It is ten years to the day that I met my Susan. It was at Concorde 2 in Brighton, where I was DJ-ing at a Sparklehorse show; Susan's band, Flophouse Jr, had landed at Gatwick Airport just a few hours before, on the eve of their first UK tour. Just over two years later, we were married.
On August 17, 2001, my wife-to-be's hair was rather less unruly than seen here, and considerably longer, but that beautiful smile was exactly the same. Anyway, it's been a decade full of adventure and drama and the highs and lows that life brings us all, and our love grows stronger by the day. She is my rock and my angel and I love her more than there are adequate words to express. I am a very, very lucky man.
When I was a young lad I was really interested in birds. While the fascination never totally waned, other interests, like music and curry, shoved ornithology onto a distant backburner as I grew older. Since moving to Vancouver Island, however, my interest has been resurrected, simply because of the extraordinary winged life in this part of the world. For example, without any effort on my part I see Anna's Hummingbirds every single day and Bald Eagles most weeks. While these particular birds are dramatic and emblematic examples of birdlife here, when taking a really close look at what else there is, the range of species around these parts is absolutely dazzling.
It's odd, but during the last decade or so I've become friends with several mad-keen birders, perhaps more than one would expect (or, depending on your viewpoint, hope) to encounter in a lifetime. But I'm glad I have because, first and foremost, they are splendid people and, secondly, I've learned a ton about birds from them. Take Charlie Peverett, for example. There is much I could say about dear Charlie, including that he was best man at my wedding, but let's stick to his birding prowess so I can point you to his excellent blog. Then just a year or so ago, Susan and I became chums with Jon Carter and his lovely wife, Jenny, who had relocated here from Lancaster in Lancashire. Jon is a guy who takes birding to a level of intensity I'd not previously encountered, even in Charlie, but from him I've learned so much about what exactly populates our local skies. A link to his fascinating and often highly amusing blog, A British Birder in British Columbia, can be found in the column on the right. Also found there is a link to Northern Rustic, the wonderful and highly photographic blog from Mark Pearson.
I first learned of and met Mark through his music. When I was promoting gigs in Brighton, UK (firstly with Charlie, then Shaun - his cool Gilded Palace of Sin blog can also be accessed to the right), we'd receive CDs from bands and artists far and wide, the senders hoping for a slot at one of our nights. One such was from Mark's great band, Morning Bride. We were smitten with the band's trippy, mildly Gothic, Lee 'n' Nancy-esque folk-rock on the first listen and put them on at our first opportunity. Anyway, Mark and his gorgeous new wife, Amity - Morning Bride's powerhouse vocalist - paid a whirlwind visit to Nanaimo to see us a few weeks ago, as part of their round-the-world backpacking honeymoon. As his blog alone attests, Mark is also a bird-obsessive, and from him I learned something I'd never before heard of, a brilliant but simple technique that anyone, birder or not, can use to coax hidden birds into view.
Susan and I love to visit Pipers Lagoon, a gorgeous coastal Nanaimo beauty spot, so we are always happy to show it off to visitors. When there with Mark and Amity, the former started to make a sound, "Psshh, psshh, psshh, pssh," which he explained birds cannot resist. Birders use it, I'm told, when they can hear a bird, but not see it clearly or at all, in order to get it to show it's lovely little beaky face. And by Christ, does it work! We watched, fascinated, as a Spotted Towhee popped out to take a look at what was making the sound. Mark successfully did this several more times at Piper Lagoon, and many other times elsewhere during the weekend, and it worked most every time. It's called "Pishing," and is a sound proven to be irresistible to most birds (with variations on the theme), largely because it sounds so bird-like.
A couple of days later we took Mark and Amity to Buttertubs Marsh, a bird sanctuary close to our home. Mark took a full two hours to complete the 2km circuit, but more exciting than his noting over fifty species during that time is that I conducted my first successful pish! As Mark ducked into bushes and stared at trees, photographing like a madman with his bazooka-like zoom lens, I scuttled off ahead on my own quest. Upon hearing an avian commotion in a bush, I thought I'd try pishing for the first time. Funnily enough, I checked the track both ways to see if anyone was coming, feeling a little self-conscious that should I be discovered staring into a bush, making a noise like a snake with a lisp, I might be considered a mental case. No one was around, so I pished away like a good 'un. Lo and behold, after just twenty seconds or so, out came a Marsh Wren, like the beauty above, to see what was disturbing his day.
