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Wotta Dee!

At last! After photographing this clump of snow drops since January, it is now blooming in full splendour. It will be a reluctant spring until suddenly a full-blast summer will arrive. Some years are like that.

Tax time! Woohaw! This recalcitrant old redneck rises into a quick fury when dealing with things online like CRA websites. Any manner of cyber idiocy immediately blows my rage guage. Gollygee and goshdarn, it just annoys me. Artifical intelligence may now be with us but genuine stupidity will be here forever. Today my wife Jill submitted my online tax return. There’s money coming back, enough to just cover the ICBC insurance renewal on my old truck and camper. How exciting is that? Things might work out, it’s frightening but sometimes a person’s luck has to click. Right! Uhuh?

Blind Corner. Good name for a rock band.

Shortly after Jill filed my tax report on line an email came from the Canada Revenue Agency tell me that they were processing my return and to go to “My Account” and sign in or create an account. So I did. Well I tried. It was suggested that an easy way to set up this account was to use my already-secure bank account. And so I did. Within minutes I found myself locked out of my banking accounts. Can’t be too careful, fair enough, stay cool old son. Hmmmpf. I noticed that another way of getting on board was to engage the QR code of my Provincial Government accounts. I fumbled into that and within seconds found myself also locked out of my cellphone. The password I had stashed away did not work. Rage galore! I have learned as I peer into the dark tunnel that is my approaching dotage that there is no gain in bursting arteries over things which you cannot control. Are these situations really sent to try us?

I went to the bank and with the help of a fine young fellow resolved my banking password and left the building proud that I had not expressed any of my frustrations. After a pro-longed attempt of poking at the cellphone and then consulting the Samsung guru there was nothing that could be resolved about my cellphone and the server tech suggested I go to the nearest Bell store in Duncan. That is about a twenty-five minute drive but I found the store and parachuted in there with my sad story. Fortunately there was another fine young gentleman who soon discovered my cellphone contract was about to expire with a payout due on my present phone of seven hundred-twenty dollars if… I didn’t upgrade to a new contract and a new phone. Extortionate pirates! My fury returned but I knew the contract was coming due so, I mused that I’d saved myself a trip. I’m home again with my new cellphone, a Samsung S23 ultra with mega gadoggles, 5 gigs and a pony. There is also a virgin Samsung tablet sitting here daring me to try and turn it on. The cursing will begin again.

That phone is now playing very dull classical music while I’m on hold to talk to a live “agent” at CRA and get this damned account set up. And now you know how I’ve spent my Monday. As I wait and wait, I’m writing this blog.

This weekend a friend sent me a link to a YouTube video titled “Cape to Cairo By Bike.” It is about a young German man who rides his bicycle the entire length of Africa. It is a stellar effort that rivals any professional production you’ll ever see and offers some stunning wildlife photography as well as journeys within journeys. You will find inspiration and enrichment if you take the time to sit and watch the entire eighty-eight minutes. What a treat to see! It was all done with rudimentary equipment and I cannot rave enough about what one young man has done. It certainly took me away from my CRA day.

The doctor said, “Son I don’t know quite how to say this but you’ve got mushrooms in your crack.”

So, GOOD MORNING. Day two. After over an hour yesterday I gave up waiting for a CRA agent and am now trying to connect once again this morning. There is no change in that dull canned music loop. I don’t recognize one tune; the bargain sonatas. Finally I was connected with a very nice lady who spoke English like a native daughter and who, incredibly, had a wonderful sense of humour. We laughed together and soon resolved the problem. I can’t use her name, CRA probably has regulations against employing humour and one can only imagine the tactics they might employ. Now that I was able to access my account I promptly learned that someone with a different sense of humour has decided I owe another big chunk of money from last year’s tax report. I’m numb. Jeeeeeeeeeehulia! Poverty sucks.

Stumped. From an old accident report: ” I had been driving for forty years when I fell asleep and a tree swerved in front of me.”

Stumped again. When a tree doesn’t fall in the forest, who’s to blame?

Right now our new Premier is hurling basket-loads of money into the wind in an attempt to curry favour. I’ve just got to figure how to find the right downwind spot to run to. Clearly the next election campaign has begun already, long before it has been called. Sleazy bugger!

It just ain’t natural. Trees are not meant to be planted in straight rows.

Yesterday my wee friend Arye came to my shoulder and demanded my attention. She’s becoming ever more vocal. She clearly knows what she is trying to tell me and for once I was able to video some of the performance. It is now on you tube. Here’s the link. Hope you like it.

https://studio.youtube.com/video/L4PjPfkQSGI/edit Thanks for the thumbs up. They are important.

” Hey dad, let’s, let’s go. Vamanos ya know!”

Don’t quit now! This small potted daffodil doesn’t understand what a slow spring we’re having. It hasn’t really started yet!

“It is a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.”… Will Rogers

Dog Napper

(The price of being cute)

The first we saw of Arye. Our daughter sent us this. We were smitten by this photo.

I know I’m a recluse but I don’t need my computer to keep telling me that my “social tab is empty.” This morning I checked my email as usual. I receive a daily e-bulletin board from La Manzanilla in Mexico with a post from someone named Rebecca. “Does anyone know of a beach town in the area without so many gringos?” Uh Becky! Mirror? Just leave my social tab as it is.

Jack and Arye dearly loved each other. He cherished her visits.

The Queen of Cute. We were allowed random visits before events brought her into the immediate family.

Are we there yet? They love travelling and watching the passing sights together.

Last blog I promised new adventure and this isn’t it; but it’s an interesting little story. When our daughter passed away nearly a year ago, we inherited her little dog Arye. It’s taken us that long in our continuing grief to each find a balance and a way to live. That little dog has taught us a lot. When our daughter’s close friend also passed a few months later the shock of that news came with a request that we consider adopting her little dog Libby, a miniature daschund. At first we said no but by next morning we knew what we had to. The two dogs had been buddies and their mutual company would help ease everyone through whatever lay ahead. In the moment that I was picking up Libby, Jill was being rushed to a Victoria hospital in an ambulance. That’s another story. She is recovering but we’ve had a very long dull winter and thank the gods for the blessing of those two wee dogs. Libby and Arye are “thick as thieves” and help to make our house a home.

Arye gives Libby a schooling in the art of tickling.

