We were in London in Summer, it was a fine afternoon, going into the evening and we decided to get on the London Eye. As you can see from the clock it was near 7:00 pm.
This photo was taken as we were coming down.
Those long evenings were quite remarkable, not in the least going to a pub and sinking a few pints! There was one such pub not far from Charing Cross Station
The pub was called ‘The Princess of Wales’
And still be light enough to find your way home.
All the worries we thought we might have in getting from Lake Louise to Calgary, in the end, it was just like driving to work, only a little longer.
When we left the Fairmont, the car had two frozen bottles of water and a frozen donut, left in the car for the two days we were there, so hiding in the garage might not be a good idea.
At the garage where we refueled, it was so cold I could barely clean the windows and glad to get back into the warmth inside the car.
Thankfully as we got closer to Calgary, it got warmer.
We bypass the city going to the airport, but, as it turns out, we would not have had much time to look around anyway.It’s nice to go to an airport and actually find the car rental returns first go with adequate signing to get there.
Returning the car took a few extra minutes because we were at the end of a dozen or so others who turned up at the same time. All good, they remembered giving us a half full petrol tank.
At the check-in, it is very smooth sailing, the kiosk working and once the booking reference was entered, it spat out the desired number of boarding passes and baggage tags.
Then to baggage drop, through customs where I managed to lose my jacket, which is amazing that you would be allowed to leave anything behind.
So…
We have an hour and a half to kill, so a long soda and two long island teas settle the pre-flight nerves if we had any to start with.
Time to consider the vagaries of the flight.
Today we’re on an Airbus a320, and we are seated in the very last row, row 33. It’s always a bad thing to look up planes on seatguru.com, because it has painted them as the worst on the plane.
What’s the downside, sometimes the seat pitch is less than further up the plane, the seats don’t recline and you get the seat in front in your face, and you get the constant flushing of the toilets. And my major bugbear there’s no overhead luggage space.
What’s the reality?
To begin with, the seats recline, but not very much. We’ll wait till the plane is cruising before judging how far the seats recline in front of us.
The seat pitch is good and it doesn’t feel like were cramped into a small space, but again this is relative to what happens with the seat in front.
Overhead baggage space, none whatsoever, so if you don’t get on first you are basically screwed. We were almost first to the rear of the plane so I suspect others also know about the lack of overhead bin space.
Being at the read most part of the plane affords you a view of how the baggage handlers treat your baggage, and it’s interesting, to say the least. They smile a lot, so I suspect that a few bags might get the ‘treatment’.
Enough already.
We’re now backing out of the bay ready to leave.
We’re getting endless announcements in foreign languages so when next I fly with Air Canada I should at least learn French.
Or not…
Ah, the smell of kerosene floods our end of the plane. So much for air quality, which so it happens is being covered in the safety video at the exact same time.
But as it turned out, the flight was uneventful.
This is the seventh update since the end of the month, and is nearly the end of another month. Without the dedication to the task as happened in November, it is harder to find the time, particularly when the following month, December, is given over to preparing for the Christmas festivities.
But I have been hiving out an hour or two every day to writing and planning.
For instance, I hadn’t much of a plan for what was to happen after the fifth stone, and a basic concept for the sixth. These have now been fleshed out and various chapters written.
I’m still working on the parallel events happening back at the castle with Ophelia while Marigold is out on the quest, and still needs some more work.
I have an idea what might happen, but, as always happens, when writing, the story tends to take a different course. This time I’ve tried to steer the ship on the right course, and not run aground.
For the bean counters, this session has produced 4,236 words, for a running total of 102,519.
Yes, we’ve cracked the magical 100,000.
This morning started with a visit to the car rental place in Vancouver. It reinforced the notion that you can be given the address and still not find the place. It happened in Washington where it was hiding in the back of the main railway station, and it happened again in Vancouver when it was hidden inside a hotel.
We simply walked straight past it. Pity there wasn’t a sign to let people know.
However…
We went in expecting a Grand Jeep Cherokee and walked out with a Ford Flex, suitable for three people and four large suitcases. It actually seats 7, but forget the baggage, you’d be lucky to get two large suitcases in that configuration.
It is more than adequate for our requirements.
Things to note, it was delivered with just over a quarter of a tank of gas, and it had only done about 11,000 km, so it’s relatively new. It’s reasonably spacious, and when the extra seats are folded down, there is plenty of baggage space.