At first so nervy about pishing in public, I now do it whenever the opportunity arises, also passing on my newfound knowledge to anyone who'll listen. Mark, Jon, Charlie and the Birders of the World will be proud of me. Shackles cast aside, I pished my own Spotted Towhee at Pipers Lagoon at the weekend, pishing impressively enough that a curious jogger stopped to ask what I was doing. "Pishing!" I said enthusiastically, going on to explain why, and giving a demonstration. "Ooh, I must try that!" she replied, before running away.
Try it for yourself. You'll be surprised how great it feels to have a good old pish now and again.
Like 'The Things That Happen,' 'Well, Fancy That!' is a new, occasional series for Morrison's Nifty Drivelarium & Gubbins Repository. It will concentrate simply on things that amaze me, things that make me say, "Bloody hell!" It could be anything whatsoever that makes me do so, so expect the unexpected.
The first Well, Fancy That! is drawn straight from recent personal experience. As I may have mentioned I work part-time in a Nanaimo record store called Fascinating Rhythm. Lately I've taken on the garagantuan task of updating all of the LP divider cards for the entire store. They were in quite a mess; lots were broken; others were so faded that the artist or band's name was invisible; some has disappeared altogether. Anyway, when reaching the Easy Listening Male Vocal LPs - in itself a preposterous proposition - I was astounded to find that certain artists are more heavily stocked in our store than, surely, in any other record store on earth. Witness:
ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK - 17 titles
ROGER WHITTAKER - 36 titles... Thirty-six!
And, at least in my opinion, best of all:
ROLF HARRIS - 9 titles
So, if you've been scouring the globe aiming to track down that elusive vinyl copy of Rolf's classic 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport' album, you now know where to come.
Well, Fancy That!
Yesterday, Monday June 27, our friend Nik from Brighton concluded his visit to our neck of the woods with the need to visit the ER of Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. Not that I wish to devote this occasional 'The Things That Happen' series entirely to freak injuries, but in the wake of Cathy's flying gobstopper shard mishap that set it rolling, dear Nik managed to do himself a mischief in an equally bizarre manner.
The diagnosis was a severely torn tendon in the middle finger of his right hand. Oddly, he suffered no pain, but was unable to straighten it; the distal phalanx was pointing resolutely downwards at an angle of 45 degrees, and would not pop back. It was a bad enough case that he had to have a splint thingy applied that must stay in place for a full two months, or else he would need to start the healing process all over again. As a musician and guitarist with UK gigs booked for August, this didn't come as the best news.
However, worse still, one would imagine, is the embarrassment our poor chum will have to endure when answering enquiries from concerned souls wondering how he knackered himself. Try to imagine how you would feel when having to say:
"Scratching my leg."
I took this photograph in Vancouver on June 1. The champagne flutes appeared in the window of a Main Street thrift store that is known for the witty labels applied to their more desirable auction items. At the time, it was hilarious. Today, not so much, and I have to wonder whether the same window is still intact after last night's disgraceful scenes. As a Canucks fan I feel deeply ashamed of the mindless minority that tore up their beautiful city in the name of defeat. Life can be like that, you stupid bastards...and this is just a game. May they all rot in hell.
When headed home on the Island Highway after dinner with a friend in Duncan last night, we hit a deer. Since moving to Vancouver Island at the end of 2006 we'd dreaded this moment. This area has a heavy deer population - in Nanaimo they wander freely - and so incidents of this kind are very common. We know several people who have experienced collisions with deer, so despite what may seem the slim odds of it occurring we have to a degree been expecting it to at some point. Now that it has I guess it is fair to say we feel "blooded." We have become heavy-hearted members of a most unfortunate, but far from exclusive club.
The incident came as a great shock. Having enjoyed a lovely evening with a friend we had not seen in over two months, we were cruising quietly along, listening to disc 2 of The Beatles' 1967-1970 when we smashed into a deer on the driver's side of the car. It came from out of nowhere. Susan screamed and we wobbled a bit, but she kept her composure, managing to pull over onto the hard shoulder about 500 metres down the highway. Recalling it now there is no clear image of the collision; in the blink of an eye something large hit the car and then disappeared. I didn't even know it was definitely a deer, but had to assume so. Before coming to a halt Susan kept her eyes on the rear view mirror, later saying she saw no sign of a body or any traffic behind us swerving to avoid something. It is for these reasons that we have no idea of the fate of the animal. It is agonizing, especially as animal lovers, to contemplate the various possible scenarios, but is something we absolutely must put behind us and get out of our minds.
