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I couldn’t miss the opportunity. After a bright but bitterly cold day on Christmas Eve and an overcast start to Christmas day, it’s now snowing!

Merry Christmas to everyone from a genuinely white BC

You’ll find lights everywhere at this time of year and Vancouver is no different. On the run up to Christmas we took a trip to English Bay. The idea was to check out Unsilent Night, however when we arrived it seemed that Unsilent Night was rather too silent. So, we just had a wander around the area taking in the Inukshuk which is really well lit at night. You’ll be seeing a lot more of the Vancouver Inukshuk as it’s the official symbol of the 2010 winter Olympics.

On Christmas eve is was back downtown and in to Stanley Park. It was a very cold, sunny day, just right for capturing reflections. As the sun went down we headed for Bright Nights, an event that raises money for the BC Professional Firefighters burn fund. Over 1 million bulbs are used to light up an area of the park with festive displays and it’s quite a sight. Although aimed at the younger visitor some of the displays are pretty spectacular.

It was great to get out and stretch the legs before Christmas which does have the tendency to be a day of rest.

It was mid December when we all got a rude awakening. Around 5.30am the fire alarm went off in the block where we live. Thankfully it turned out to be a false alarm, but it made for an interesting, if not far too early start to the day.

It was comforting to know that the local fire department get to ‘shouts’, or whatever they’re called out here pretty quickly ,however, we hope not to see them here again.

Being a Brit I’m more used to the occasional flurry of snow sometime in April, or possibly June!

Well, despite being on the west coast and in the Lower Mainland area of BC which is generally a fairly temperate climate, the first snow fell over the weekend. Have I witnessed panic buying at the supermarkets – no. Have I witnessed public transport (transit) grinding to a halt – no. Even though there’s been pretty constant snow over the weekend life goes on. Actually, one thing I’d noticed was that TV ads for winter tyres had appeared recently and even though the Lower Mainland doesn’t do the -30 degrees, snow for 6 months thing like the east coast,

I guess folks here may actually expect winter. Having said that the media [cbc] [vcrsun] [jb] [metblog] and other bloggers have their own opinions. So, my verdict? Snow is no big deal, get out, enjoy the cold, enjoy the snow and have fun whilst it lasts. I’ve been told that the snow’s unlikely to make it in to the week.

I’ve more snaps on Picasa – take a look.

It appears that one or two of you are having issues with the video I’m posting. I think it’s because you don’t have QuickTime installed on your Windoze PC.

All is not lost though as I’ve found a plugin for WordPress (WordPress is what I used to build this site) that hopefully gets around the issue. One thing I love about using open source applications is that people develop this kind of additional functionality for the good of the user community.

So feel free to try playing the video again and do let me know if you have problems viewing.

I’m sorry Canada, I just don’t get it. I tried, I really, really tried, but I could not get Canadian ‘Football’.

Let’s get things straight, football is not played with an oval ball, it’s played with a round ball and it doesn’t matter how often you try to tell me that I’m talking ‘soccer’, it’s not – it’s football. Okay, that’s enough of a rant.

I feel that it’s important to try and integrate with the community that I’m part of and it was with a mixture of interest and trepidation that I set off to watch a CFL game. The BC Lions, one of the best teams in Canada were playing their last regular season game against the Calgary Stampeders. I guess this is the nearest one can get to a local derby, even though there’s some 660 miles between Vancouver and Calgary (it’s like calling Plymouth vs Aberdeen a local derby). This of course means that there’s very little in terms of away support. A handful of intrepid folks had flown for the evening, but it was still pretty one sided in terms of support.

The stadium, BC Place, is actually pretty impressive. It’s seats some 76,000 and is topped by a huge inflatable roof. No exposure to the elements here, all very cosy. The game attracted around 35,000 fans, which is a good number, however as the stadium’s so large it meant that vast areas were empty which kind of dulls the atmosphere. Which brings me on to the terrace chants. Coming from the UK I’m very used to the interaction between home and away fans at footie matches. It’s really gladiatorial sparring with words and it can make a game really come alive. A few seasons ago I can remember ‘always look on the bright side of life’ echoing around the Valley when Charlton went 6-1 down to Leeds in a Premiership game. So, what do the locals offer up? ‘Let’s go Lions’. That’s it I’m afraid. Well, that and a few roars of approval/disapproval for killer passes or poor refereeing decisions. This lack of interaction really dulled what was already a difficult experience for me. Why difficult? Any game where the first 30 minute half takes around 90 minutes really has to look at itself and ask ‘what is the entertainment here’ Okay, I know I’m missing out on the finer points, yes, there were a couple of really killer passes during the game, and there was a close finish, but at the 3 hour point I was quite simply bored to tears. I would probably rather watch cricket, and that’s saying something!

So, CFL, sorry, but my attention span lasts longer than the 5 second plays that follow each 5 minute break. I’d prefer to watch a game that flows, where there are limited stoppages and horror of horrors, there could even be a drawn result.