So far, so good.
We finally leave the hotel at about half-past ten, and it is raining. It is a simple task to get on Highway 1, the TransCanada Highway, initially, and then onto Highway 5, the Coquihalla Highway for the trip to Kamloops.
It rains all the way to the top of the mountain, progress hampered from time to time by water sprays from both vehicles and trucks. The rain is relentless. At the top of the mountain, the rain turns into snow and the road surface to slush. It’s 0 degrees, but being the afternoon, I was not expecting it to turn to ice very quickly.
On the other side of the mountain, closer to Kamloops, there was sleet, then rain, then nothing, the last 100kms or so, in reasonably dry conditions.
Outside Kamloops, and in the town itself, there was evidence of snow recently cleared, and slushy roads. Cars in various places were covered in snow, indicating the most recent falls had been the night before.
We’re staying at the Park Hotel, a heritage building, apparently built in the later 1920s. In the style of the time, it is a little like a rabbit warren with passages turning off in a number of directions, and showing it is spread across a number of different buildings.
It has the original Otis elevator that can take a maximum of four passengers, and a sign on the wall that says “no horseplay inside the elevator” which is a rather interesting expression that only someone of my vintage would understand. And, for those without a sense of humor, you definitely couldn’t fit a horse in it to play with.
The thing is, how do you find a balance between keeping the old world charm with modern day expectations. You can’t. Some hotels try valiantly to get that balance. Here, it is simply old world charm, which I guess we should be grateful for because sooner rather than later it’s going to disappear forever.
In my writer’s mind, given the importance of the railways, this was probably a thriving place for travelers and once upon a time, there were a lot more hotels like this one.
Yes, of course there’s a golf course.
Firstly, of course, means definitely so, and can be said when a revelation is realised, or sarcastically if the answer is obvious.
Then there’s a course, like a golf course where people chase a small usually white ball, sometimes to be found on a fairway, but more often than not in a bunker, in the water, or in the thicket.
It’s meant to be calming, but I’m betting more than one heart attack has been brought on by a slice, a six shot bunker exit, or any more than three putts on the green.
There’s also mini golf courses, less challenging, sometimes.
That course could also be the part of a creek or a river.
It can be a set of classes that makes up a course, I did a course in English literature
Then, rather topically, over the course of the election there was [you fill in the rest]
Then there’s my favourite, a four course dinner
Or when I’m unwell a course of antibiotics.
And lastly, in a supermarket how often does the trolley in front of you unexpectedly and randomly change course?
This is not to be confused with coarse
Which to be honest can be used sometimes to describe people who swear or are abrupt. They were coarse people, that is unrefined. These people often use coarse language and tell course jokes, meaning crude and offensive
It had a coarse texture, ie it was rough not smooth
And then there’s Corse which is not exactly an English word, but can refer to a corpse or dead body.
If there is one thing I cannot resist is walking into a book store wherever it might be.
It usually elicits a groan from everyone I’m with because for them, watching grass grow is a more fascinating exercise.
But…
The best bookshops are the pop-up ones that appear in various shopping centres where there are empty spaces, and these have a wide variety of books for just $7 each.
And there are lots of bargains…
As you can see, I have been on a few bargain hunts lately and like any writer’s room, tucked away with the boxes of drinks, gardening equipment and everything else that just doesn’t fit in the house, are the piles of books awaiting being put into the shelves
As you can see, the shelves are almost full so it’s going to be an uphill battle to find spaces for them.
By the way, there are eight such book cases on the surrounding walls, as well as a new one, recently discarded from the lounge room, to house the reference books
Along with a few stuffed bears.
The job of putting books on shelves falls to the grandchildren, whom I am trying to convince that when they get older, they should too embrace the idea of having a reading room, which my writing room will also be when I eventually get to throw out the accumulation of years of discarded homewares.
Perhaps one day next year…
Staying at Hampton Inn and Suites downtown, whatever that means because it looks like we are in the middle of nowhere.
But, judging by the crowd in the breakfast room, it’s a popular hotel. Of course, it is Sunday morning so this could be the weekend escape people.
Two things I remember about staying in Hampton Inns is firstly the waffles and whipped butter. It’s been five years but nothing has changed, they are as delicious as ever. The other, its where I discovered vanilla flavored milk for coffee, and it, too, is addictive.