And every time you think you taken the ultimate cute photo…

Somehow five months have passed since Libby joined us. Based on the veterinary records we have it was time to take her for a checkup, an ID chip and the necessary vaccinations. For some reason we both went with her. I waited in the lobby while Jill took wee one (4.7 kg) into the examination room. I waited and waited. A RCMP constable walked in to the back of the clinic. I waited some more, wondering what in hell was taking so long. Then Jill emerged with a stricken look on her face and beckoned me in with her as Libby came pelting out and hopped into my arms. I walked in to find the constable there. A hairball of emotion popped into my throat. “Who’s died now!?” was my first instinct.

It turned out that our vet clinic had phoned Libby’s previous vet to learn if there were any interesting details. There were. A few weeks ago, the former boyfriend of Libby’s previous owner had appeared at that clinic after all those months, to claim that the little dog had been stolen from him. We do know that he’s not a savoury character and not the sort to care one fig about any dog. However Libby could produce valuable pups. Bastard! We’ve learned that the vet thinks it is best for Libby not to have pups, it could be devastating to her if not fatal.

“Walking on the rails might be easier.”
Yeah but it’ll be awfully cold on the feet.”
“It IS a long bloody way!”

There is a legal protocol that requires the veterinary clinic to do as they had and I understand why we were kept in the dark until the gestapo arrived. (The CIA: Canine Insinuation Agency) This old pirate does not like being told to sit in the corner and just listen. Both the vet and the cop assured us that they had no suspicions about us and that we were obviously loving care givers. I must say that both folks were quite supportive in the end.

Jill’s caregivers. How much they’ve helped we’ll never know but they’ve kept our wee house a home.

Fortunately Jill had kept all of her texting records which confirmed our story. We’ll consider the matter closed but will employ reasonable caution in future. After all we, and especially Jill, have endured in the last year it was reasonable to assume there were no more lumps to hit the fan. For a while at least, we’ll have to shoulder a burden of paranoia. Leaving the wee ones to wait in a locked vehicle for even a little while has a new perspective. Gee thanks. I do prefer to trust folks ….but!

Never trust a person who doesn’t love dogs.” anon.

Clickety Clack

Can you hear the bell, the whistle, the hiss of steam, the click of wheels on track? These were common sounds once along our abandoned railway.

I never made it Astoria. Jill endured a last-minute medical issue and off course I could not go and leave her alone. Jill is fine now. Thank goodness! I’m disgusted that I missed my Fisher Poets Gathering but life is a series of dead-ends and disappointments. That’s the way the pickle squirts and you have to look for the good part when you hit a bump in the road. Last weekend was very snowy, all the way to California. I could have been stuck down in Astoria, sampling their wonderful local craft beer and fresh seafood; survival food That’d be terrible! Maybe next year! Because I was home, I happened to discover an article in the “Times Colonist,” our island rag, and wrote the following response. You may not know or care about the debacle which is our island railway, but I believe it is a backbone of our economy and civilization. It is appalling to me that anyone can consider abandoning it forever.

No train today; or tomorrow. The old whistle stop at Cobble Hill.

Providentially, the very next evening I caught a documentary about the Ukraine Railway system. An upgraded number now has the number of evacuated folk fleeing invasion at nearly four million. There is of course no civilian air travel within the Ukraine, roads are impassable and so the rail system there is a prime weapon and defense supply line. The Russians bomb it incessantly and the Ukrainians make repairs with even more determination. Their skills have improved out of necessity. Jobs that once took a week can now be done overnight. It critically underscores the importance of a railway to any country and its regions.

There is an argument that Vancouver Island does not have a large enough population base to support a modern rail line. It has occurred to me that the single piece of infrastructure which became the foundation for the nation of Canada was our transcontinental railway. The population then was a mere fraction of our present and rapidly growing number of Canadians. Enough said. I’ve also sent a copy of this letter to our Provincial Transport Minister, Rob Fleming.

At one time spur lines like this were part of our working railway. We need it back.

The long way to Victoria. The longer we leave it, the longer it will be.

There are lots of snow photos in this blog. I’m trying to see the beauty. I’ll try to find new adventure for my next post.

I respond to your front-page story in today’s edition titled “First Nation says it’s end of the line for Island railway. ” Every progressive nation around the planet struggles to develop environmentally friendly modern railways in a bid to improve their infrastructure. Why do we need to continue this debate? Ukrainian Railways, for example, with over 19,000 kilometers of rail line, has been the life-saving implement in that country’s effort to defend itself. In the past year of it’s horrible invasion, nearly 4,000,000 people have been transported to safety and the network continues to be a prime supply artery.

On Vancouver Island, permission for the E&N Railway was provided to Robert Dunsmuir to help exploit the mineral and timber resources of this island. The Provincial Government of the time even provided funding to that MLA for the railway’s development. Now it lies abandoned, a bizarre story of nepotism, exploitation and gross mismanagement. To turn this valuable asset over to any regressive interest would be a poignant footnote to this saga of epic tragedy.

However: let’s look at our rail line in a positive light. Logging companies, over the past century, have built a macrame of rail grades over the entire island. It would be no great feat to extend the E&N railway all the way to the large population of Campbell River. Employment once required me to travel the Island Parkway (Itself viciously opposed at one time) in the small hours of early morning. That highway is very busy with traffic in both directs in the middle of the night. Where all those folks are going at all hours is a mystery, but people clearly need to travel. Consider a newly built electric rail line which would join Campbell River, Port Alberni, Nanaimo, and all points in between to Victoria, just think of the environmental sense. The passenger service would need to run at regular intervals of a few hours, going both ways, round the clock. Think of the relief to our ever busier highways and the simple savings of fossil fuel. Think green, act green. The cost of the rebuild would prove a wise investment.

I try to recall the days when the heat shimmers on the pavement and a drink of water is a precious thing.

A container port could be built near Port of Alberni with a direct rail link to mainland Canada via Nanaimo. Can you think of a better contingency plan in the event of the massive earthquake we anticipate? What an economic stimulus that would provide to Vancouver Island. Add a couple of steam-powered excursion trains for our tourist industry and develop a marine link on classic ships between Victoria and Port Alberni. Run the route both ways, it would soon be a world famous attraction. The possibilities are as limited as anyone’s imagination.

If we give away the existing remnant of our rail line, we will never have the opportunity to reclaim it. We are desperately overdue for this piece of basic infrastructure on Vancouver Island. It is essential for the future of our beloved island. I am a retired caucasian male heterosexual married man who has tried to earn a living in the resource industries of British Columbia. I understand I am part of a group we can call Canada’s “Last Nation,” but if this geezer can think out of the box, so can the rest of us. We just have to think of what we can achieve by working together. Special interest groups pulling against each other ultimately achieve nothing.

