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After my flurry of activity last month it’s comforting to note that I’ve drifted back to my old ways of infrequent posts. Or have I?

The reality is that the family are in the throws of moving in to our first house in Canada. Time for a recap. Since arriving in BC, August 2007 the family has inhabited 1 hotel, 1 motel, 1 holiday apartment, 1 short term furnished apartment and for the last 12 months a very pleasant 3 bed apartment on the Burnaby Coquitlam border.

Buying a house here feels like we’re moving on to the next stage of the adventure, plus it’s making a statement that we really, really do mean to make a go of things here. Pics will be posted once we’re in and settled.

What was really an eye opener for me was the difference in the English and Canadian house purchase process. Here things were pretty stress free as once an offer has been accepted, that’s it, no pulling out, no being held to ransom by a potential buyer who just before exchange of contracts demands a sizable reduction in price. What a refreshing way to make what is probably the most expensive purchase in most people’s lives.

We worked with a Realtor (Estate Agent for English readers) who accompanied us on every viewing. If we decided to make an offer on a property we completed draft contracts and placed certain subjects on the offer - acceptable survey for example, and suggested a possession date. Once the negotiations were over and a price agreed there followed a period where the subjects remained in force and we could pull out if we had cause to. We used this on our first offer where the survey turned up a number of ‘big ticket’ items that made the place a non-starter for us. The second property we put an offer on, we secured.

The system worked for me as the potential buyer as I had to be really sure that this place was for me before making an offer. I’m pretty sure that there are times in England that potential buyers start to throw in offers on a number of properties as it’s so easy to back out.

I seemed to do a lot more due-diligence myself on the purchase than I think I would have done in England and the whole Strata thing is probably another post in itself as is the thought of buying in to property at this wonderful time of economic turmoil.

Come what may, BC Brit and family move house on 18th. Let the next phase begin.

It was late in August and our first trip to the interior of BC was to Sicamous, about a 300 mile drive from Vancouver. Why Sicamous? Well, it’s a bit of a long story, but a couple of months prior to the trip I’d had a mail from someone I was at secondary school with.

You may be familiar with the web site Friends Reunited. Its aim is simply to get friends back together again. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. I received a mail from Belinda, someone from the same school, same year group as me. Her name was familiar, but I really couldn’t remember too much about her. Belinda it turns out. had lived in Canada for 28 years and was currently in Alberta, near Calgary. Having noticed that I was living in BC, she mentioned that she would be on holiday in Sicamous with her partner mid to late August, and how about meeting up. So, my thoughts initially were something like, “Okay, here’s someone I can hardly remember that I haven’t seen for over 30 years suggesting that we could meet up. Let’s do it.”

Plans were made and I headed off with the family to the Interior. The drive was actually a great part of the time away. It meant leaving the more urban lower mainland, heading along the Fraser Valley to Hope and then in to mile upon mile of nothing but mountains and rivers. Our route took us along the Coquihalla Highway past Merritt to Kamloops. Having spent many years in the safe environment of South East England, coming across chain-up areas, landslide warnings and gates that obviously close off the road really brought home to me that I was living in a very different environment. Once past Kamloops, it was back on the Trans-Canada Highway toward Sicamous - the houseboat capital of Canada.

We’d booked a bed and breakfast near Salmon Arm, and what a fantastic place to stay. The room was large, very well furnished and spotlessly clean. If you’re every exploring the area I can thoroughly recommend ‘The Inn at the Ninth Hole‘ The Dutch couple that run the inn are really friendly hosts and the breakfasts are wonderful. A major plus for me was that they source as much food as possible locally, a real sustainable approach to B&B.

And so to the meeting. Actually, things worked out really well. It was an opportunity to dip back in to school days, muse over the teachers and discuss the probability of hair pieces. Belinda is one of those people that flourished outside of the formal educational environment, or to put it another way, she bunked off school a lot. But, she’s carved a life out for herself and is enjoying the delights that Canada has to offer, and it really made me question “what’s a fulfilling life?”, particularly as Lesley and I continue to battle to either generate income from self-employment or find suitable employment (that’s a whole different story, particularly if I get on to the ever-increasing income gap in BC and how earning have actually decreased in real terms over the last 25 years).

We only had a short break due to other commitments, but we had a chance to get out on the Shuswap Lake on a couple of occasions and visit nearby Vernon. Standout moments. The sheer, mostly unspoilt beauty of the area. Witnessing the devastation being caused by the Mountain Pine Beetle as many, many tress are killed off. Experiencing tubing off the back of a speed boat for the first time (despite there being no photographic evidence of me having a go - believe me, I did, and had a great laugh). Weirdest feeling of the break. Five former pupils of a now closed Secondary School in Thurrock, Essex, UK stood on a beach on the Shuswap Lake. Somewhat surreal.

Thank you Belinda and Lavern - you were great hosts.

There’s been an annual soapbox cart derby down 4th in Kitsilano for the last 17 years. It’s been a locally run affair and a lot of kids used to take part - used to. This year was different as the June event was ‘passed-on’ to Red Bull due to a reported lack of volunteers and sponsorship. As this was the first time I’d come across the event, I knew nothing of it’s history and a web search hasn’t turned up anything written about it’s past, but I managed to track down this video from 2003.