They also used to have flat burgers that were made out of sausage meat which was delicious, but on the first day, they were not on the menu.
Nevertheless, it was still a very yummy breakfast.
After some research into where we might find this pixmi unicorn, it appears that it is available at a ‘toys are us’ store in one of the suburbs of Vancouver. So, resuming the quest, we took a taxi to West Broadway, the street the store is located.
A quick search of the store finds where the toys we’re looking for are, after asking one of the sales staff, and we find there are at least a dozen of them. Apparently, they are not as popular in Canada as the might be in America. Cheaper too, because the exchange rate for Canadian dollars is much better than for American dollars. Still, 70 dollars for a stuffed toy is a lot of money.
We also get some slime, stuff that our middle granddaughter seems to like playing with.
After shopping we set off down West Broadway, the way we had come, looking for a taxi to return us to the hotel. There’s no question of walking back to the hotel.
A few hours later we walk to the observation tower, which was not very far from the hotel,
a place where we could get a 360-degree view of the city of Vancouver although it was very difficult to see any of the old buildings because they were hidden by the newer buildings, nor could we see the distant mountains because of the haze.
After leaving the tower we walked down Water Street to see the steam clock and the old world charm of a cobbled street and old buildings
We stopped at the Spaghetti Factory Italian restaurant for dinner and is so popular that we have to wait, 10 minutes to start with. It doesn’t take all that long to order and have the food delivered to the table. Inside the restaurant, there is an actual cable car but we didn’t get to sit in it.
I have steak, rare, mushrooms, and spaghetti with marinara sauce. No, marinara doesn’t mean seafood sauce but a very tasty tomato-based sauce. The steak was absolutely delicious and extremely tender which made it more difficult to cut with a steak knife.
The write up for the marinara sauce is, ‘it tastes so fresh because it is made directly from vine-ripened tomatoes, not from concentrate, packed within 6 hours of harvest. We combine them with fresh, high-quality ingredients such as caramelised onions, roasted garlic and extra virgin olive oil’.
Oh, and did I mention they have a streetcar right there in the middle of the restaurant
I’m definitely going to try and make this when we get home.
After dinner, we return to the observation tower, the ticket allowing us to go back more than once, and see the sights at night time. I can’t say it was all that spectacular.
Another day has gone, we are heading home tomorrow.
If ever there was a year to not have any new year resolutions, this is the one.
After what had to be the worst year that I can remember, I will be glad to see an end to 2020. Absolutely everything was disrupted.
But…
The panacea that governments are touting, the COVID 19 vaccine, will not stretch to every corner of the earth, nor be available for everyone in the short term (we in Australia won’t get it until March or April) and it will be the same for nearly every country that isn’t the US, Russia and China.
By the end of next year, of course, we will know whether the vaccine will be once a year, who can’t have it, who won’t have it, and how many people will have had an adverse reaction to it. Then there’s the question of whether it stops you from getting COVID, and whether COVID can still kill you even after being vaccinated.
The problem is, 2021 is going to be a watershed year for the vaccine. Will it eradicate the virus, or will it just make the virus more resilient, or will it mutate into a version the vaccine can’t stop. Nobody knows the answers to these questions because there hasn’t been enough time to study the virus, or the vaccines because like it or not, they really do take five years to discover their effectiveness.
In that case, if I was going to make a resolution it would be to stay away from the virus and be alive in 2022.
That, of course, is impossible. There are too many selfish and inconsiderate people out there who don’t care if they get it it, and then if they pass it on. Anything to avoid being inconvenienced. So what if a few old people die, or sick people die. Less of a drain on the economy because they don’t really contribute anything, do they?
It could be argued that whoever invented this virus intended it for old and sick people because of the burden they place on the welfare system. Otherwise why would it not be so devastating for those under 50 typically most of the productive members of the workforce, nor the young who need to take their place. It is said that we may never get rid of COVID so will it be a cycle that will mean some time in the future that people will not live beyond the age of, say, 60, by design?
Has someone arbitrarily decided that there are too many people on the planet and it’s time to start culling the population? A pandemic that removes about 1 billion people would make things more sustainable.