Fred Bailey

Ladysmith BC

A little white stuff certainly changes perspectives. I love this graffiti in the woods.

El pipo. The wooden pipe, four feet in diameter, carries water for miles to our local pulp mill.

Spring grass in the flood plain. There’ll be deer tracks.

Last night, February 3, Venus and Jupiter came together for a brief visit. My big marvel was the clear sky.

____________________________________________

Even if you are on the right track you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” – Will Rogers

Last Nations

(Warning: a blue collar rant)

Storm Ecstasy. This is the cover photo I’ve chosen for my second novel of the same title.

Brotchie Ledge Light. This marks the entrance to Victoria Harbour where you round the Ogden Point Light and are safe off the strait. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve sailed this way, day and night, in all weather. I miss it! Horribly.

Porthand buoy in a sea of blackberries. Don’t fall overboard.

This morning, while posting my daily Facebook blog, the app. showed my own mugshot to me and advised that this guy and I have nine mutual friends. OK? Lately, they’ve been sending out repeat friendship requests on my behalf to various facebook acquaintances. Interestingly, Facebook has no live complaint department a person can contact. Social media, oh yeah! I’m weary of young girls, and a few men, who want to show me their body parts and are declaring their profound love to this old stranger. I’ve unsubscribed from Facebook in disgust once before, which was a biblically complicated ordeal but I’m close to leaving again. I’d been persuaded that Facebook was the epicentre of social media and e-commerce. I needed to be there to further my interests. It’s the way things are done now. Well, I’ve seen no cheques. Haar! I’m losing interest. If this is indeed one of society’s prime fulcrums, we’re deep in the cack!

La Loo. Organic washroom facility in the local park.

Every bit of colour is appreciated at this time of year.

Perhaps I’m in an advanced state of cabin fever after a long, grey winter. Jill has been ill the whole time, we have tight funds and are restricted to a close-range dull existence. I am frustrated and yes, angry. I do find delight in events like multi-billion dollar jet fighter defense umbrellas being thwarted by simple balloons. I’ve found some fun in inventing scenarios like an explosion in a North Korean condom factory. A friend reminded me that during WWII Japan was successful in sending paper balloons with bombs to North America. Simple wins! So, when an F-69 blasts a carnival because some child lost their birthday balloon….. Yep, it’s crazy out there!

This last week has tipped my canoe. I am tired of feeling like a sub-species because I am an older man. I have lived my biblical span of three score and ten. To make things worse, I am a white male heterosexual, married to a woman for more than six months, and I have earned a living from different BC resource industries. Wot a loser! I have realized that I am a member of the “Last Nation.” Do I sound jaded? Bet yer arse Billy! I’m burned out from years of bashing and smashing myself up in the woods and at sea. That doesn’t compare with the thrashing you take from the squadrons of bureaucratic desk jockeys along the way who cavalierly try to control a person’s existence. I feel tossed out at a time when I have my best to offer. All those years of experience, developed skills and perspectives to pass on and I’m left to feel like a discarded fast-food wrapper blowing in the wind. I guess I never did learn to work clever instead of simply hard. Clever like a donkey. All I can do is try to make a difference with my writing and photography.

Now understand this, I refuse to regard people in terms of age, gender, race or social circumstance. Religion? Believe what you want, just do not try to impose it on me. Part of my spiritual dogma is tolerance, but don’t press your insecurity on me, just show me your better way. As one of my senior employees once told a snippy young government brown shirt, “ Son if I come over there and pull down yer pants, we’re gonna find a belly button and an arsehole just like the rest of us.” His message, in best Redneck eloquence, was that we’re all in this together and nobody is superior, or inferior, to anyone else; not if we’re all doing our best.

Twenty-three years ago I endured an accident and injury which required the installation of a dacron aorta and some other repairs to my heart. Doctors told me I’d never be able to go back to work as I had. The surgeon gave me twenty years to live but the bugger refused to sign a letter agreeing that a severe trauma was probably the cause of the injury. That gave license to WorkSafe BC to cock their leg on me despite all the other medical reports. The union was not inclined to take its feet off the desk and support the cause of one paying labour brother. At a time like that, you don’t have the berries to get up on your knees and fight for yourself. You need a little help. Life is not fair, I’ve made my own way and, for a while, have even gone back to the type of work I was advised to avoid. I’m not complaining although it’s damned tough to survive as a geezer with a tiny pension. Bought a cabbage lately?

What does piss me off is all the folks who seem to think the world owes them something for simply showing up and that the solution for their problems is to throw huge lumps of money their way. I’m damned tired of one ethnic group or another claiming discrimination because someone didn’t get a mortgage as expected, or a promotion at work or a political appointment. Fewer folks in this province now work in a resource-based industry, they don’t actually produce anything. Poking at a computer keyboard a few hours per week has nothing to do with the raw mass we eat and otherwise consume. I’m also fed up with some folks asking me to step aside and bend over because of their personal anomalies. If you choose to marry a duck, and have that bird’s mutual consent and affection, go for it. That’s your business, you don’t need to make it mine. We are all engineered to be heterosexual. That’s how you got to be here. If you have other gratifications, it is your business, not my obligation, to embrace. So, when are we going to have a heterosexual rights parade? We’re normal!

This is in a province that should be entirely self-sufficient in all ways. We should be exporting much, much more than we import. It seems to me that a lot of folks are very detached from basic reality and have ridiculous expectations. Not fitting into this new world order, and I don’t want to fit, leaves me feeling that I am a member of a group that is indeed a “Last Nation.” And to all of you self-appointed “environmentalists” who live somewhere in a multi-level condo within the biggest clear-cut in the province, commonly called the “Lower Mainland;” quit all your consuming and go learn something about what it is you say is so precious to you. Otherwise, go to hell. How’s that for politically correct?

Home. It may be humble but there’s no mortgage.

Considering so many other places on the planet, we are all so very well off here. We’ve no real clue about suffering, deprivation and discrimination. So, when I hear from a group wanting to start a special appeal for funding research about women’s heart health, or someone complaining about not getting a mortgage because of their ethnic tone….Jeez Louise. REALLY? If staying alive meant accepting the implant of a black male pig heart, would you turn it down? You cannot have equal rights and special rights at the same time. I’m beginning to clearly understand the discrimination that seniors endure living in a condition towards which we all progress without choice. Just remember, don’t piss us off, we don’t have much left to lose! I worked hard to get here and I will not be dismissed as a minority.

