We is back ...

... and I am exhausted. I had an uppy downy time, and am quite glad we are now fixed in Orkney for a month before we need to go away again. Very aware that I am behind  in writing up Canada, Project 60 stuff etc and also very aware that it seem likely I will miss my target of 60 new things by my birthday which is, unbelievably, on Friday. However I won't stress about it, but extend the deadline to the end of the year if I need to as I have something else in mind for next year but don't want to start it before January.

I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by the number of things I need to do to catch up with myself but I hope I'll have managed that as well by the end of the week. We can only do our best and hope. 

Meanwhile the cats are very clingy and whiny due to our absence. I tried to walk to the local shop earlier today and had to come back as I was being followed by all three of them, and none f them could have made it all the way there and back in this heat. The phrase 'herding cats' was much in my mind as I tried to get them back off the road and up the drive! 

Falling Silent, on a Temporary Basis

And yes, that does mean we are off on our travels again.

We are only going to Englandshire, but rather a long way south, in fact about as far as you can get without floating off into the Channel, for some of it. The OH is taking half the contents of his office, including, I kid you not, his printer, because he is off to Organise His Mother who has just moved into a residential home and has Things that need Sorting and which will include Lots of Letters. 

I am going to the Gaskell Society Conference which this time is in Portsmouth, followed by a few days with my sister in Cheltenham.

I have packed rather more for 12 days away in England than I packed for two weeks in Canada, which probably means that even more of my packed clothes will come back having enjoyed a 12 day holiday during which they have seen nothing but the inside of my suitcase. 

My birthday is getting rapidly closer, and that will mark the end of Project 60. I have quite a few Project 60 things  to catch up with blog wise, but I have to say it looks as though getting to 60 might be, as the Duke of Wellington would have it, a damn close run thing. We'll see. 

Never say Never ...

...but it will be a long time before I voluntarily fly with Air Canada again.

I was quite looking forward to my Vancouver - Toronto flight. Only four hours, the OH had pre-bought me a refreshment voucher and someone at the congress had been waxing lyrical about the amount of legroom you get on Air Canada planes. Plus the OH and Son No 1 would be waiting for me when I got off at the other end.

Let's do the pluses first. There was loads of legroom, so much that even when the person in front reclined his seat I did not feel that my personal space was being encroached upon, let alone get bruised knees and a rise in blood pressure, as is normal for me on other carriers. I didn't know how I was supposed to claim whatever it was that my meal voucher would get me, but in fact the cabin staff came to me and gave me a list of options. Two courses! for what had seemed a very small amount of money. So far, so great. 

But - we were an hour late setting off, and made up no time in the air. When we landed in Toronto there wasn't a gate for us  so we sat for anther 45 minutes on the tarmac until one became available. Worst of all we then waited two hours for our baggage to appear! 

I would not have known it was two hours but several passengers, obviously wiser to the ways of Air Canada than I was, had noted their time of arrival at the baggage carousel, and continued to monitor the time taken for the next 120 minutes, all the while grumbling about how rubbish Air Canada was in general It did not help that after about an hour, and without explanation, our flight disappeared from the sign over the carousel completely, leaving me to wish that I had after all put a spare set of underwear in my cabin baggage, because I suddenly started to suspect that the hold baggage was not going to appear again ever.

It turned up eventually thank goodness, and I tottered out into arrivals to greet a very tired and understandably frustrated husband and son. Plans for eating together, perfectly reasonable when your ETA was round about eight in the evening had to be abandoned, on the grounds that it was almost midnight and all any of us wanted to see was a bed. 

The World Congress

or Conference, as I call it. I feel only scientific types or world leaders  are entitled to have Congresses. Don't know why, it's just a thing.

Anyway it was great. I really enjoyed it. I don't think I went to one duff panel. There was a refreshing lack of those people who ask questions simply to show off how clever they are or how much they know. My paper (the 14 minute  version) went well and at least two people have bought the book I was talking about it on the strength of it. I found some people who are working on very similar lines to me, although on different writers, which was great as I had thought I was the only person mad enough to try and tie together a ret-conned  psychological diagnosis with work and biography, and I met up with some people I have met before, who actually remembered me. It was a nice little confidence booster as well as being great fun. 

The first evening was National Aboriginal Day so we had some poetry and song from First Nation poets and singers. Of the poets, one was bad, one was good and one was totally incomprehensible. The totally incomprehensible one insisted on having all the lights switched off, and then read something through a mike that was deliberately set to give a lot of 'feedback,' to a backing track of possibly the same set of unconnected words which had been deliberately distorted. I cannot in all conscience say I enjoyed it. The singers were fun though, and I even have a picture

although as I was a long way back it's not a very good one. Those are drums they are holding which they played with a beater, and that made quite a thrilling sound. Not always loud, but quite visceral. 