It’s a terrifying thought. It’s the stuff of science fiction, but the problem with that it, life eventually imitates art, and what has been dreamed up on television or in the movies, eventually happens in reality.
Think about Logan’s Run. Was this the forerunner of what life will be like on this planet?
There were films about space travel in the 50’s. That became a reality in the 70’s.
Pandemic type films like Outbreak and Contagion showed the problems and possible resolutions, and yes, it eventually happened almost exactly as the latter film showed us.
It was strange to discover that everyone knew a pandemic was possible, knew what was supposed to be done, just in case, and then when it hit, no one had any idea of what to do. Will we have learned from this crisis?
I doubt it.
The biggest problem with a crisis of global magnitude is people. Half the world are constantly told lies, and the other half do not want to be told the truth.
If anything is going to destroy this world, it will not be nuclear radiation or global warfare, but a simple unkillable bug that will, if we let it though ignorance and stupidity, kill us all.
After all, there’s been a few movies that have prophesised exactly that.
What you win, first prize in a raffle, though I don’t think I’ve ever won first prize. Second maybe. But, aren’t all raffles rigged?
But despite my unfortunate run of luck, a prize is generally give to someone who works hard, or wins a race
Or I could have been a prize fighter but lacked the size and the strength, and out of curiosity how many prize fighters didn’t win a prize?
And if I had been a pirate, I could have sailed the seven seas to find a prize, namely a ship to attack and take as my own.
And as a prime example, a Chelsea supporter walking into a bar full of Manchester United fans could be called a prize idiot.
This is not to be confused with the word prise
Don’t relatives prise the last dollar out of a dying man’s hand?
Or prise the truth out of a witness, or a perpetrator
Or prise a window open like thieves do when we forget to lock them properly?
It’s always a given that whatever city you stay in unless it’s overnight, you go on a tour and see the sights.
Even when you’re staying a short distance from the city, you may make the effort to catch a train or bus, then get on the hop on hop off tour. There’s always one in just about every city you visit.
Vancouver was no exception.
Except…
We arrived in the rain, went to sleep while the rain came down, woke up to the rain, and a heavy dose of jet lag or perhaps it was more that we had spent 24 and a half hours traveling from Brisbane to Vancouver via Shanghai.
We had an excellent view out the window of our room looking towards the shopping mall, and the steady falling rain.
I felt sorry watching the construction workers on the building site that was the main vista we had to look at.
It could have been worse. Endless mountains with snow on them.
What to do. Venture out in the rain and go on the tour, on pop over to the shopping mall and pick up a few boxing day bargains, no, sorry, boxing week bargains.
We have had some experience going on hop on hop off tours in open-top buses in the rain. And the last time was not a pleasant experience, even though we learned a valuable lesson, not to stand in front of a cannon and yell ‘fire’. Apparently, that’s how Admiral Nelson lost his arm.
But…
The shopping mall won.
We’d wait and see if the weather improved. Hang on, isn’t Vancouver near Seattle and doesn’t it rain 300 days of the year?
Not holding my breath.
I feel sorry for the construction workers again. Still raining, still cold, and still no reason to get out of bed.
Day 2 in Vancouver turned out to be the same as day 1.
Hang on, there’s a development.
We’re on the 16th floor and up at those lofty heights, we can see not only the rain but intermingled with it a few flakes of snow.
Whilst we procrastinate about what we’re going to do, the snowflakes increase into small flurries.
Yep, we’re off to the mall again and go for a walk in the snow.
On the way back we drop into the Boston Pizza, which has a sports bar and there you can sit, drink, eat, and watch the ice hockey, or whatever sort is going at the time.
Today it’s a junior ice hockey tournament, but Canada was not playing. Just the same, a long cold beer and ice hockey? How close to heaven is that?
I can now cross that off the bucket list.
Day 3, we’re going on a great rail journey, well, we are going to get the train to the city and collect the rental car, a car on the booking form that was supposedly a Jeep Grand Cherokee or similar.
Of course, ‘or similar’ are the words to be feared here because in truth the rental company can throw anything at you, so long as it matches the brief, three people and three large suitcases.
And, you guessed it…
The ‘or similar’ got us a Fort Flex.
Sounded like some place where exhausted soldiers were fending of the Indians in a last ditch battle.
Perhaps one or two too many American movies I think.
Thrills, Spills, and just a dash of Romance 