Stressful Life Events
House Moving Still Up There
Thu Mar 10th
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| Seal watching Jack watching seal off Hopkins Landing |
In the context of all that is going on in Europe it is inconsequential, but I can confirm that house purchasing/moving remains one of the top of life's stressful events. Not helped when the transaction transcends borders and large sums of money need to be moved. It's made worse when the exchange rate goes 2.5c against you the day after contracts after exchanged! In house purchase terms that is a lot of money. The money is somewhere between my Wise £ account and Wise CAD account, while they carry out money laundering checks, all quite legitimate, but not a quick process.
I wonder if Russian Oligarchs had this much problem moving money around. One suspects not! The good news is that the rate has improved and is only 1.2c down - but who knows where it will end up by the time it's sitting in our local attorney's account. To the attorney's credit, when she picked up the exchange rate risk we faced, the paperwork to get the money across was in place in less than 24hrs. As I say inconsequential in global terms, stressful in personal terms.
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| From Langdale to Bonniebrook |
The new house is 11k from where we are now, 5k on from Gibsons. We shall miss the spectacular views of the Howe Sound, the mountains and Islands, but are thrilled with the new house. We shall see Van Island off to the West and North Shore mountains to the east, albeit more distant than our current views.
We shall also miss the comings and goings of the ferry at the Langdale Terminal. Something we thought we'd want to avoid before moving to the Coast, but we're now fond of the majesty of the ferries and the throb of their engines. A now familiar friend. Funny how ones views change. We look forward to the sunsets over Van Island rather than the sunrises across Howe Sound. We now want to get on with it.
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| Van Island Sunset on a previous visit |
My early mornings remain dominated by catching up on all the news from and about Ukraine. I was interested in the stories of Russians in Ukraine trying to convince parents in Russia that it is a war and not a special military operation, and failing. It shows how tightly media is being controlled in Russia. Use of the dark web and shortwave may help, but I suspect it will reach only a small part of the Russian population. In past major conflicts it was easier to get news in to national populations with news on a variety of platforms. Not so this time.
The OOCL Montreal with our container has arrived in Montreal and at some point we hope to hear it is on a freight train to Vancouver. The journey will take 4-6 days depending on the stops on route.
We don't envisage being able to clear it through customs until April and we'll probably have it delivered direct to the new house in June.
You may recall I took part in a mushroom foraging course in the late fall, collecting around a kilo of mushrooms. We eat a lot of them.
In one of the recent supply shortages, Fred bought me a grow-your-own box of Blue Oyster mushrooms.
The first crop has been harvested and produced 300g of them. The box is supposed to produce 4 - 6 crops. Whether they will cover the cost of the box when compared to supermarket prices remains a bit of a question. It was rather fun watching them grow though. After two weeks of nothing happening they grew and were harvested within 3 days.
They were quite tasty, though the next crop seems to have slowed down.
Keeping in touch with the Premiership Rugby is not so easy over here. We subscribe to a sports network that carries all the matches, but there is no logic to when and how they are aired.
The six Premiership games that take place most weekends (when European Championship matches are not on) are screened over the course of several days, so we usually end up watching them over the course of a week, by which time we often know the result. Their EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) is nowhere near as good as the Sky EPG in the UK - so makes scheduling and viewing harder work. As of today only three of the games have been aired.
We watched Bath's local derby game with Bristol on Tuesday. After a pretty wretched season so far, they pulled off a good win. Although they were facing 14 players for most of the game after Ratu Naulago was sent off with red card (again) and occasionally 13, they won with a bit more style than has been evident in other games.
They came back from 21 down and played some fast rugby. Of their 4 wins this season, two of them were against 14 man teams. Maybe they are getting their mojo back or just play better against fewer players!
The last week has produced some lovely sunny days, occasionally starting with some low lying fog. Once cleared the sun has been out and taken the chill off the air.
Rivian, the new maker of the R1T and R1S electric truck and SUV has been in the headlines.
A note went out last week to all those who like me had put down a pre-order saying that prices would be going up by 20% due to supply chain difficulties and cost increases.
Many cancelled their orders, and I considered doing so. At the beginning of this week a further note came out apologizing for the loss of trust that the decision had created, and confirming that all those with a pre-order placed before 1st March would have their original prices honoured. Great news, though I don't expect to take delivery for eighteen months!
Given the way fuel prices are going at the moment, it can't come too soon.
The cold clear weather has produced some lovely sunny days. Some mornings have been a bit foggy, but cleared for a bright warmish day.
The cold clear weather has produced some lovely sunny days. Some mornings have been a bit foggy, but cleared for a bright warmish day.
Some images below.
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| West Lion |
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| North Shore |
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| Hopkins Landing - Sunrise |
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| Foggy start to the day |
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| Hopkins Landing Wharf in fog |
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| Hopkins Landing Wharf |
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