I do worry about ending up in a hospital bed, plumbed with a macrame of tubes and wires, staring endlessly at a poo-brindle beige ceiling while waiting for the lights to go out and knowing I still had much more to give. I’ve been there; it’s horrible. I’d prefer to die in the saddle, trying to still do something positive and meaningful.

A beauty on the beach. Work on the base is fantastic.

I refuse to watch those ridiculous TV wilderness survival unreality shows, but I’m wondering about one for not-so-sexy geezers doing the same sort of thing. Remember the story about the old bull and the young one? Upon discovering a herd of heifers, the young bull wanted to run over and make love to one. The old bull suggested that by walking over, they’d have enough energy to make love to them all. We could call the program the “Last Nation.”

Remember when poor people lived by the sea and ate fish?

Old Chinese Cemetery on the waterfront in Victoria.

Cemetery altar. Our culture no longer honours our ancestors and elderly

In a few days, I’ll travel to Astoria, Oregon. For the first time since Covid reared its ugly head, we are meeting again in person. It is a gathering of professional mariners, especially fishermen, who write, read and sing some amazing material about their life at sea. Check out fisherpoets.org. Love to see you there, or have you listen on the various radio taps available.

Wind building against tide building. Trial Island on a blustery day.

“We may have all come on different ships,

but we’re in the same boat now.”

– MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

Quiche

Anchor watch. Ho hum, just another day waiting for a berth in Vancouver. Too cold to paint, God knows how they pass their watches. For once there are a few minutes of sunrise.

Another dreary winter day, snowing again. It’s a left-over quiche kind-of afternoon. Every other day it’s leftovers. Cook one day, warm-up left-overs the next. Some foods, like soup and stew, often taste better after they’ve been left to ferment overnight. Blah month, blah weather, blah food, blah attitude. Seen one, seen ’em all. Where’s that bottle of hot sauce?

Between the sleepers. Toadstools grow on our abandoned railway.

“Now, THIS is an old growth tree.”
“Yeah, beats the heck out of a mulberry bush.”

This old workshop is one of my favourite buildings in Nanaimo. I like to imagine that it was a blacksmith shop. I can hear the clang of hammer on anvil and smell the coal smoke belching out of that old chimney. One of the cornerstones of photography is to take the picture when you see it. This building is being outflanked by new subdivisions. It’s a matter of time and the rain-wet added something special.

One of the good things my mother did for me was to get me cooking at a very early age, about three as I recall. I soon learned about hot stove tops when I’d stand on tip toes on the kindling box at the wood stove and stir up a batch of porridge or some other blupping concoction. I was lucky not to be seriously scalded or loose a finger splitting firewood.

Having a reasonable understanding of basic meat and potato cooking has served me well at times. I always had a place working on the tugs because of my culinary skill. Savoury, plentious meals are deemed a due of the job and woe to anyone in the galley who produces slop. You knew you’d done well when conversation around the supper table fell silent. The crew was too busy stuffing their pie holes. A skipper once offered an accolade, “you’d make a good wife if you weren’t so f―king ugly!” Terms of endearment, right?

The dog watcher. Now the salmon are gone a little dog must look tasty on a cold winter day.

Joined at the hip. I have become completely smitten with these two little rascals.

I have a lot of funny anecdotes about cooking at sea. Full-time cooks on the coastal tugs were rendered redundant. Deck hands were then required to prepare one meal a day on the day watches, lunch and supper. Apparently grub often improved over what the cooks had been producing. I took the mate’s watch, twelve to six because on the night watch I often had a few free hours to write. The crew worried who I was writing about.

Heron Beach winter afternoon. As the tide ebbs the ducks work the retreating shallows to scrounge for edible tidbits.

High fungus. Edible? Smokable? Dunno. I’m not going up there to check it out.

Under the volcano, 91 miles/147 km away. Mt. Baker from my house.

Another telephoto view taken with my mobile phone. Amazing I think.

One afternoon we had been very busy putting together our tow. I did not have the time left to put together a full effort meal so I slammed two cans of chicken soup into a pot, added some vegetables, lots of spice and a little seafood. While that was simmering up on the back of the big diesel stove I knocked together a quiche with lots of spice and a little seafood and bacon. I often referred to this meal as “Quicky” and to hell with what real men eat. The skipper expected his supper served on time, so he could eat without rushing to his watch in the wheelhouse at 18:00.

At 17:30 hours I was hauling the quiche out of the oven just as he was stepping into the galley. “Wots that shit?” he queried in great suspicion with his usual screeching voice and weary red neck perspective.

“ It’s uh,,,tugboat pie, skipper, something new!”

“Looks like freakin’ quiche to me! Jeehesus!” Just then our new engineer was stepping into the galley. He was a sweet young fellow from Kitsalano. “QUICHE? I LOVE quiche!”

“Keehrist” Exclaimed our captain. He made his way up to the helm with a bowl of soup and a plate of peanut butter sandwiches.

On another trip, with that same old red-neck captain, a new deckhand had come aboard and was clearly determine to make a good impression on his first-ever trip. He stowed his gear in the foc’sle and was putting a few cookbooks up on the galley window sill. Into the galley stepped old “Turkey Neck”, our nickname for him. “Jeesus! Cook books! Wot kinda freakin’ cook are you? Cook books?” Most novice deckhands would have been quivering at that point. This boy calmly looked the skipper in the eye with determined insubordination. “Skipper, when I come up to the wheel house I’m going to find drawers full of charts, collision regulations, tide books, sailing directions and lord knows what all else. Tell me sir, what kind of freakin’ captain are you?” Those two got on famously for the entire trip. Every ship needs a cat but this kid wasn’t it.

Troll’s throw. When you turn away you may get cracked on the back of the head.

I buried Jack here a year ago today. Feb. 2nd

How I miss my beloved friend Jack. He will be a part of me forever.

“Never trust a skinny cook.” so saith the Fred

Christmas Zoom

“Thazzit?” Hopefully the White Christmas business is over. Thank you!

Two days before Christmas I sat watching the desert fly by. Cacti, and rocks and dust fling by the handle bar of a motorcycle where a video camera was mounted. The bike is participating in a rally in The Baha desert. I love the desert by I can’t understand why anyone would want to beat themselves, and their expensive piece of machinery like that. Just because I don’t get it does not mean it’s wrong, it is just not for me. I’d love to be there in fact, right now, on a motorbike, but idling along; Fred Quixote, the happy wanderer. I’m a lover not a racer. Outside my window here, a grainy snow sifts down, ahead of a forecast for a heap more snow, then torrential rain.

