Today

Friday April 3rd, 2026

Heathrow - Easter Saturday April 3rd, 2021 - Not normally this busy!

Five years ago today we arrived in Canada. April 3rd 2021, at the height of the pandemic, on Easter Saturday.

Quarantine Dinner - allegedly!

Departing a very empty Heathrow, we arrived at a very heaving Toronto Pearson, where all international flights were being routed, so arrivals could be consistently and systematically Covid-screened; sent off with test kits to the local mandated hotels for a few days of enforced quarantine and carrier-bag food deliveries to the hotel room door. Yuk. And no bloody wine list! Four hours from plane door to hotel room door.

We could not leave the hotel room until we had a negative Covid test, which arrived after two days, enabling us to travel onto Vancouver with a second test kit to be completed during our remaining quarantine. A further eleven days of 'lock down' in a ground level suite, with access to the garden for some fresh air, Jack joined us at the end of the first week.

If friends and family thought we were several sandwiches short of a picnic, they didn't say so. "What an adventure", "you're very brave" "how exciting" were the polite observations.

It has been an amazing adventure. Canada was not an unknown. We first visited the Muskoka region of Ontario in 2000, for a family holiday on Lake Vernon in Huntsville, followed by many visits to BC when first Ros spent a year here and then Nick's permanent move. We checked out Huntsville last year on our trans-Canada trip, but couldn't find the house we stayed in, but then I guess it was 25 years ago.

It is not yet our permanent location ,as we have still not secured Permanent Residency and wait to see if our names are drawn from the 2020 pool of applications, but we would love it to be!

As if to remind us of our temporary residence status, Fred went to renew her driving licence this last week, which was refused. Long story short, our Super Visa status gives us a stamp in the passport and a 'temporary resident' status, but not the all-important Visitor Record which curiously is what BC's driver licensing department requires as they do not recognize the SV. The VR we had before the Super Visas were approved has expired and is no longer required... but! We are now exploring all the options to get beyond the 3-mth temporary licence Fred has been issued with. The same will happen to mine in May. There is a real disconnect between Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and the BC licensing authority, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, ICBC.

Subject to getting licences sorted out, our plan this summer is to head up to the Yukon. It's probably going to be in the region of an 8k km round trip, away about 6 weeks. We will drive up on the eastern road taking in Jasper AB and the Icefields Parkway, onto Dawson Creek in northern BC and finally Dawson City in YT. We will come back down the coastal road where there are some notable stops and sights. The head navigator is route planning as we speak.

The Guys and Dolls production which Fred did the costumes for (and I helped with scenery building) was a great success. The thesps, musicians and crew did an amazing job and there was some real talent amongst the performers.

We spent a week up in Whistler in late February, arriving just after half a metre of fresh snow. Fred had a great week skiing with friends, while I moped around the apartment with a stinking head cold and did our tax return!

Sewing and woodworking projects continue with Fred is rushing to complete a number of gardeners' tool-belts for the Gibsons Garden Club annual plant sale in April and I've finally finished my long longed-for workbench in the workshop.

Last Wednesday we were car hunting in Vancouver to replace Fred's 2018 Nissan Leaf which now has 96k km on the clock. After numerous test drives, getting soaked on a sodden Vancouver day, with a wet Jack in tow, we got back to where we started and Fred is picking up a new Nissan Leaf on Tuesday, well nearly new, it has 1400 km on the clock.

Fred's negotiating skills were on top form and the sales rep gave her the deal she wanted. The previous owner, bought it and found they couldn't charge it at home, so sold it back to the dealership. An unlikely story I hear you cry. I thought it was odd... they went on to buy a Nissan Rogue.

Rehearsals are underway for a number of May choir concerts with the two choirs I sing in. I'm also part of a small group supporting a dance and music production the first weekend of May.

As well as concerts, all of May is filled with visitors ... friends, family and then my goddaughter. Ros, Fred's sister and yours truly are all May babies. In fact Fred's sister has the same birthday as me and Ros, the same as my goddaughter. I suspect June will be filled with rehab.

In sadder news, a long-time friend in the USA crossed his final chequered flag in March. If you are a Daily Telegraph reader you will have read his obit on 3rd April.

We met Bob and Carole in 2007 in Lanseria, Johannesburg in South Africa, at the start of our southern Africa flying trip. We’d been told we’d be flying the trip with a couple of Americans in another aircraft, and the business owners in a third. A flying adventure around SA, Botswana and Zambia in three Cessna 182's.

Owners Nick & Chris Hanks on the left,
Bob and Carole in the middle
Mashatu Camp in the Limpopo Valley, Botswana
We were recommended to wear uniforms
for this leg of the trip, to look "official"

Our trip around Africa was the beginning of a delightful friendship.

As we settled in to the bar, at the end of our first leg of the trip to the Limpopo Valley in Botswana, I enquired how Bob had acquired his 7,000 plus flying hours. I had assumed wrongly, they were military or commercial aviation hours.

After several days of coaxing, (Bob was clearly a private and modest individual) his dry response was that he ‘flew for work', 'represented the UK car industry in the US’. We were not overwhelmed.

It was only later that we learned what he really meant and he recounted all his racing achievements. After sharing much gin over the course of the trip, not before flying of course, we left to return to our home countries promising to keep in touch.

We later laughed when they confided in us that they thought they were going to be travelling around Africa with a couple of ‘stuffy Brits’. We had to admit we had assumed we would be doing the trip with a couple of ‘loud Americans’. How wrong we both were!

We met up regularly in the following years. In the UK, most often in Cornwall, where Bob was able to sample his favourite British beers. Some Americans do like warm, flat British beer! Later to Italy and indeed to their home in Florida. Sadly the trips declined after the lovely Carole passed.

The Duck at RAF Hendon

Most years there was often a side trip or two, such as to events at the RAF Museum in London, where Bob’s former P51 Mustang, The Duck, was hangared!

So named after Capt Donald R. Emmerson of the 4th Fighter Group who had called his Mustang The Duck. Well, he was a Donald. He was killed on Dec 25, 1944. I have a copy of the book 'Donald's Story' written by Donald Emerson's niece Sandra Merrill that was gifted to Bob and then on to me. It recounts his life and death and is written through the correspondence he had with his family back in the USA.

Bob was very proud that the museum had displayed The Duck in pride of place as you entered the first exhibition hall.

On different occasions, we chatted with Margaret Thatcher at the opening of the Boeing Chinook exhibition; we dined with former Battle of Britain pilots at the 75 Anniversary black-tie dinner in 2015 under the wings of a Lancaster Bomber and other aircraft. We got to watch Bob’s grandson play in their band event at the Museum as part of their UK tour and drank champagne at the top of the Shard in London.

Key West Florida flying trip (as you do!) with
Bob, Syd, KT, Carole, me, Fred

There were many special moments over the years we got together. Having sundowners in front of a lake full of hippos in Botswana, meeting Park F Smith at Hendon, the last American to join the RAF at the outbreak of WWII (biog. A Virginian in Best Blue), having a holiday villa flooded out when we were in Puglia, Italy; enjoying fresh lobsters from the next door neighbour in Cornwall; proudly being shown round his hangar, meeting his feline friends and coming across (at a distance) the skunks in his yard in Sebring, FL.

On our Thanksgiving visit to Florida in 2012, we had the pleasure of flying down to Key West for lunch with Bob and Carole in his King Air, along with Capt Syd Jones and his wife KT. Syd and KT were part of the team that raised the treasure from the sunken Spanish ship Nuestra Senora de Atocha and Santa Margarita - some $450m worth of gold, silver and other artifacts. It is thought a further $400m - $500m is still to be found.