Expedition Canada

Ship Heads to Southampton Queen of Surrey out of the fog inbound to Langdale  Sat Feb 12th Canada's latest export heads to Europe and the US, but not on the ship that's heading back from Montreal to pick up our container in Southampton. The export, 'Freedom Convoys' anti-mandatory vaccination trucker blockades,  have arrived virtually in France, NZ and the US.  It has greater news coverage than Maple Syrup and Ice Hockey! It will add to the current global supply-chain challenges (at least locally) and it's difficult to see what has been achieved and what domestic agenda has inspired the movement.  Perhaps it has wider sponsorship.  In the current global disruption climate nothing would surprise me.   Love it or hate it The US has offered to help remove the US/Canada border blockades and the Canadian courts have issued injunctions to remove the truckers who have closed some border crossings.  It appears that disruptive disorder is the new...

Truth and Reconciliation Thu Sep 30th  Hopkins Landing Tuesday morning. Today marks the first National Day for  Truth and Reconciliation .  A day for the country to reflect on the lost children lost, or those who survived, the Canadian Residential School system.  It is a public holiday for Federal employees, but individual provinces and territories have not decided to make it a public holiday for all. There are ceremonies taking place throughout the day and orange shirts are much in evidence.  These reflect the significance of a child's newly purchased shirt  being confiscated on their first day  going into one of the residential schools.  Canada is clearly wrestling with how to address its colonial and early history and the injustices that were metered out to the First Nations peoples.  We both recently finished reading 21 Things you may not know about the Indian Act by Bob Joseph .  A hereditary First Nations clan chief, he sets out ...

It's Back! Thu Sep 9 Fri Sep 10 It may not seem a significant event in UK terms, but internationally it's monumental.  It has been on the shopping list for five months and has only just reappeared in our local supermarket.  Its absence is due apparently, to a shortage of brewers yeast, a staple ingredient in its production. UK lovers will already know this, haters probably couldn't give a damn.   It hasn't yet been covered in the Canadian press!  So a message to all UK friends - please drink more beer! Tomorrow's breakfast will be a pleasant reminder of breakfasts in Blighty.   Any more shortages and pleas will be going out for supplies to be shipped from the UK! Do you love it or hate it? An email popped pinged in my inbox Thursday morning with details of some workshop machinery up for sale in Sechelt. A few hours and a visit later, the deal was done.  In addition to a very decent lathe, I have now added a router table, table saw, band saw (need...

Loosening Ties Thu July 15th Simple Pleasures At the same time we are making decisions about our continued presence in Canada and what we do with our main house in the UK, we learn the NZ branch has been granted residency in the country they love.  After two and a half years, the stress and uncertainty over their continued presence, Covid travel restrictions and wedding plans; their residency came through today - well tomorrow their time, it's already Friday there!  A bubbling, babbling Ros was overjoyed.  We were for her, though it cemented the international nature of the Cronk gene pool.   In some ways it reinforced our wish to stay in BC and loosen our ties to the UK.  We have decided to go ahead and put Eastcourt House on the market.  Even if our plans fail, we're not sure we'd want to come back to the house the 'kids' were brought up in knowing they were so far away and have all the maintenance liabilities of a three hundred year old pro...