The Weather

While thinking about what to write about next I thought I would write about that old standby the weather. Talking about the weather is a very English thing apparently and usually the topic of conversation when people meet up as a breaking the ice type of thing. It’s also the fall back topic when one runs out of things to say. I haven’t run out of things to say, far from it, I was having trouble deciding that’s all.

The forecast for my neck of the woods shows another possible chinook which naturally would be most welcome. It looks a little longer than the previous ones and hopefully it’s the precursor to spring.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell

One of the interesting tales concerning our family is the story handed down of the apparent favourite book of my Grandfathers, ‘The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell’. It unfortunately wasn’t among the possessions left behind in Canada went he returned to England and when he passed away whatever he had for possessions over there went to the family of his third wife we assume. A few inquiries were made but nothing came of it. So when I spotted the 100 year celebration reprint and special edition for sale on Hastings Online I decided to get two copies, one for my Uncle who is my Grandfathers son and one for myself.

The question has always been why would it be his favourite book? Having read it now it seems to be quite clear and provides some insight that we’ve never had about his life and thinking around those early years of the 20th century. The book is clearly a socialist treatise on the plight of the common lowly worker and was written at an interesting time in British history too. I was first published in 1914 I believe and my Grandfather would have come into possession of it in the 1920’s perhaps. One of the interesting historical events that happened in the 1920’s was the general strike of 1926 and I remember my Grandmother telling me that it was a very scary time, people filled the streets and they stayed inside for the most part. My Grandfather would have been around 23 years old at that time and just starting his working life. The turbulent times for workers and how they were treated would have been on a lot of peoples mind back then and quite likely the catalyst for my Grandfather having this type of book. Because of that we can perhaps infer he was a bit of a socialist perhaps?

The last little twist of this tale is when I came to Rycroft and joined the library. I discovered in they had an old copy of this very same book, what are the chances of that*smile*.

Well, that didn’t go as planned 2

This post is to pick up the other stuff I didn’t mention because, lets face it, the previous post was a bit long.

First an update on the stuck at the airport problem. On the 201st day of waiting I finally got my Permanent Resident card a few days back*sigh*. I was torn between trying to find out what the problem was and just waiting. I decided to wait just a bit longer and voila my patience was rewarded. Now the wait is for the health card, which I applied for on the 24th. The hold up on that part was for both the better ‘alf and I too because in this province we have to apply together. Then it’s a couple more details to finish off the ID change adventure and we’ll be here officially.

The cold winter has taken it’s toll to feed the overall lethargy, yes, we knew it was going to be cold but I guess we weren’t prepared mentally. The poor dogs suffered a bit as we struggled to give them some winter booties for their paws and shorter but more frequent walks. I have to admit they have adapted quite well really and have gotten to be very efficient in doing their thing, and heading back to the door. I had originally set Mar 31st as my official end of the worst that winter had to offer but have now revised that to Apr 10th. That’s when the youngest officially comes off 24 hour on winter call in and probably is a more realistic date. We’ll see though as we all know the weather has changed and we never know what we’re going to get next.

We’re also still very much in chaotic mode with all our collective belongings everywhere in every nook and cranny. However, we take heart in knowing that we have time to slowly organize because we ain’t going anywhere because this is our last stop on our world tour.

Well, That Didn’t Go As Planned

Okay, I’m back by popular demand it seems…lol. That last phone call yesterday was the tipping point and the caller can take great pride knowing he was the one who gave the final successful nudge to the Ol’ Kodger to begin banging the keys again, he knows who he is.

I’m going to try and give the short version and update events since last August but you know how long winded ‘e can get so my apologies in advance. The ‘Little Lab on the Prairie’ didn’t fly because winter set in and I didn’t have heat nor electricity out there. I did get that roof on it at least for the most part, not quite finished but enough to protect it for now until better weather gets going. When we moved into our intended room downstairs and the youngen and his family moved in upstairs it was discovered that our room, the grandsons room, the daughters room in the basement and the outside plugins were all on the same cottin’ pickin’ circuit*sheesh*. So, that nixed the idea of seeing if I could run electric heat in the re-purposed camper in the winter*sigh. As part of the adaptations to our new environment I decided that, okay, shelve that idea until spring and then have another go it. This event along with a few others put me into a sort of lazy mode I guess but in my defence it has been a very busy time despite the cold weather.

Problems included moving and reorganizing ‘our entire stuff’ three times (we had two storage’s packed in there*phew*). First was to raise it off the ground a couple of inches because of the threat of flood from a backed up sewer which has now been resolved by the way. Next it was to again reorganize so the three of the basement walls were accessible to fix the cracks when the opportunity presented itself. That was very expensive but necessary, and it was part of the plan just wasn’t right at this time. Next rearranging was when we all finally moved into the basement as originally planned.

Next intertwined event was the better ‘alfs serious operation that thankfully was a complete success, we did the right thing by moving here first then doing it for a number of reasons. One interesting benefit was that where were camping had the worst winter in years so we count our blessings to have camped last winter when we did.

