Soon the university and school terms begin in the Northern hemisphere, and that is the harbinger for shorter and colder days. The cat has already started spending her days sleeping inside the house, ideally on clean washing! It has been a pleasant August here in Norwich, and I have actually been in Norfolk for most of the month, which is really quite remarkable. We did do a trip up to Goole to visit Ailsa’s mother and help with the house. We decided to spend four away. On the first we drove to Hull via Lincoln, where we met friends from in Durban. We had lunch at a rather disappointing vegan restaurant. It was subsequently pointed out to me by my family, with much hilarity on their part, that what I had thought was scrambled egg was, in fact, tofu dyed yellow! Talk about misleading! The plum bread, what a promising name, was a meagre slice of fruit cake, in which plums may have predominated, but it was served with butter.
Tag Archives: UK
Road Trips, Plane Trips and Entrepreneurs
It has been an interesting and active four weeks. I travelled to South Africa in the middle of the month. The weekend before the journey we drove to Kent, to visit my half-sister Pat, who is 24 years older than me. Unfortunately her husband, David, was in hospital for a hernia operation. This did not go well initially. He has recovered now, but he was in hospital for the entire time we were there. His misfortune meant their children, who are slightly younger than me, were about. We had a lunch, with all my siblings present and then with members of Pat and David’s family. It was a four drive from Norwich. Going down the traffic uses the bridge across the Thames at Blackwall, coming back we drove thought the tunnel. These are both tolled, but there was a transponder on the car we hired which simply beeped. This is a theme of the blog post in July – transponders!
We had a good time. Ailsa found an idyllic cottage, ‘May’s Cottage‘. It had two bedrooms so my sister Gill, who took the train down from London, was able to stay with us. There was an area to sit outside and it was amazingly peaceful and beautiful. The swallows swooped, cows mooed and foxes barked. It is far enough from Gatwick airport that I was able to enjoy the sight of the planes but it was not too disruptive. All in all a very good weekend.
Politics: Britain Votes and Canada Celebrates 150 Years
On the 8th of June Britain went to the polls. Theresa May called an early election in the expectation that she would strengthen her hand ahead of the Brexit negotiations. In her mind she would be returned to power with an increased majority. Two months ahead of the election the press was united in the view that this would happen, and the Labour Party, under the leadership of the demonised Jeremy Corbyn, would be crushed. Well that did not materialise. The Tories (Conservatives) won just 317 seats, and as there are 650 seats in the House of Commons this is not a majority. Labour gained 30 seats, giving them 262. It is now generally felt the winners lost and the losers won.
Spring is here and the snow is almost gone
The weather has finally begun warming up here in Waterloo. It is now possible to walk around without a winter coat on, although a jersey is still necessary. The squirrels are increasingly active and migratory birds are returning. We are all looking forward to spring and summer, and it really does feel as though it is imminent. What happens is that the temperature fluctuates widely. It has been as high as 18ᵒc one day and as low as -10ᵒ the next night. I wonder how the animals cope; the trees on the other hand, seem, rightly, rather reticent to bud.
I have had a very busy few weeks. On 7 March we had Stephen Lewis come and sit on a panel with a number of students and faculty members. He is extremely well known in Canada, and more broadly as an exceptional humanitarian. The auditorium was packed and a number of organisations placed tables outside to advertise their activities to the assembled company. It is good to be able to facilitate these events; it is part of building a community here in Waterloo.
Returning to Canada, not as easy as I hoped
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.
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.
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.