 

This year, Red Bull set the participants minimum age to 19 and the event has changed from what appears to have been a real community event to something on a far grander scale. The thing is, what comes with the injection of corporate sponsorship is a big dose of risk management - hence no kids and a loss of community identity. Did I enjoy the event? Well, yes. It was fun to dip in to for a hour or so, but I’d have thought that it didn’t have the feel of events of the past for locals, and that’s a shame.

I met George and Ward whilst I worked for Cable & Wireless. George until recently was with KPN in the Netherlands, Ward with Belgacom. These two guys became real friends and it was somewhat surprising that they turned out to be our first (and only?) visitors of 2008.

Back in March I’d decided to volunteer to work at Globe 2008. The GLOBE Foundation is a Vancouver-based, not-for-profit organization dedicated to finding practical business-oriented solutions to the world’s environmental problems and every other year they host a sustainability conference and exhibition. As I work in this space I thought it would be a great idea to volunteer my services to help out, and get to a few of the presentations for nothing. I wasn’t banking on getting an e-mail from George letting me know that he would be in town for teh conference. What a great surprise. So, we spent a solid day or two on the sight seeing trail and despite the atrocious weather had a good time visiting Capilano Suspension Bridge, the UBC museum of anthropology (closed on Mondays!) and some of the down town areas of interest.

As for the conference - I was a little disappointed in that very little new thinking was presented, but that may purely be down to me working in the area of sustainability for such a long time.

Fast forward to the beginning of September.

I’d been ‘warned’ by Ward that he’d be in the north west US (Montana and Washington) around the end of August - start of September and that he’d plan in a flying visit to Vancouver. And, so it was that Ward turned up at the beginning of the month. We managed a whirlwind tourist day, once again taking in Capilano but managing some time in Stanley Park as well.

It was so good to see a couple of familiar faces here and quite touching to think that they’d made the effort to call in as we’d previously only met on work related meetings 2 or 3 times a year for around 4 years.

I’m sure that we’ll be ferrying future visitors to other great attrations that Vancouver and the lower mainland offer, so if you’ve no head for heights, fear not - Capilano is not manditory.

Grouse is a year long attraction and in July we took the opportunity of heading back up the mountain to discover its delights ’sans-snow’. What an amazing transformation. Although signs of snow were still there, it was a real treat to discover that the statues last seen under several metres of snow had been fully revealed. The main purpose of the day was to try out the new zipline, and yes, it was a family outing so we all went for it. It was another fun thing to do and we were far more fortunate than John and Rebecca who made the trip a few weeks later and were washed out. This video is from the longest fastest run where speeds were around 30mph, or so I was told. That’s Elliot in front of me enjoying the ride. It’s a bit of an abrupt end, but I needed to prepare for the landing.

The brakes for each of the 3 runs were provided by a large spring at the end of the zip. The first 2 runs had a mechanism that clipped the zipline trolley to the springs, but the last run had a spring that simply spat you back out again.

As we were tourists for the day we took in the lumberjack show which was a bit of light relief in some ways and also a chance to be impressed at the skills of the guys. The high poles were very, and I mean, very high and during the finale, even though I knew that the ‘drunk’ is secured to the top somehow, my stomach churned away. I won’t be adding this to 100 things to do before I pass on!

Since 1990, Vancouver has seen an annual fireworks ’shoot out’, normally between Canada, the US and China, the Celebration of Light. Each country has one evening to themselves and then there’s a grand finale evening. This years event took on a special significance as the finale also celebrated BC’s 150th birthday. It was in 1858 that this part of what we know as Canada became a Crown Colony.

The actual fireworks are set off from barges in English Bay, not far from downtown Vancouver. However, we’d been told that the area usually got very crowded. Someone suggested heading along the coast toward UBC as the views were pretty good and we’d have breathing space. We ended up at Locarno Beach and what a fantastic find. Great views of downtown Vancouver with the added bonus of memorable sunsets across West Van.It was one of those “That’s why we came here” moments. Sitting on a log on a beach, a warm west coast evening, people just relaxing, no trouble at all, watching a fireworks spectacular with the city of glass that is Vancouver as a back-drop. Simply gorgeous.

I took along my new ‘point ‘n click’ with super 10x zoom and started to play with the manual settings. Some of the pics turned out a touch dark, but overall I was really pleased with a number of the shots.

Back to the album set

You’ll find Lighthouse Park jutting out of West Vancouver in to the Strait of Georgia with views of Bowen Island and across the Burrard Inlet to Vancouver. The park is an old forest area that is reported to have the largest uncut coastal-elevation trees in the area.

What that meant to the Cannons was a chance to wander in the woods, down to the point, sit on rocks over-looking the inlet and just chilling out. Cruise ships pass the point and it’s almost comical to have most of Vancouver hidden behind one of these enormous vessels.

There are so many local parks like Lighthouse and we took the opportunity to visit some more of the great outdoors during the summer. More on that later.

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