And the creeks did rise. There was flooding which subsided quickly.

"Follow me. Don't worry, it's too cold for snakes." — “Follow me. Don’t worry, it’s too cold for snakes.”

Television news this week is full of reports of cancelled flights and backed-up air terminals as people complain about who is to blame. There are claims of never having known storms like this before. Really? Do you actually believe yourself? It doesn’t taking much digging into records to see that there have been plenty of winter storms, fiercer, colder, snowier than this. A funny thing happens when you plan to travel during winter, you have to deal with winter storms. Yes really! Your agenda has nothing to with what the weather gods determine. It’s called reality. Don’t take it personally. It is not the fault of any airline, or weather forecaster.

I find it ludicrous that Canadians expect that by stepping through a few doorways, and waiting a few hours, you can move from a country known to be a wintery place and always arrive, on time, in some lower latitude tropical paradise. Even telephone calls don’t always get through. Reality, and our expectations, are often very far apart. There are still seats available on the all-inclusive Christmas tour of the Ukraine. For no extra charge, you can pick out an orphaned dog or cat and bring them home with you. And then, there are the children.

Bacon ‘n eggs. The pig is committed and the chicken is involved. Actually this one’s a rooster!

Winter weather brings the elk down to low ground. They’re very tasty too but it’s wonderful to see natural wild herds on the roam.

The bulls have shed their antlers already, but they’re still noble creatures.

This old farm boy will admit to hating goats. But, I’ll also admit, they do have a certain charm.

With Christmas past, the weather has warmed, the wind and rain have hammered away much of the snow. We have survived our day of grief missing those we so loved and are now gone. The wee dogs and I will soon head out, hopefully there’ll be no more slush-hopping. With wind slamming the trees around it may be a good idea to stay out in the open. Four days later, after another “weather event” of biblical rain, the snow is completely gone except for the receding heaps we shoveled so high last week. Now our lowlands are flooded as usual after heavy rain. Folks, as usual, are looking for someone to blame. Frankly, I’ve little pity for people who are determined to live in bottomland that is repeatedly flooded. Hello? Hello?

End of the home stretch. One more spawn at Christmas time. The colour is right.

Five on the hook, waiting for a cargo just before Christmas as another storm blows in from the sou’east.

A glorious visual moment after two hours of snow-shoveling. It’s pretty up there.

Follow me. He’ll never catch us. “Gawd, I hate spiders!”

And so we have survived into a New Calendar year. Fireworks intermittently hammered under a beautiful clear sky until after 3 am. It sounded like yet another assault on Kiev. Life goes on whether we like it or not, suck it up and go do something. Wishing everyone health and happiness with good things to look forward to. May you find contentment in the moment.

The watcher. From deep inside an old alder, yet another bark owl peeks out.

Juniper. We’d be shocked to learn how old this venerable beauty is.

Trincomali Bonsai. A winter view toward Ruxton Pass during a solstice high tide.

Thet yer RV? A good mattress and two saddle bags, all you need. Due South!

“You are never too old to reinvent yourself.” Steve Harvey

Cystoscopy For Christmas

The path. In the tree tops overhead, bald eagles scream and chatter among themselves.

Well, here I am a week upwind of Christmas Eve. I hope this marks the end of the plague of griefs we’ve endured this year. Jill continues to improve. From my perspective her biggest setback is the medications as ordered by the doctors. Ongoing nausea and fatigue raise questions about the whole point of life but Jill has perservered and hopefully she’ll soon be skipping through meadows filled with daisys. She deserves happiness again after all she’s been through.

One of my heros is the Scottish comedian Billy Connolly. He has a hilarious yarn about going to the doctor for a colonoscopy. He describes the ordeal as being “When they ram a tv camera up your arse.” A few years ago I sprouted a tumour in my bladder. The experience of peeing blood for several weeks and not knowing what was happening, and being in a remote area of upcoast BC at the time, was not joyful. It was in fact a frightening piss-off. The repair job involved going into the inside of my frontal plumbing and removing the offending tidbit. It is an amazing process done remotely with minimal invasive slicing and dicing.

Finding humour in a delicate moment. A cystoscopy is described as “uncomfortable but not painful” Yeah, right!

All’s well that ends; but this has not yet reached a conclusion. I need to go for an annual inspection called a cystoscopy. I’m now a seasoned veteran of this but still tend to pucker inwards at the very thought of it. It only takes a minute or two but it is not an “Oh what a feeling!” experience. After you’ve booked in at the hospital, a place I absolutely dread, you have to change into their standard bum-flapper togs and then go sit in a hall with several other folks. We all have our brown paper bag holding our own clothes and sit humiliated and anxious, glancing at each other, knowing we men and women sit there now without any knickers. It is not a pretty picture. We’ve all been asked to not drain our bladders so most of us geezers sit there bursting for a tinkle. None of this brings any gratifying thoughts to anyone. Being in this together is no comfort. There is little sense of camaradarie.

Creekside. Libby must still be able to smell salmon remains.

Eventually a set of double doors open and a subdued-looking patient shuffles out, avoiding eye-contact and closely clutching their bag of clothing. They survived their experience and are going to cautiously go have a monster pee, get dressed and to hell out of there as quickly as possible. Eventually, a nurse with a clipboard appears out of the light beyond those swinging doors and calls your name. They’re always so damned cheery.

You are asked to sign a consent form, then ushered to a table and greeted by the poker-faced urologist. I noted how he has aged through the years. As I recline on his workbench I bang my head on something and am admonished to “Be careful.” I quip about not wanting to damage their equipment. The nurses laugh gently and the man whom I think of as the “Piss doctor” replies “No, no the equipment can be replaced, we don’t want you getting hurt.”

“No sense of humour” I muse, “let me see what I can do about that.” I love trying to make medical folks laugh. Then comes the blur of agony. A numbing lubricant is applied, the camera on its tube is instantly inserted then rammed inward into a tight tunnel that feels three miles long. (It’s actually just a few inches) I realize that I am uncontrollably wiggling my feet like a baby duck.

