What's new from BC Brit
Jam Today
I like my live music and being close to Vancouver where a lot of bands and artists stop off has allowed me to gig on a regular basis rather than the once or twice a year it had become when living in Kent. A few months back I posted an entry following Editors gig at...Continue reading→
Life as a Foreign Exchange Dealer
Until the UK house sale completed we were forced to conserve our funds so chose to live under a tarpaulin and trap local squirrels to eat. Okay, that’s not strictly true, but we certainly had to live petty light. That’s now of course the dim and distant past, but having a reasonable sum of money...Continue reading→
Wheels
Despite International Driving Licenses being available, you can pretty much forget about buying one before coming out to BC. Why? Well, your UK license is only valid for 90 days, and as the International License is tied to your national document – you get the picture. So, towards the end of last November I as...Continue reading→
Capilano – a bridge too far?
What else is there to do on a freezing cold New Year’s Eve? Staying indoors would be boring so we decided to head off to North Van and Grouse Mountain. The plan was to go to the top of the mountain and just take in the views. What we didn’t bargain on was the lengthy...Continue reading→
Downtown before Christmas
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...Continue reading→
A rude awakening
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...Continue reading→
First snow of winter
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...Continue reading→
Experiencing ‘football’
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...Continue reading→
Proudly Canadian
On Remembrance Day I attended a Canadian Football League (CFL) match. My thoughts on ‘football’ are elsewhere, but this post is really about being proudly Canadian. When I first visited Vancouver back in June and attended a baseball game I mulled over the singing of the national anthem O Canada before the game started. The...Continue reading→
What's new from BC Brit
Editors at Richards
When I found out that Editors were playing Richards on Richards I decided that it had to be my first gig in Vancouver. Through John Bollwitt’s PodCast, RadioZoom I felt I knew Richards before even setting foot in the place. What I wasn’t prepared for was the somewhat different experience. First shock was ‘no minors’,...Continue reading→
Testing the healthcare service
We hadn’t intended to test the healthcare service until we were covered by BC Medical Services Plan (MSP), which has a 3 month from month of landing qualification period. Maybe we should have know better when the lads bought rollerblades within the first week of arrival. The short version is this. I ended up at...Continue reading→
Hotels and suitcases
Don’t live out of suitcases, particularly when there’s 7 cases to choose from. It’s as simple as that. The first few days after arrival were mentally and physically draining. After the best part of 16 years of stability in the same house, living out of suitcases across 2 hotels was a slog. Why 2 hotels?...Continue reading→
First thoughts
In her blog, Lesley neatly summarised the testing, first few hours of our departure from the UK, and it certainly was a test of how calm we could remain. Delays in Maidstone, delays on the M25 and a fire alarm at Gatwick were all thrown at us, but the feeling was that it would take...Continue reading→