Once we had pulled over, just south of Ladysmith, I immediately called 911 to ask for advice. Susan was shaking, breathing deeply and on the verge of tears, but holding it together like the remarkably strong woman she usually is during stressful situations. (In our ten years together, we've had quite a few.) After giving them the details, the police advised that as long as our vehicle was drivable we could proceed home, but also that we should not "remove any blood" from the point of impact, as an insurance assessor would need to inspect the damage exactly as it looked post-collision. Ten minutes up the highway we pulled into a closed gas station and, fearing some horrific scene, I got out to inspect the damage.
When travelling by Greyhound bus around Australia in 1996 I experienced two collisions with kangaroos that are difficult to erase from my memory. Sat at the front of the bus each time (as you can book the same seats for every separate journey), I recoiled in horror when, just like the deer, the kangaroos appeared from nowhere, almost as if they had dropped from the heavens, and literally exploded all over the front of the bus. These incidents occurred in the middle of the night when most passengers, including my girlfriend, were fast asleep. I have problems sleeping on buses so would contemplate my navel, watch the night scenery slip by, or read until fatigue simply took over. Australian Greyhounds have 100 KPH cruise control and from the unruffled reactions of both drivers, who didn't miss a beat as they turned on the windshield wipers to get rid of the blood and gore, I can only assume such incidents are extremely common. The only comfort I can draw from this is that I know the kangaroos suffered no pain, that they were alive one second, dead the next.
Thankfully, it was not such a grisly scene this time, but there was certainly damage. There was no blood, but clumps of fur were trapped where the hood meets the chassis and, oddly, smeared along the left hand side of the car. The hood is dented; the left hand panel is detached and sagging; the headlight and front signal light casings are smashed in. It's a bit of a mess, but could have been so much worse. Nonetheless, as our car is a 1993 Honda Civic with 410,000 km on the clock, and these repairs in Susan's estimation could be around $3,000, we fear that the insurance company will consider it a write-off and award a nominal amount towards a new car. That's not a scenario we are financially prepared for.
We consider ourselves very fortunate. Many have been killed by spinning off the road, colliding with another vehicle or vehicles, or into the central reservation after hitting a deer. This fact was starkly borne out when reporting the accident to the ICBC (Insurance Corporation of British Columbia) helpline when arriving home, still pretty shaken up. "You are very lucky," the woman told Susan, "as in most instances the deer comes over the hood and straight through the windshield."
There is a twist to this tale which continues to spook me and may well for some time. Lost in no particular thought as the gorgeousness of While My Guitar Gently Weeps filled the car, I took note of a 'deer crossing' sign, just like you see at the top of this posting, then began thinking about the effect it had on our friend Jan when she hit a deer, her first and only, having lived here for thirty years. She was in shock for a couple of weeks, unable to dislodge the accident from her mind. Then I thought of when, just a few weeks ago, how we were travelling back from up-island along the lovely Oceanside route when Susan saw a deer hit in her rear view mirror, then had to pull over to gather herself. "That is my greatest fear on these roads," she said back then, something I have heard her say so many times. Mere moments after these thoughts came to me last night, we crashed into that deer or, more accurately, he came blindly hurtling towards us, frightened by our headlights and instinctively following its fight-or-flight reflex. Not that I really believe in such cosmic forces, but you will surely forgive me when I say when revisiting those memories it feels like I willed the collision into existence.
What an horrendous experience. I wouldn't wish this upon anyone. It would surely rattle all but the most cold-hearted or sadistic. But, oh well, we move on in this life, and at least we survived to tell the tale.
Last Saturday we spent a most pleasant evening watching the second game of the Stanley Cup Final over at our friends Peter and Cathy's house. Late on, Cathy told me of an accident she'd had a couple of days earlier that was so bonkers I can't stop thinking about it.
In short, her foot had been cut open by a shard of flying, shattered gobstopper. Fortunately it was not a serious cut, but it apparently stung a bit.
As this is the first time I have encountered an injury, to a foot or otherwise, caused by this particular type of candy, I was rather interested to hear about it. Let's face it, it's far from your average jelly-baby-stuck-up-the-nose story, eh?
Knowing me as she does, after she'd related this odd tale Cathy said: "Will you blog about this?"
"Probably," I replied.