Then a small tv screen reveals my inner workings. I see into a whitish rubbery underwater cave and the tiny camera is deftly wriggled around, peering into all corners. I offer, “Oh look, a starfish!” The nurses find some mirth, the doctor wonders what I’m on about, absolutely humourless. No other resident invaders are found. The apparatus is deftly removed. “Everything’s fine, see you in a year.” I’m handed a wad of towels, grab my bag and head out through those doors, trying to throw a “nothing to it” smirk at the other waiting victims. I’ve always wondered what it might be like to emerge as if doubled in agony, clutching at myself, and blubbering like a baby. I remember a previous year when a burly nurse began shouting at me to “RELAX, just RELAX!” I responded with “Well then let go your strangle-hold on the little fellow!” The probe had felt like a fire-hose augering into my sensitive friend as she clamped it like a bear. It was clearly counter-productive and very hurtful. I wondered about how she treated her poor partner at home. All’s well that ends. I drove out of the hospital parking lot and disappeared into the gathering darkness.

Speaking of plumbing. These two massive wooden pipes are part of the water supply for the local paper mill. I’d love to see how they were built. I don’t know how many miles they run.

Know the feeling? The woodpeckers are almost finished.

Dear old Jack’s resting place. He gets at least a weekly visit.

How I miss my beloved dog. He was very special.

Now here’s something that puzzles me about some men. I stood in a cashier’s queue behind a tall fellow. He wore a heavy macho parka, complete with furry hood and a camoflage motif. Under the parka he wore a pair of summer shorts. I just don’t get it. What statement do I not understand? Surely these fellows are not all retired postmen. My arthritic knees throb at the sight of this, it seems completely silly to me. He also sported a full forest of beard beneath a shaved shiny skull. Having just described a cystoscopy I wonder why guys want to go around looking like a penis. I have asked women if they find this look sexy and invariably draw a negative response. Is it a video-game-look these men try to achieve? Stumped!

The bridge. There are ripples in front of the bridge where a salmon has just jumped.

Another current vogue is for young women to dye their hair grey. What’s with that? The real thing will come soon enough and then you’ll be colouring it some unnatural tone to hide the grey. Just let it be. You’re lovely as you are, or were. One more thing while I’m ranting about appearances. What’s with these body-coverings of tattoos? A few tattoos mean something, an entire suit of them leaves me thinking nasty thoughts. There’s a fellow at the pool where I go for my morning swim. He’s tattooed like he has been wall-papered. He loves to stand in the shallow end and pose. What these young folks don’t realize is that their body is very fickle. As it ages and changes they’ll end up with splotches and tangles that will look like a street map of Moscow. Tattoo removal is clearly a great business for the future. I’m glad I’m the age I am.

Arye crosses a bridge over a salmon pool. The dogs love this walk around the hatchery grounds.

As I sat at this desk last night I watched as an orange last quarter moon rose behind the bare limbs of a neigbour’s massive tree. The forecast blizzard did not arrive and it is time for the girls to me take out for a walk. Maybe we can find a dead fish to roll on. No worries, now it’s snowing heavily.

On a final note, I’ve just posted my latest video effort on YouTube. There’s a great response from motorcycle people world-wide and a comforting criticism from close to home.

You be the judge if you like and leave a thumb up or down please. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6ZLiLNu_5M&t=51s

They’re back! Seal lions are arriving after a long swim from the south. They’ll be in position to wait, and wait, by the thousands, for the eventual arrival of huge numbers of herring which will spawn in late winter or early spring. The seal lions will gorge for many weeks. The cycles of life go round.

This will probably be my last blog before Christmas so I hope the elves are kind to you and that you can enjoy the closeness of family and friends. BUMHUG!

“Aren’t we forgetting the true meaning of Christmas? You know, the birth of Santa.” — Bart Simpson

All Thumbs

Kinkweed. AKA cyclamen. I found a new button in my photo editing program.

I recently sat in a hospital waiting room and watched as an elderly lady thumbed rapidly through a text conversation on her mobile phone. Suddenly I recalled how older ladies were constantly knitting when I was a child. Their hands flew as various woolen items took shape beneath their flying fingers. I can even hear the gentle click of their needles. They carried a purse and a knitting bag, everywhere! I’m not so sure that some didn’t even knit while sitting in church.

“Can’t a gull go anywhere to be along?” Cleanup after the latest spawning run.

He showed up early at the speaking stump to chair the meeting. Nobody else came.

My dear old English grandmother kept me in sweaters and socks, pajama bags, hats, scarves and clothes that lasted forever. I don’t know where any are now, but I treasure the memory of them. There was a vogue in recent years when young women wanted to be seen knitting but I don’t know what happened to that. I suppose it’s impossible to text and knit at the same time. Perhaps there’s an app.

It now seems to be all thumbs on cell phones everywhere and I’m amazed at the apparent dexterity that some folks possess. I’m an old banana-fingered poker. I actually care about spelling so I do plenty of erasing and repeating. I will never master the art of texting, (or spelling.) I’ve been in the backwoods of a Mexican jungle and found locals coming out of the bushes, head down, intent on their texting. I have watched as young parents push their offspring in a stroller out into traffic without bothering to look up at all. We’ve even lost our basic instinct of lizard response fear.

The Pink Patrol. If there’s a smell of fish…chances are somewhere there is a fish. I didn’t let them roll on it.

Now where’s that darned dog? Libby takes advantage of laundry day. She loves denning up.

Winter hook in the cold cold northwest wind. Mount Benson, behind Nanaimo, looks down on Ladysmith Harbour.

A brrrroad reach, riding the tide and chill winter wind out of Ladysmith Harbour.

BUMP! Things that arrive in the dark on a flood tide. A good reason to not be under way at night.

Those of you who have been following my blog through this year know the litany of woes I have related. I’m weary of it all and ache for something good to look forward to. Two weeks before Christmas I am writing on a Friday night as the wind and rain hammer on the skylight over my head. Instincts from a long life on the water catch me thinking that maybe I should go down and check the boat. Then I realize I don’t own one anymore, well, at least at the moment. I’d enjoy tramping down the heaving dock, head bowed to the rain and wind. I’d check the dock lines, which at all times, were always thick and doubled-up for heavy weather. Then inside, I’d look for leaks, start the furnace, break out a glass of rum, light and trim an oil lamp or two, and settle back to listen to the symphony of the storm outside.

Sometimes the mast would vibrate in a heavy gust. I loved it. There was no place I’d rather be. The only thing better was to be in the same sort of night on the end of an anchor chain. The motion of the boat is much different out on the hook but, being confident in your skill at setting the anchor, you could relax and listen to the wind moan and rattle in the rigging. The boat would dip and roll but it was just part of the soothing waltz of being anchored. And there was a dog, blissfully asleep in his cozy bunk, perhaps chasing dream rabbits, uncaring about the storm outside. You could fall into an easy sleep, confident in your instinctive ability to be wide awake instantly should anything change. The oil lamps cast a warm glow on the varnished wood and the ship’s clock rang out the watches. There was a feeling of being at one with the universe, your vessel, your beloved dog and of being in the one place you wanted to be. Bliss! How I miss it! I’ve tried to convince myself that my life did not end the last time I stepped off that boat but all I’ve done is confirm who I am.