Although we were in a hotel there was a lovely roof terrace thing where we could take our coffee before we started each day and during breaks

We finished on the Saturday night with a banquet 

and on the Sunday there was an optional trip to Fort Langley which had been a major centre for the Hudson's Bay Company. Sadly it is now a major centre for mosquitos and we were all well and truly bothered by them. I could have tholed this better had our guide not jocularly remarked at the beginning of the tour that 'If only we stocked mosquito repellent and after bite in the gift shop we could make a fortune' and after 90 minutes of being a walking banquet for them myself I wanted to scream 'well why on earth don't you then? at her. 

In the spirit of 'But apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?' I have to say that it was a very interesting and enjoyable trip. I learned a lot, and still retain some of it two weeks later, which is good going. 

And after one final night it was Au Revoir Vancouver

and the flight from hell ....

Project 60 Number 51 - Vancouver

I can't say Vancouver was on my bucket list, despite being assured by many Canadians over the years that 'Brits love Vancouver'. When you press them on this as to why, they tend to say 'because it rains a lot' and I have to say this would not be a recommendation in my eyes, because I get enough rain at home and like to go somewhere warm and sunny for my holidays. 

Anyway the World Congress was in Vancouver and so to Vancouver I went. There was very little free time, but I flew out the day before it began in order to have some chance to explore. Because of the limited time and the location of the conference hotel I only got as far as Stanley Park, by way of the Seawall walk and English Bay, but that took most of the day and Stanley Park is a 'must see' anyway. We'll have to go back another time and see some more of the city and its surroundings. 

Incidentally what with my bad eyes and my inability to read maps, I was constantly getting lost in Stanley Park and I must pay tribute to a the kind and helpful citizens of Canada who do not hesitate to come up to a stranger looking at  a map with a furrowed bow and show them kindly where to go. 

You'd like pictures? Here you go.

No idea! But it made me smile. This is not quite inside the park

View of beach, trees and mountains as I walked along the seawall. Honestly, it's soooo beautiful.

In Orkney driftwood tends to twig or branch size. In British Columbia, it's whole trees. 

Rosa Rugosa, included so I can indulge in a private joke and say 'We get that at home'. 

The aptly named Lost Lagoon. I can't tell you how long it took me to find this, and yet it's quite big.

After several hours of solid walking I splashed out on a drive round the eastern side of the park in a horse drawn wagon. 

The famous totem poles

The not so famous statue of Girl in a Wet Suit. If you're thinking it looks a bit like a rip off of Copenhagen's Little Mermaid, you'd be right. Rich bloke from Vancouver goes to Copenhagen, sees Little Mermaid Statue and likes it. Comes home and approaches Danish authorities for permission to get a copy made for Vancouver. Permission, unsurprisingly refused. Rich bloke therefore commissions statue of Girl in a Wet Suit which looks amazingly like Little Mermaid. Have to love the chutzpah even while you deprecate the lack of imagination. 

Took this photo for The OH really as he loves acers and they are yet one more thing that can't be grown in Orkney.

Ship's figurehead (or possibly copy thereof) of a ship called The Empress of Japan.

You will see that the weather was sunny. It was also hot - hence the wagon ride. It didn't rain all the time we were there which we were told was a Major Thing. In the event this was all I saw of the city, but I was pleasantly surprised by it  and there is plenty more to see, so one day ..... 

Project 60 Number 50 - Flying upstairs on a plane.

I know, it's a bit random, innit? It isn't something I particularly planned to do but when I flew out to Vancouver, there I was, upstairs! You literally go up a little spiral staircase from the main cabin to get to your seat. And as I am of the generation that still finds the idea of two storey planes quite odd and exciting, and as I've never done it before, it seemed worth adding to Project 60.

That said, it didn't actually feel any different to travelling in what the OH refers to as Cattle Class  downstairs. I was still stuck behind one of those selfish and thoughtless people who immediately after take off throw their seat, without warning, into full reclining mode, thereby reducing what little legroom you have to almost none, and bruising your knees badly in the process.

I was also less than enamoured of the meal choice which was chicken curry or vegetarian pasta. The OH was given the exact same choice when he flew to Toronto a week later and we were faced with it again when we came back on Monday. As I don't like curry I opted on all three occasions for the pasta, but I wonder what my sister would do, since she eats neither curry nor pasta. Starve presumably. BA catering is not what it once was, and I feel the need to add 'even' to that! 

It's a shame that we have both come back from Canada with some nasty bug. The OH has been suffering from it since Sunday evening and thinks he may be coming to the end of it today; I didn't succumb until last night ; as a result today's To Do list has gone largely ignored in favour of lying in bed, moaning lightly every so often and then sleeping. As it seems to be a 4 day thing fingers crossed that I am better by the end of the weekend. 

Tomorrow, Vancouver, and some pictures! 

I Is Back!

And I had a great time, so lots to blog about over the coning days.

Not much today though as I

a) am still a bit jetlagged

b) have a 'to-do' list as long as my arm, as well as a sneaking suspicion that many of the things I need to do I have forgotten to put on it so that it will only get longer as the day progresses.

It was good though.