A New Immigrant

Hello Dee,

First I hope you are well and in good spirits and I threaten to call you soon.

A number of months ago Frédérique my friend and neighbor in Saint Denis, he had built  house one field over, emailed and told me his ostéopathe Mme B. was planning to immigrate to Vancouver and would I please be of assistance to her. 

I exchanged emails with Mme B. over the months responding to her questions and giving her advice e.g. ensure he professional qualifications were recognized by our local medical authorities etc. I also advised her that living in Castelnaudary, the home of the French Foreign Legion 4e Regiment there is probably a steady demand for osteopaths but the profession is not well known hereabouts.

4th Foreign Regiment

L. arrived three weeks ago, located her Airbnb downtown and sent me a note saying all was well and she was off looking for employment.

A week later I emailed her saying I was arranging a monthly lunch with some friends from our local community centre, all of us elderly and she was welcome to join us. That later I would walk her around Kerrisdale letting her see life in my suburb as opposed to her AirBnB in downtown Vancouver. She replied she would be happy to join us.

We met as arranged at a bus stop on the corner of 41st Avenue and East Boulevard in Kerrisdale and having been told to look for an old man with a cane she found me and we walked to the Golden Ocean Restaurant where she was to try two new things for the first time, brunch and dim sum.

Her English was fair, she made the effort to address and converse with her new a acquaintances, counter clockwise, Khanh from Vietnam, Wei from South Africa, Helen and John from England, Grace from Hong Kong and Pauline from Malaysia. The ladies were much taken with her and she received immediate chop stick instruction. 

Having only communicated with her by email I was astonished to learn she is 25 years old, has already found employment 3 days a week in a clinic adjacent to the Vancouver General Hospital, is here to get work experience, become fluent in English and plans to go to medical school in Montreal.

While I went home for my postprandial nap L. got on the R4 Express bus to explore the University of British Columbia.

The world will be OK.

John

PS I am leaving next Saturday for a one week train tour of northern BC.

https://milezerotours.com/skeena-adventure

Storm Ciara

I was up at 06:00 on Sunday 09 February 2020, shut down and closed my house and a friend David McErlean dropped me at Carcassonne airport in the southwest of France  around 08:00.
Initially RyanAir couldn’t land at Carcassonne because of poor visibility but after about an hour they did, we boarded and they closed the doors.  Then the pilot told us because of the delay we had lost our landing slot at London’s Stansted airport in England and would have to wait for a new one. Forty minutes more and we left with the pilot warning us that because of the storm the ride would be bumpy as we neared England.

I took a nap for an hour, the flight lasts 1 hour 50 minutes, broke out my very large ham and strong cheese sandwich on some thick wedges of whole grain bread and realized the pilot had not exaggerated and what woke me was the plane intermittently gyrating all over the place.  And further proof was the pale faced people around me holding up a hand to indicate they needed a sick bag, RyanAir is as you know a low cost carrier and you have to request one. If you graduate to two bags they also provide a larger plastic bag to place them in. I noticed one poor man turning and turning the bag desperately trying to find the opening until a neighbor already equipped with a bag showed him how to tear off the top. I put my sandwich away.

Some time later the pilot announced if it appeared we were flying around in circles, that due the storm and high gusting winds we were in fact flying around in circles as planes were stacked up waiting their turn to land and we were number six in line. At this news a gentleman across the aisle, a two bagger groaned. But eventually and after a last minute roar of one engine to correct a sideways lurch the pilot got us on the runway and we all applauded. Not as significant as sacrificing a lamb but our hearts were sincere.

We left the plane and walked to the terminal in the heavy wind and rain, RyanAir is a low cost carrier, and then traversed many corridors and stairs to reach the immigration counters. This is now completely automated, on seeing a green arrow you enter a closed pen through a gate which closes behind you, hold your passport on the reader in one of the very long line of readers, look into the camera and if you match something somewhere in the computer cloud the gate opens and you enter the UK. At the random customs check I inquired of one of the officers “what happened to all the border officials who used to sit in the many glass enclosures where you slid them your passport through the little slot.” He told me they were all working somewhere else.

I started down the stairs to the train platform where you catch the Stansted Express to London Liverpool Street station only to be greeted by signs saying the train line was closed because of the storm. I inquired for how long and was told until they removed the fallen trees and repaired the power lines. 

I went back upstairs to the huge bus park, bought a ticket and waited with hundreds of other passengers until I finally got on the bus with stops including mine at Liverpool Street station. We had an interesting one hour plus ride to London with the driver fighting the gusting, buffeting high winds all the way. Did I mention since arriving at Stansted there was a constant driving rain and swathes of the UK countryside and many towns were now flooded.

After a ten minute walk with my backpack and pulling my suitcase in the rain I reached Liverpool Street station, purchased an Oyster travel card and took the Tube, Metropolitan Line to Wembley Park station where the rain had lessened somewhat. I asked one of the station staff to point me to the Holiday Inn which he did, saying it was a 10 minute walk and recommended I leave immediately before the storm returned. Two minutes into what was a 15 minutes plus walk the rain and wind returned and I arrived at the hotel drenched, checked in took a hot shower, made a cup of tea and finally ate my delicious sandwich.

And my best friend Mel ? who I travelled to London and this hotel to meet – his flight from Dublin was cancelled because of the storm, but with luck he will arrive tomorrow.

And so it goes,

PS One translation of Ciara, a Gaelic word, a dark haired girl with brown eyes. 

Peace

Hello from Vancouver.
 
For 60 plus years I heard that at one time or another they were searching for it from Afghanistan to Vietnam.
 
The good news is just before leaving I discovered they are now making it in Montolieu a village about a 10 minute drive from my home in Saint Denis.
 
Now to work on the distribution.
 
Fingers crossed

A Quiet Trip To Paris

I travelled up to Paris this week to do some sightseeing with my son Patrick and my grandsons Auden and Rhys who had arrived from Boston.
 
The Gilets Jaunes had their weekly demonstration on Saturday and the police shut down the centre of the city. This provided us a once in a lifetime opportunity to take photographs standing in the middle of Place De La Concorde at midday, normally  impossible because hundreds of vehicles are speeding by in 5 plus  lanes of traffic.

On Monday evening Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire and big crowds were there on Tuesday morning, but the police were on hand to help.  

Even in your dotage you will always have memories of Paris.  

John