Tonight I’ve just put on my rain gear and carried my little dogs out for their night time ritual of pumping ship just before bed. They did not want to go out on their own! The rain is bulleting horizontally. They’ve now nestled into their wee bunks. Soon I will join them. I will endure another long night of dark dreams and sudden wakings when there is any strange noise. Jill is recovering slowly and I worry constantly. We are not celebrating Christmas this year due to lack of family and shattered finances. The winter ahead looks long and bleak. Blub, blub, blub. When I think of all the places I could be, a bombed-out basement in the Ukraine, teetering on a hangman’s scaffold in Iran, living in any city, I know how lucky I am.

By noon the next day, the rain has eased and doggies and I have been out for a walk. Our regular trails are now free of the trample-packed ice and are ankle-deep in running rivers of ice cold rain water. Now I’ll make some soup, so it can sit and ferment until supper time, go check the camper, take a load to the recycling depot, have a nap, watch the TV news over supper, fall asleep in front of the televison, wake up and drag myself off to bed where once again I’ll stare into the night, afraid to fall asleep and have yet another nightmare. How does the human mind conjure up such weirdness? I know I am still in the grieving process for my daughter and that all this aberrant mentalism is part of it. I feel guilt at the notion of letting go and walking away. I know that to some degree there will always be a sadness, some people never let go of that but life is for the living. This old tugboater clings to the motto of “Never look back” and it is a chore to find the right balance. At least we have the closure of knowing what happened to our daughter. Some folks never even have that.

When I’m especially depressed or stressed, (For example, laying in a dentist’s chair) I pull up a recurring image from the back of my brain. I am sailing, on a starboard tack. Tepid green seawater washes through the port scupper and I run my hand through it from where I sit in the cockpit, my other hand on a well-balanced helm. The translucent water is inviting. The boat is on a lee shore. The beach is lined with palm trees and somehow, from downwind, cooking aromas are able to reach me. Lee shores are dangerous places to be near, yet I feel peace and fulfillment, confident that I can tack out into open water as I wish. So, if you see me staring at the wall, know where I am.

We finally conceded an issue this week and bought a new television. By today’s standards it is tiny, only 32”, the same size as the old one. I was fascinated by the image quality on some of the huge wall-sized units. They remind me of the screens at drive-in movie theaters! The price of them was stupendous but most impressive to me was the heat pulsing out of them. So much for thinking green! It must take the energy from one hydro-electric dam to power just a few of these things. Frankly with these huge, larger than life screens you’d need one hell of a long room to see them properly. Boggle view! Can’t be healthy.

How not to think green. This non-fragile package was in a box within a box, packed in with paper. A waste of material, unless the cardboard can be used for an environmental protest sign.

One of the first programs I watched was about Cuban wildlife. I almost felt like I was there. To hear a hummingbird appear from somewhere out there and then look into its eyes with crystal clarity was thrilling. The entire scene was portrayed in brilliant natural colours. There was a walk-in depth to it. Perhaps, one day television will be like a door which we can step through and find ourselves surrounded in the scene. We can be one of the actors and have a chance to shoot old John Wayne in the knee.

It is amazing what twelve years of evolution in electronics has brought. The image is now scary-clear but what is truly wonderful is the sound. I can hear everything! It is wonderful and terrifying. I now have three remote controls to work in sequence and the gods forbid that I try to adjust anything. Apparently everything can be consolidated onto one control. Yeah right!Pushing one wrong button may provide a window with ten more options. Pushing that first button twice, well….! Dinosaurs disappeared because they could not evolve quickly enough! G’bye.

Hollyolly
We’ll take all the happy colours we can get.

“ I know it must be close to Christmas, I’ve just seen my first Easter ad.”

Bombastic Bastard

Christmas kilowatts. This is the lower half of main street Ladysmith. The glow goes up the hill and then the homes try to compete with the gaudiness. Honey, just leave a candle in the window for me.

The weather girl in a tight skirt warned of a deluge of rain today, that dreaded atmospheric river. I opened the curtains to find a cloudless sky and watched as frost formed while the first light of day crept up the neighbour’s wall. So far so good. I hope she’s wrong about the snow.

The Christmas Arachnid. Not bad for the end of November.

Canadians are known for politeness. We are retiring and demure to a point of absolute timidity. We can find ourselves hanging off a cliff-edge with a bully standing on our fingers and peeing on our head. We’ll politely ask if someone could please bring us a small towel. Often when you stand up against an inequity you are branded as a troublemaker. Afraid of confrontation, we do nothing. I’m not suggesting that, like some of our neighbours to the south, we shoot someone for blinking but Jeeze Louise! It’s your life, eh!

Would you really pack your dirty knickers off to someone named Sue War?

Politicians are merely people we hire, or appoint, to do jobs we don’t want to tackle ourselves. That is so from the Prime Minister’s office down to the backyard politics of the strata council. There is the presumption that these folks have stepped forward to serve their fellows but all too often we have to contend with characters who have an agenda to massage their own ego by trying to manipulate and control their constituents. Being Canadians, we say “Oh OK eh.”

When we get to town what are we going to do? Chase cats? What if they’re bigger than us?

Ayre wise eyes. she’s proving to be an excellent big sister to little Libby.

I live in a strata-titled development. There are eighteen share holders. We moved in after living in other strata-titled shituations but the appeal of this little home, and its location, were grand and so we took a deep breath and tip-toed in. We can easily walk to our small town mainstreet and they’ve now built a pub half a block away. Unfortunately many of our neighbours, and fellow share-holders, moved in as strata virgins and didn’t understand that there is more to communal life than simply paying monthly fees and letting someone else do the dirty work. Invariably, as in all politics, apathy is a prime breeding ground for those who have a craving for control and power, even at such a miniscual level.