It’s a very busy household as you may imagine but Christmas was pulled off with great success in amongst it all too. The dogs all get along very well which was one of the concerns and it’s turned out better than expected actually. So, as the New Year began he decided, in his infinite wisdom, to join the local library board. Would be a good way to get out into the community, meet people and do something low key…oh yea…well, the village at the same time decided to delete what they had in place for a librarian and the board members all ended up covering as librarians in the short term until we get organized. So, poof! He’s a librarian as well now. It’s been a lot of work and time consuming for a number of reasons.

That’s the short version, was beginning to get back into genealogy again too but that went into idle mode yet again and I’ve been distracted by footy as well now that I have access to wall to wall games, even able to watch the old home town Brighton. It’s also a case of, oh look, there’s Facebook! Which I have been active on. I do have much to write and share, and the time has come to get going again. The key will be judicious use of time probably. So, in closing this off before it gets too long I can say, in the immortal words of an obscure writer I came across, which I will twist for my own use, rumours of my apparent demise have been greatly exaggerated*wink*.

Geese Flying South

It’s been awhile since I’ve been organized enough to begin to get going again online like I originally planned. Been doing a lot outside with pre winter prep work and the better ‘alfs operation put this kinda thing on the back burner. But getting closer now, the coming week should see a roof of some kind over the camper which I’ve taken to calling ‘the little lab on the prairie’, a tongue in cheek description which some will get but it’s also still Kodgers Korner too which is the metaphor I use for wherever I’m at. While there will indeed be the odd experiment or two it’s main purpose is an office/writers getaway/smoking room/beer drinking/man cave/computer room and more. The whole thing itself will be an experiment to see whether I can do that with the likely way lower temperatures than what we experienced last year camping. Right now it’s like Ray Bradbury’s office where he apparently got the ideas for his stories the difference being mine looks like a tornado went through it as well. I’ve set a tentative deadline of Sunday 04 Sep to power it up and get it operational, we’ll see how that works out.

The big shelter is now going to be the workshop and I have enough pallets for the base of a complete floor for it now. This was most difficult with all the stuff in it and I’ve decided that the best solution would be to open up the side, take everything out, do the floor properly, then put everything back after. The only problem with this of course is that it’s weather dependent naturally.

The reason I called this post ‘Geese Flying South’ by the way is that while I was outside doing the cleanup from the three trees that were cut down a flock of geese in the usual formation flew overhead. I’m sure the honking could be translated as hurry up eh, winters coming sooner this year.

Shades of Tom Hanks

No, this is not about his sunglasses, it’s a comparison of the movie Terminal that he starred in and my own personal circumstances that I find myself in. The movies story line is about a guy that gets stuck between two countries and ends up living at the airport for a period of time. Metaphorically speaking that is now what’s happened to me. I landed at Rycroft International Airport (tongue in cheek reference) to relocate to Alberta as most of you know and now find myself needing to get the ID changed over of course, health card and drivers licence, stuff like that. Turns out my landed immigrant piece of paper is no longer sufficient to prove I’m legally entitled to reside in Canada*sigh*. The short term cheaper and faster solution is to get my Permanent Resident Card since it’s $50, then later get my Citizenship which, yes, I should have gotten years ago. In fact my dearly departed Father warned me years ago about just this very thing. On the website where one finds the forms and instructions to get the resident card is a place to find out the estimated time of processing, looks like I’ll be at the ‘airport’ for awhile, wonder if any temporary janitorial jobs are to be had.

Hotel California (The Eagles) on harpejji g16 by Mathieu Terrade

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgSMEbJUiuc

The Story of Vernon Pick

Abandoned mansion in the mountains of BC

A Bit Of Progress At Last

Actually have a decent internet connection today, has been rather excruciatingly frustrating to say the least. Managed to get a few things done at last. My newest project is getting the Crazy Retired Englishman’s Weakly back off the

ground. Had stopped the original one to move to a more public version instead of just for family and friends.
Still not that mobile to do the things that I’d like to do, genealogy has taken a bit of back seat but at least I got it back up. I’m still getting queries of some sort at least once a week which still amazes me.

A Cool Chance Encounter

Because we’re still not that mobile as yet, as we are still roughing it, we tend to wander around around in our current local area. In effect exploring and getting to know more about our surroundings. On this May long weekend we decided to wander around and check out the many garage sales in the area. No, we don’t need more stuff but yer never know what you come across and it’s one of our shared passions. This was one such thing. We ended up in Yale about 20km up the road from Hope to check out the offerings that know are usually on the main street through town. While doing this we spotted a sign for a thrift store and garage sale off the main street. We found the garage sale which was three families joined together. While poking around I spotted a book written by WP (Bill) Kinsella and it was signed by the author! Cool I thought, another one to add to our collection perhaps. I soon learned that the actual author himself was sitting in a chair out front. I also soon found out that his book called Shoe Less Joe was the basis for the Kevin Costner movie The Field of Dreams. I asked for a photograph with him and he graciously accepted. Yes, I do indeed have a signed copy of one of his books for our collection.