the trains from Waterloo were either cancelled or delayed owing to a 'police incident'.
In the case of any incident that involves inconvenience to gathered Brits, the Dunkirk spirit immediately comes into play.
Of course, I don't mean that civilians turn up in small cars to ferry you wherever you need to go, rather that the camaraderie rolls out.

A man told me not to take his word for it, but, that the police at Waterloo had been chasing a man who ran onto the tracks. An oncoming train's brakes failed and thus the man was fatally injured. He then gave me an alternative version that he'd also heard, but was mostly the same as the first. In any case, his story was corroborated by a British Rail employee and a woman whose daughter had found it online and then phoned her.
I walked back to Ben's flat and sent an e-mail to Kevin.

When I arrived back at the station an hour later, the body of stranded passengers had reached critical mass. It was like a solid form that moved forward as one when a train finally arrived on a different platform. The beast rolled up the stairs, across the bridge and down again.

On the train I soon discovered that on one side of me was a young woman from Toronto, who had been travelling around Europe for a while and was excited to talk to someone about Canada.
On the other side was a man who was visiting for just two days, from Israel. He thought Bibi's government were in dire straits due to the Foreign Minister's indictment and that they'd be gone within six months. He was still gloomy about the prospect of Israel getting anything but yet another right wing government.

The temperature tonight is supposed to drop to zero, and it certainly feels like it could.