Despite their furious denials, we have a couple of those folks on our tiny strata council. They try to manipulate their neighbours, telling them what they must and cannot do, and have expenditures without transparency. They constantly impose condescending tones on anyone who dares challenge them and even employ vindictive tactics if you challenge their petty tyrany. We hired a professional property management company to apply some objective direction but as it turns out, that agent slithered in with our questionable concillors and so we live in a dark little world of backyard politics. They are incompetent to the point of not knowing what they don’t know and adamnant that no-one else understands more than they do. I once named this home as our “Lock it and leave it” but it clearly requires some hands-on involvement. We’d just sell and leave but can’t find an equitable alternative, especially with certain health issues and all the hassles of moving. If you are considering a move to a strata-titled situation I suggest that it’s wise to go meet a few of your potential new neighbours and ask if they are content living there. Actually, meeting the folks next door before you are committed is a prudent thing to do before buying a new to-you home anywhere.

After living here for over a decade I finally went to our recent annual general meeting and raised hell. I was indeed the bombastic bastard who shook the bushes until the monkies fell out. In the end, I have only accomplished a new awareness of our strata council for my fellows and probably made some enemies. I know that will soon wear off, but it’s the best I can do. I am stunned that folks will allow a major investment which is their own home be so mis-managed with few or no questions. A person will pay the price of home ownership one way or another. I’ve become convinced that strata-titled living is overpriced for me.

There is an old wisdom which says “The fear of change is only overcome when the pain of a situation becomes too great to bear.” I guess we have a ways to go yet. Lordy, I miss my boat!

Yeah, I know, the greatest thing about living in Canada is that we are all free to leave if we don’t like it here. Sometimes, this stubborn old sailor is inclined to set out more anchoring gear when the wind rises. Grin and bare it Billy!

Meanwhile it’s Black Friday weekend, another milestone in our lemming consumer stupidity. “Buy now and save!” A wonderful and wise elderly lady once asked me “If ye canna pay for it once, how will ye pay for it twice?” It’s the wisest financial advice I’ve ever ignored.

A Tub Boat. Some folks will even pay to ride in a boat filled with water!

We go to our modern cathedrals, the malls, and worship our gods of consumerism. It’ll make us feel gooder for a little while. There must be some available credit on one card. All is well. First you have to find a parking spot somewhere on that vastness of mall pavement to leave your electric SUV. (Stupid Urban Vanity…it may never leave pavement) Later, you have to find it again. Perhaps that’s why so many new vehicles are available in garish colours. (Raspberry fluorescent green banana, range 3.7 km, bearing 176 degrees. Bleep it!) Then you have to get back into the thing. Some dufus has abandoned their vehicle an inch from yours so you can’t open your doors. You have to clamber in through the back hatch. That’s when the mall cop shows up. Christmas! Bumhug!

Ready for winter. No strata problems here!

Nice! No tree died in the making of this photo.

“Get off your dead centers.” Paul Harvey

CPR – Computer Please Recover

I am sequestered at home these days. The cold November rain spatters down. A dull grey is as bright as the day will get. I’ve just posted my Remembrance Day blog and I’m not feeling especially brilliant myself. The doctor tells us that Jill’s recovery will be long and slow and that she is lucky to be alive. I’ve vowed to stand by her but I’m terrified of not having the courage to do this as long as she needs me. I’ve been the jut-jawed aviator and never feel as at home as when sailing a boat in heavy weather but this, this leaves me feeling wholly inadequate. Like all things in life, you deal with it one step at a time and then one day you emerge from the swamp, ground down but allegedly a better person. Yeah right!

Yesterday, before I’d had one sip, I managed to dump my entire coffee mug into my computer. It wasn’t as exciting as low-level aerobatics but there was certainly a rush of adrenaline. I was brutally confronted with the reality of how much of my life depends on this damned lap-top, something I love to preach against all the while I swim in that addiction fully immersed. Well, I blew, and sucked and dabbed and heated until I actually got a murmur of life in the old computador to the point of being able to write this blog. Humiliated and diminished I took the doglets and headed off for a circumnavigation of the local fish hatchery. There are usually a few nice dogs with nice people in tow and one comes home feeling affirmed and uplifted. The salmon are spawning and there are bus-loads of junior school kids hearding around the streams and ponds. Those were a challenge to out-manouver and the dog’s faith in humanity was not too severely dented. We made it back to the vehicle without them finding any fishy bits to roll in. No cleaning up after that dreaded yum!

We talk about it, but here is how we often actually think green. Packaging is one of our biggest environmental stupidities. The smaller box, cleverly packaged, came inside a bigger box, stuffed with more paper to fill the void. And then there’s the extra diesel to ship it.

Really? So how did dogs survive the previous thousands of millennia? Wonder when there will be a “biologically” appropriate human grocery store. They sure ain’t now!

On the way home a buddy telephoned. I pulled off of the highway onto an extra wide part of the shoulder. Glancing into the rearview mirror there was a sudden image of a black pickup truck almost fully over on the shoulder zooming up from behind at warp speed. There is nothing you can do as you watch someone’s grill expanding in that little rear-view mirror! It’s amazing what can go through your mind in a nano-second. There was a rush of panic for my little dogs, the thought that I couldn’t kiss my arse goodbye while sitting behind the wheel and then the hope that this wouldn’t hurt too mch before the lights went out. All the while I’m trying to maintain my chat with my buddy. All’s well that ends. Life goes on such as it is.

Chain Cumulus? I’ve never seen low- altitude cumulus like this before.

“Turn over a new leaf huh, well this is an old one!”

Last night I came home severely disillusioned. I’d travelled over to Gabriola Island to attend my friend Bob’s ‘Celebration Of Life.’ I signed the registry and departed after ten minutes. Bob loved people and was tolerant and accepting but the hall was filled with a mob whom I doubt many never knew him or he, them. Banks of acrid hydroponic pot smog formed an initial barrier around the entrance. Clots of guffawing folks blocked the doorways, and a milling crowd of gormless characters were tripping over each other while carrying heaped plates dripping with food. I know I’m jaded but I was repulsed at a yuckfest of jolly people helping themselves to the free buffet. I was hungry but refused to partake. I’ve been to wakes where the body was present in its coffin as if participating but this event showed no respect for my friend and I could not bear it. A photo portrait of him looked out on the hall with a bemused grin. It seemed bizarre to me. A sailor is, by nature, a lonely soul and this was not the way to send him on his way. Fairwinds old salt, we’ll see you on a distant shore. I later explained my cryptic view to Bob’s widow; she replied that he would probably have enjoyed the event. Dunno!

Wondering and wandering. Do dogs contemplate the meaning of life?

Back at home the dogs cuddled up close to comfort me. They know! We sat and watched the tide ebb in the last rum bottle. It did not turn back to flood. I went to bed.

Some people come into our lives and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never, ever the same.� Flavia Weedn