Christmas day in Norwich was abnormally warm. The temperature rose to 14° C and it was possible to walk around without even a coat on. It then turned very cold, with a layer of ice on the car in the morning, and much scraping before we could go anywhere. I was quite pleased with this. I had cut up a lot of wood for our wood burner in the lounge, so I was able to use some of it. In addition to this, one of my Christmas presents, which I must stress I actually asked for, was a couple of sacks of coal. I had such fun building and tending the fire.
Category Archives: Blog
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Sharing 60
Normally when I post on the website I comment, at the end, on films I have seen or books I have read. This month’s post unusually begins with the two films I watched on the flight from Amsterdam to Johannesburg in early November. The first was the new Ken Loach film I, Daniel Blake. It was excellent, thought provoking and depressing. The story is of a 59 year old scaffolder who is unable to work because of a heart problem. He is caught in a bureaucratic nightmare of not getting the state benefits he should, because he is deemed fit enough to look for work. It is a searing indictment of the failure of the welfare state, increasingly the case in the UK. This is the result of global trends to elect people who don’t care, at least not in the way I was brought up. It made me ask what I would do if I had power, probably a basic income grant for all.
In Durban I am sharing the car with Rowan, who has travelled over to spend five months in South Africa. She has two days’ work a week in Umhlanga, so on those days I walk. There was a youngish white man, on crutches, begging on the street a few hundred metres from the flat. I asked him over to tell me his story and, in exchange, gave him a decent amount of money. He said he was a welder by trade. He lost the lower part of his left leg in a motor accident a few years ago. He said he was trying to scrape together enough money to replace his identity document in order to get work. He is living with his wife and child in one room in the town centre. How much of that was true? I don’t know. South Africa is a harsh society for people who don’t have resources.
Autumn in Canada, Switzerland and England
The autumn colours in Canada are amazing, more so in some parts than others. I was invited to a meeting on ‘Outbreak Interventions’ organised by Quebec International in Quebec City, held early in October. The trees in the city were on display. Words would fail should I try to describe the reds, yellows and oranges, so I am not even going to attempt it. We were given a tour of the city and were told that they had spent money of preserving their elms when Dutch Elm disease swept through North America. These were indeed very magnificent trees, so the money was well spent.
Money in Montreal
My main event in September was the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (GF) replenishment meeting in Montreal. This took place on a Friday and Saturday in the middle of the month. To get there, I took the train from Kitchener to Toronto and changed for Montreal. The journey took from 9 am to about 5 pm and was incredibly productive; I got through a mountain of reading. The rail service in Canada is a great way to travel. It is not fast but the trains are comfortable, there is an ‘at seat service’ for tea, coffee or meals, and it is a good place to read, work and generally chill.
Of wedding and remote Ontario
This post was begun at Bark Lake in Northern Ontario. According to Google Maps the journey should take about four hours from Waterloo, and indeed my GPS (sat nav) was of the same opinion. I was invited to attend the wedding of Katharine Hagerman and Hani Morsy. The connection and reason for the invitation was that she spent time at HEARD, in Johannesburg and then Cape Town. I was invited some time ago and as I was in the country, it took place over the Labour Day long weekend, and before the term had started, it was an excellent opportunity to get out of Waterloo and share a celebration.
On The Road and Looking Back
It has been busy. I left Waterloo at the end of June heading back to the unexpected UK Brexit vote. It was quite unbelievable, this means Scotland will certainly seek independence and I would not be surprised if Wales and Northern Ireland don’t follow suit. The reason for being in England was the first ever Whiteside family gathering, organised in North Walsham, the town where my father was born on the 27th July 1899. The initiative to have this gathering came from my 82 year old half-sister Pat de Pury. Continue reading
Heavy Fog in Channel – Continent Cut Off
The heading of this blog was the headline in the London Times on October 22, 1957. At least, when I Googled the source, that is what the Harvard International Review of summer 2012 alleged. With results of the referendum now in, it feels as though the island has now cut itself from Europe, and done so willingly. I will return to this later in the blog.
Hot Hotels and Celebrations
I turned 60 in March and wrote about the party I hosted in Canada in a recent blog. However there were three of my close friends at Waterford Kamhlaba School in Swaziland who were not able to be present. The four of us have remained in contact, and in 2006 we celebrated, over a period of time, our 50th birthdays. At the beginning of May this year, John Salisbury, who lives in Plymouth, in the UK, organised his 60th event. It was amazing. He and his wife hired an old fort on a hill overlooking the city. This is a Landmark Trust building. The officers’ quarters are available as bedrooms (in various configurations from two to four to a room), and there is a kitchen, lounge and across the courtyard, an excellent party venue with a bar and dance floor. The walls of the fort have magnificent cannon at various intervals. People who hire the place have it completely to themselves, and once the huge wooden main gate is locked and barred, guests really are completely on their own! It would be a good setting for a murder mystery. I can strongly recommend going to the website and having a look at this magnificent location. It is also very reasonably priced as a venue, if there are enough people sharing it.
Spring²
Travelling from Waterloo in Ontario to Norwich in Norfolk at the end of April was like moving a month forward in nature’s calendar. In Waterloo the snow piled high in the car park at Seagram Lofts finally melted. On the day I left there was just one small patch of moisture left on the paving. It had been so large it spread across five visitor’s parking spots and was probably five meters in height. The temperature had risen significantly and it was possible to leave my coat in the apartment, at least for the 70 second walk across the car park to the back door of the office building. However there were no leaves or blossom and just a few spring flowers dotted in the gardens and parks around the city.
The Sixties, a Good decade?
Last month marked a significant event in my life. On the 18th of March I turned 60. I must admit to being quite shocked by the fact this birthday finally arrived. It had to be noticed and marked in some way. We talked about Ailsa coming over to Canada, but as I am teaching, marking, and busy with the end of term, we decided she would come over a little later. She, Douglas and I have all been granted permanent residence, and all have to be here and visit the appropriate agency before the 7th June. If we don’t do that then we enter a bureaucratic limbo land. Douglas visits in early April and Ailsa in May.
